Your farts are hilarious, and not that stinky.

I’ve always preferred to dance along the edges. I look down rocks to water, or more rocks. Sometimes there are crashing waves below me. Once manta rays, dark and massive, like underwater storm clouds. That precipice was many more feet higher than the sandstone ledge from which I jumped into an oasis pool some deserts ago. The rocky cliffs are especially green up north, the water especially indigo. I like the edges. I like to see the bottom and greet my fear. I jumped into the St Lawrence River once, plunging deep into the froth with my shoes on.

I also play in broader lands, of course. I twirl and dance with abandon in wide swaths of green, or dusts of colorful browns. I lean in loaf in the havens of animals. Some in open spaces are less watchful than one might expect. I can get that way, feeling comfortable. That’s when I go find an edge to toe right up against.

I once startled a skunk who didn’t spray me.

I’ve shared space with buffalo at breakfast.

I snuck up on a deer who didn’t run.

I talked to turkeys who were afraid to cross the path in front of me.

I’ve greeted elk who sang good morning.

I got nibbled by a caterpillar.

I watched a gopher build their nest from two feet away. For hours.

I head to the cliffs when I need a strong reminder. I usually pull back before I do anything dumb. Everywhere else feels so safe, almost boring in its calm.

Until it isn’t.

Caught unawares, I will run. I barrel straight for the cliffs, full gallop. I won’t stop til I get there, suddenly skidding over rocks as I spin my arms wildly.

If I can keep from falling, I’ll look back toward that place that used to seem so safe. I’ll look and wonder at the taking for granted I’ve done. I’ll admire the precision with which a fearsome blow has just been dealt, all of my guards down.

On the cliff I know how to protect myself, and so the game is fun. It’s the earthquakes, the sinkholes, the shift of solid land, that surprises me. The fault lines I never wanted to toe up against. I am interested in broad foundations. I want to stay on solid ground.

Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems.

Rainer Maria Rilke

In the blue dawn the twittery chatter and lilting tunes come in by the window on a breeze lighter these days, laced with tender warmth. It is this air that coaxes the brave shoots of green from their sodden beds, beckons the birds from their sleepy hideouts. The light comes early now. All of it, all together bidding welcome.

Did you enjoy your hibernation? Are you awake these daylight-saving days? But breathe, and forget if it matters. Now the wild world is calling you; now you can get up.

When I think of all of the people I’ve gotten to know, I’m surprised by what is lately requisite for a new person to truly catch my attention. It’s almost an equation, provided the real-life effort to learn about humanity one experience at a time yields corresponding results in covering a measurable depiction of human interaction: as the sum of people known increases, then the accessibility of new information decreases accordingly. This would also be affected by ground covered, allowing for the truths of pluralism in a world of six billion humans. Perhaps narrowing down to a more regional scope would be helpful if seeking to answer a specific query, though too the subject’s farther-reaching experience in that case should be included and considered to a reliable degree given the circumstances of the query. Inevitably there arises the entirely pertinent philosophical question of what constitutes knowledge among human beings, or what it means to be known. There is no certainty regarding whether anyone can know anything about another. Indeed, many of us find it difficult to trust even our knowledge of our own selves. Of this final part of the equation we can be sure that there is absolutely no aspect that can be given a reliable answer, even hypothetically. In conclusion, although I cannot quantify nor even clearly explain the phenomenon, but having spent now decades studying so many and such far reaching varieties of humans, meeting someone altogether new makes me giddy as fuck.