When I look at these mists that separate trees near from trees far, I realize how much in my life are separated the things up close from the things afar. Though my heart holds steady to the things far away and my mind, like a ship guided by an unknown captain, follows closely after—the tread tread tread of my feet bring me forever back to nearness. The eyes see far, as also they see near, but feet must be always nearby, stomping at the here and now.
So we come back to the old reality, that life is now; it is what happens right about our faces. What we see far off—that we can never have. For even when the hereness of our feet manage along to the far away land we once saw—it is a changed land, once again the old familiar here and now.
And when I look behind me, at the nearness of this green hill as it suddenly rises from where I stand, how I am struck by its closeness, like a clairvoyance. It almost leaps at me. Reality wanders afoot, across the short, living space.
And the stars—there are no stars tonight, as dusk disappears—but last night, stars, vivid and near at hand. For on a dark night, when one is removed from the rampage of the city, distance disappears. The sky peels back, like an orange. The stars shoot down upon us, close, close, we can almost touch them, they are so near.
So the farthest away things, stars, become here and now in our faces.
Written in the Ozarks, 1981