A Tale of Turtle Rain

Thru-hikers are prolific vandals.

On the trail every artificial surface becomes a canvas to be signed, illustrated, memo’d, stickered, disfigured, or filled-in. The walls of the shelters, the pages of logbooks, the backsides of street-signs; no flat surface along or near the AT that can hold ink is safe. Every patch of blankness becomes a page to be written on. The trail is embroidered with graffiti and resplendent with rouge designs, like the edges of an illuminated manuscript. Since our travels repeat along the same path, every thru-hiker inherits the marginalia of the thru-hikers who came before them, encountering a scattered script of names and directions and songs scrawled in random places.

These vary from irreverent vulgarities to practical advice to things bordering on the profound. We pass lurid words writ large on the undersides of bridges. We find warnings written on candy-wrappers and taped to walls with band-aids. Once, at a shelter in Georgia, I find a dubious bit of graffiti claiming to be a quote by Lao Tzu, and the single line reverberates throughout my thoughts for the entirety of my journey, like the echo of some lost and sacred song sounding through the ages.

However, the most interesting things are the poems. I am constantly finding bits and pieces of verse throughout my hike. Doggerel scratched onto walls and in the pages of logbooks, limericks, prose-poems, free-verse. Most are quotations, or even fully-transcribed poems of famous writers, some are original compositions inspired by experiences on the trail or what came before it.

There is a marked preference for certain sources. Tolkien is a favorite, as is Nietzsche. Two separate privies in two different states have entire Dr. Seuss books transcribed onto their plywood walls in Sharpie. Whether they were put there by the same hiker, I do not know.

We follow in the footsteps of a gifted haiku-artist who leaves their work unsigned on shelter walls, their neat stacks of syllables strung across several states like chain of quiet images woven secretly into the trail.

Someone has copied down an entire poem by Edgar Allen Poe and stuck it to the wall of one shelter. At another shelter there is a John Donne poem snagged on a rusty nail.

At one of the hostels there are stacks of found poems made with refrigerator magnets.

All together these poems and pieces of verse make a ragged and unhoused library of oddball texts written onto the surface of the trail, free to those free enough to find it. Like so much else about the trail, its poetry is broken and beautiful and ephemeral.

Of all the poems I encounter during my hike, one of them is the strangest of all. I find it written in the pages of an old notebook left forgotten in the back corner of a lonely shelter I stop to sleep at, half buried beneath dead leaves blown in by the wind. The words are scrawled across the stained and weather-damp pages, written by an anonymous scribbler in faded and bleeding ink.

I sit alone in the shelter as the sun goes down, sleeping bag wrapped around my shoulders, reading by headlamp. I have transcribed what I found and will include it in my catalogue of trail-marginalia. See below.

A Tale of Turtle Rain

At a crooked place in a crooked path

the way did fork atwain.

The byway went a gentle route

through fields both flat and fair-

the other up a mountain climbed,

to jagged peaks with clouds entwined,

and airy heights of wind and rain.

The byway path was trodden clear

and by many feet maintained,

the harder path,

-ascending steep-

appeared a path deranged.

The last light of eventide lingered softly in the sky,

tinting the forest-gloom as with an amber dye.

The clouds above like granite hung, dark with eager storm,

thunder rumbled all around like a giant's battle horn.

In this crooked place a crooked shelter stood,

a shack with crooked corners made of crooked wood.

I stepped within the shelter just as rain began to fall

and only then did late espy the form against the wall.

A figure crouched in shadowed corner, enshrouded in a tarp

a man as old and twisted as a warped and ancient harp.

The old man struck unease in me, and I made not to delay,

but the old man cast his eye on me and my feet he did belay.

For a stranger eye I had never seen, how it glinted in the dark!

It turned my bones to stone, it begged me stay and hark.

'Come close!' the old man croaked, so soft I scarce could hear,

and though I was unsure of him I felt myself draw near.

'Thunder shakes, daylight breaks! Here you must remain!

With a tale I'll teach to you the secrets of the rain.'

'I must press on, old Gray-Boots,

for the trail is lean and long.

I dare not tarry here

to hear thy madman's song.'

His hand shot out and clamped down upon my arm-

his wandering eye transfixed me with a dark and wordless charm.

'Stay thy step young Light-Foot,

my tale you must hear!'

He plucked a shriveled cigarette

from behind a shriveled ear.

He flicked a bic with grimy thumb,

and lit it with a spark,

face aglow with smoldering hues

amid the grimy dark.

He puffed away and grimy haze

hung heavy all around,

the tit-tat-tat of rain-on-roof

a loud and lonely sound.

Far and away in a bygone day,

with my beard not yet as long,

when I held all things in playful sway

and met each day with song,

with errant mind I led a life that shunned

All tasks harassing,

and wither I went I went only

by routes of easy passing.

Behind me was a maze of ways

devoid of all demand,

before me was a waste of space

that seemed a sea of sand.

My unchallenged steps had brought me

to a land of dust and dune,

a dessert space as lonesome

as a darkly distant moon.

Before I knew my peril I was lost

and without way,

and deeper into nothingness

my erring steps did stray.

For days untold I reeled across

that scorching slab of sand,

stumbling on so weary long

I scarce could see or stand.

What wealth of waste did I behold

-horrifying and grand!-

My own soul was swallowed whole

by that bare and blasted land.

A changeling land of shifting sand,

of blankness rearranged,

a nothingness of dust and dunes,

and bearings all estranged.

At night no stars burned above

to guide my wandering way.

No sign, nor herm, nor river turn

broke the blankness of each day.

Stranded in the sand without

direction or decree,

like a stricken ship becalmed

upon a silent sea.

The dessert was enormous,

aimless,

ancient as the sky,

a vastness so abounding it did exhaust the eye.

My love of the strange had led me down

many a lost and nameless road,

And my mind-house store of forgotten lore

made a wide and layered load.

Upon the beaches of my mind

washed up a memory-grain,

of a turtle drawn in the dust

that calls down the Turtle Rain.

On my knees I reached forth a broken

blistered hand,

and etched the likeness of a turtle

there upon the sand.

Then thrice around it on the ground

I danced with heedless speed,

and thrice around I sang aloud

my dry and thirsty need.

No sooner was I done than

the sky grew dark and dim,

and thunder thrashed the air

with a monumental din,

like a thousand raving lions

roaring in a pen.

Sheets of water came rushing down

with a rage that would not wane,

and the naked fields were fell upon

by rippled folds of rain.

Between my hands the sun-seared sand

grew freckles of falling rain,

and my face turned upward to the sky

held with wonder like a chain.

Droplets rolled across my cheeks

as though I wore a mask of tears,

and washed the dust from my brow

like a hand that coldly clears.

A curtain shivered across the sands

like a shapeless, sighing cloak.

And the dessert's boundless vacuum darkened

like a jar filled up with smoke.

Up or down falling water

was all that could be seen,

a sea of drops was all that filled

the spaces in between,

until the very air itself

could sail a submarine.

Water sluiced from high above

to spatter all below,

and cover all the ground

with a savage and disjointed flow.

Puddles formed and grew to pools

and ruptured into rills

until a hundred little lakes were born,

And a hundred lakes were spilled.

A hundred streams like twisting knives

cut across the sand

carving out the dessert's face

and drowning all the land,

until with horror I realized

there was nowhere left to stand.

The dunes had melted in the rains

called down to end my drouth,

and all around me the sea of sand

had become a sea in truth.

The land seemed a cup

-a vessel filled to the brim-

and I a speck of helpless life

that could only drown or swim.

The sea rose without ceasing

and upward I was hurled,

born aloft upon the flood

that had swallowed all the world.

I rode the swelling of the sea

and felt the fury of the rain.

Nothing solid could I see,

no stable place was there to gain.

It was a shifting, shapeless water-world

unfixed to time or place

where crashing chaos splashing swirled

beyond the borders of bounded space.

A rage of matter all unmade

of element unfixed to form.

Nature's fiber before the braid,

the marrow of all storms.

With a howl of song the wind did rave

in a tongue no mortal speaks.

The white-capped crowns of far-off waves

seemed like distant, dancing peaks.

All alone, all alone,

- but alone could I truly be?-

For what hungry things swam below

this wind-scarred skin of sea?

What hungry things swam below

and lurked unseen by me?

Then I saw in the far-away

a blink of land above the waves

a curving rise of rock or clay,

a tiny island, bleak and brave.

With desperate, dying strength

I swam and swam and swam.

The waves attained a terrible length

and crashed like battering rams.

Like an arrow shot into the sky

at a mark too far away,

I strained toward the place that nigh

seemed near enough to gain.

I did not know the distance gone

or the distance left to go,

but the soul beats ever on and on

toward what it cannot know.

Then I reached the speck of land

that no wave could overtake,

water-logged, too weak to stand

with ceaseless, gasping shakes

I dragged myself onto the shore

-sandless and made of stone-

like a cast-away from his rigging torn

and weary to the bone.

It bore a crust of barnacles

and wore seaweed like a wreath,

adorned with slimy articles

-a thing disgorged from beneath.

Then the ground began to quake

like a wire plucked with force,

and the little island began to shake

as though seized with unseen force.

From the water near at hand

there rose a shape into the air.

It seemed a visage, ghastly, grand,

a reclusive wonder rare.

Upon a neck stretched like a tree

It turned slowly full around,

until it stopped and peered at me

and with its eyes held me bound.

I realized then where I had come,

understanding rang like a bell;

a tremendous turtle gazed at me,

and I lay upon its shell.

It was a face of crease and crack,

And colored by a thousand stains,

like the broken leather of ancient tack

or a cliffside sculpted by the rain.

Fixed by the amber orbs of its eyes

I lay ensnared by its stare.

Held helpless, dumb, and mesmerized

by the hundred secrets hidden there,

in fathomless pools of ponderous size-

Oh its golden gaze I scarce could bear!

'How old, how old!' I could only think,

'How old this thing must be!'

Older than the oldest ships

to sail the oldest seas.

Older than day or night,

older than sun or moon,

older than wrong or right,

older than death and doom.

Older than the oldest things

that scuttled on the first morn.

For these golden eyes were olden

when the world itself was born.

Then the turtle spoke to me

but in no voice that I could hear-

the words found my mind's entry

through a door not in the ear.

There they hung formless and free

their meaning bright and clear.

It was a voice like crashing surf,

like wind-flapped and battered sails,

a voice of floods and fire and earth,

of falling trees within the gale.

'Listen now young cast-away

for you are lost upon my sea,

the sea you made when you did pray

from the dessert to be free.

And the wisdom of the rain

I now shall teach to thee.'

And from the turtle there came to me

a tide of terror, tears and hope,

lost knowledge of a secret sea

that surpassed all sense or scope.

A sea that fell down from above

when called with ecstasy of strain.

A mingled sea of strife and love

made by the Turtle Rain.

'With this sea you shall be saved,'

the turtle said to me,

'storm-born and tempest-bathed,

and from yourself set free.'

Then I knew what the turtle was

as much as man could know,

and saw -as a prophet does-

what wonders it did show.

It was a god of ancient forces,

of gardens lost and mystic fountains.

It was the caretaker of crooked courses,

the god of madness and of mountains.

A god that has always been,

and a god that will always be,

a nameless god unknown to men

that guards a secret sea.

Now the turtle's head drew near

as with a final message left to tell.

It's golden eyes shone bright and clear

as I lay helpless on its shell.

'To find the deepest peace of mind you must spend a time insane.

A life bereft of injury is a life bereft of gain.

Seek hunger, exile, sorrow, penury and pain.

Hear the wisdom of dark hours,

heed the read of the Turtle Rain:

you must face the blankness that devours

to find the dessert's hidden flowers.'

And then I fell into myself

and was lost to all the world,

like a book dropped off a shelf

as the storm around me swirled.

* * *

Sometime afterwards,

though I know not quite how long,

I awoke to the sound of birds

teasing the air with song.

I opened up my eyes and

rose up upon my feet,

my soul swelling with surprise

-and wild wonder complete!

I was back within the dessert

where the sea was now no more,

but this newly-found dessert

Was unlike it was before.

The dunes had undergone

some dazzling midnight change,

and the shadeless land of ceaseless sand

had grown a garden strange.

Where before there had been only dust

now grew a forest from the ground,

tremendous trees that upward thrust,

bizarre and boundless, all around.

Tremendous trees with tie-dyed leaves,

Swaying in a constant breeze,

like dancing giants rainbow-gowned.

Plants of every shape and size

filled the spaces in between,

a collage of forms that filled the eyes

with colors neither named or seen.

The dips between the dunes

were now hollows filled with life,

where branches twisted like ancient runes

writ on the pages of the night.

From these shadows came the call of loons

and the broken shapes of birds in flight.

Above it all was a sky so tall

it soared without edge or end.

Like manic lights too mad to fall

were constellations I could not kin.

An explosion of stars

-a frozen and unfallen rain-

like fireflies in night-filled jars

like fat chips of splintered flame,

Oh how they shone!

Oh how they sang!

I began to walk these woods about

moving slow and seeing much,

following a twisting route

amazed at all my eyes did touch.

It was a maze of many layers

with many wondrous sights to see,

the stuff of dreams and fevered prayers

and things I never thought could be.

Uncounted paths led uncounted ways

As they twisted up among the trees,

mumbling rills murmured amid the shade

as they unraveled toward some distant sea.

And glowing ponds with shaggy fronds

Held many marbled fishes

Not seen or found the world around,

Like wells of dancing wishes.

Silver light flashing bright,

Swimming schools like birds in flight

-a sky mirrored in an ocean-

Flashing scales like Starling trails,

Chasing shapes and grand commotions.

Ten-faced beasts with blazing eyes

revolved on rounded paws.

With shuffling steps they harmonize

and shake their ten-fold jaws,

and dancing so they gaily go

with loud and loping calls.

And burning flowers lit the bowers

of this magical midnight land,

and stained the long and lovely hours

as with an unseen brush and hand.

It was a chimera country

-lost somewhere in the night-

where secret flowers pulsed

with a low and laughing light.

But strangest of all I heard or saw

in this oasis broad and strange

was a single tree not wide or tall

nor uncommonly arranged.

It stood at the center of everything

in the tangled heart of a secret grove,

where fire-winged birds in starlight sang

-the midnight garden's hidden trove.

From the branches in bunches thick

hung alien fruit of exotic form,

in clusters ripe though softly picked,

limbs laden low and curved like horns.

With shaking hand I picked this fruit

and brought it to my lips,

as birds made sounds of tinkling lutes

and the starlight danced and dipped.

The taste it held escapes all words

A taste that had no name.

A thing unspoke that can’t be heard

Or bound in any frame.

A thousand storms were in that taste

and a thousand mountain winds

and a thousand meals made in haste

and a thousand river bends.

Journeys long through wild lands

filled with loneliness and pain,

of worlds sought with outstretched hands

and all the secrets of the rain.

* * *

Sometime again -though quite how long

again I do not know-

I awoke once more to a dessert strong

where not a thing did grow.

I gazed around and all I saw

was the bare and blasted land,

flat and hot and dead and raw

with rippling rows of sand.

Above was blank as below

holding no sign or star aglow.

All around I cast my eyes

And saw only empty dessert skies.

With newfound strength I rose

and tried my tender feet,

and went my way as one that knows

not what fate he will meet.

But with serenity I did go

and eagerness that fate to greet.

The cigarette had long burned out

and the rain had finally ceased.

Water trickled from a crooked spout

and daylight tinged the East.

'I was not the same' the old man spoke

from the shadows dark as soot,

-the voice a dry and sandy croak-

'I was not the same

after eating that midnight fruit.

Now from challenge my soul could not avert

as it could only do when my journey did begin.

And the man who walked out of that dessert

was the not the man who walked in.

Now I wander all the world

and dwell at crossroads near and far,

wherever two paths unfurl

and soul with soul does spar.

I tell my tale to those I meet

who must choose the way ahead.

A story that to traveler entreats

things which by man cannot be said:

Freedom isn't found along the easy road,

but atop the highest mountain,

beneath the greatest load.'

The old man then fell mute

and sank back into his clothes,

and crossed his old gray boots,

-a scene composed of shadows-

all but his glinting eye

which twinkled like a foreign star

in a strange and foreign sky.

I shouldered my ragged pack

and stepped into the morning light,

and gazed upon the divided track

with newly-minted sight.

The mountains waited one way

and the byway lay aside.

The daunting peaks were grim and gray,

the byway flat and wide.

Should I follow the path that forebodes

of dangers and perils prearranged?

Or set upon the easy road,

and leave it unchallenged - and unchanged?

I drew a turtle in my mind

and took the path deranged.