Ambient Pastoral

by Chris Stewart

June was not named for a god or process of nature

It is a corruption of “Jy’eh-n” which is a word that does not

Translate cheerily to English

But if it did would mean something like “ambient/pastoral”

A kind of feeling one gets, remembering things

But unable to reoccupy them

*

I’ve a few things I’ll always read about

“Jy’eh-n” stories are one of these

I love the ambient pastorals of the mid-20th century:

When very smart people put heart, spirit, and violence into

Incredible friction

(The novel came of age and the world nearly died)

And they did it for me

For my craving of the organic and the uncanny

*

June sticks the opening like no other month can

I wonder if it is the most anticipated month

I wonder if more good things happen in it than others, really

And when you picture a year as a line or a shape where does June fall for you?

Top of a descending list? Equatorial bulge of a beach-ball year?

Bright plunging gravity well along a temporal ribbon that pulls other dates into itself?

June really opens strong, doesn’t it.

Plants its stake and starts a slow engine and waits for the tables to be pulled from storage and unfolded and laid over with plastic ambient scenery

*

I can lie down in Jy’eh-n and close my eyes and lips tightly

Lying outside — I can in June on the grass — and making my face small and closed

to keep insects away

Long known to be the one observable drawback of the month;

Insects are always emerging from standing water,

And thinking they enjoy the food we’ve brought

I close my eyes and, well…ears do not have a binary position or function

But maybe I lie on my side and one ear is just against the grass

*

The rule is that a miserable, stifling, fear-filled dream:

You’ll re-enter once you fall back asleep

And maybe it gets even worse and

The Thing you were scared of even find you or happens,

However (a corrolarly) the rule is also that should you wake from a very fine or enjoyable

dream; no amount of desiring to re-engage with it can send you back into the same story, at the same point; it’s never been done, you’re never going back, and life cannot alchemize you that particular fun ever again

*

Ambient pastoral, a clip of miniature feet clopping along my nose and cheekbones

I’m asleep in the woods again, and a hum collects and harmonizes all around

There is enough space for work but I am face down in the soil, with a dried leaf that rustles near my nose

Each time I breathe

And a line of ants scaling me from earlobe to forehead:

Ambient pastoral

A single ringing note hails electronic change

Sparks the contest between my skin and the growing, crawling things around me

Electrifies me, real defensive-like

Glorifies the new need for spreading and naming

Convinces me to dislike mosquitoes