This is Not Our Fate

Forty-two years ago today, I was sitting in a cafe in my hometown when a carload of friends showed up. I'd never been much of a party-er, but some of them were. Truth be told, I had stayed home most nights and watched Bobby Darin and Dean Martin's variety shows on television. In my wilder moments I fancied myself a flower child. When that car showed up I was somewhere in between.

My friend, Stan, jumped out followed by Ronnie and a few others, then Stan admitted to being "stoned." I had an inkling what that meant but had never experienced it, yet. I was a little taken aback, as hearing that Stan was stoned had never entered my mind. Yet, there it was, and he seemed so happy! How could I not be happy for him?  He said there was going to be a party at Ronnie's. Did we want to go? We (we being a story for another time) decided 'why not?'

We arrived shortly after the party had started. As we walked through the front door, Ronnie, party host, informed us that Jimi Hendrix had died. Although I wasn't a huge Hendrix fan, I knew it was more bad news for the music scene. On the wall behind Ronnie was a poster of Hendrix, colorful and still full of life. It was an odd juxtaposition. I can still see myself standing there, not sure how to take it all in.

Leap ahead many years, we're talking twenty-five years, and I'm living out at my farmhouse in Ansel. My youngest son, Coleman, is eleven years old. He's just started to pick up the guitar my older son, Trevor, had left for him to mess around on. I'm standing in the kitchen, as I seem to be doing a lot of in my life, and he walks in, guitar in hand, and asks me to listen to something. Then he plays, note for elongated note, Jimi's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Woodstock style. I was elated! And then I was concerned. My son, precocious thing that he was, had just escaped my clutches and there was no turning back. He now has a band of his own, has had since he was thirteen.

During the time I lived in Ansel, I had Jimi's "All Along the Watchtower" as my answering machine message, and I do mean answering machine. Remember when we had machines with a cord to the phone and a tiny little cassette tape for taping and receiving messages?  I still have mine. Don't ask why. Anyway, during that time, I had my first and only colonoscopy. One day, while I was at work, the doctor who did the colonoscopy (I thought he was kind of cute, which didn't match well with the whole colonoscopy thing) called and left a message on it. First, he told me he was a Hendrix fan and that he liked my answering machine song and then he followed it with nothing but good news.

And there you have it. Perhaps the only Jimi Hendrix and colonoscopy story you'll ever read. Aren't you glad I got that over with? 

Here's Jimi ...

https://youtu.be/qmGFFJtkDXA

I'd like to dedicate this post to Stan. He left this world several years ago now, complications from diabetes. I've mentioned him in a previous post. He was a gorgeous thing. His mother was Native American, his father, Cuban. Before he left, we became even better friends, graduating from the same college on the same day in the spring of '75. No, we never had a "relationship," but we did love each other in that best of all possible worlds. What would he think of my mentioning him along with Jimi and colonoscopies? I think he's smiling right now. I know he is. And he's very happy for me on This September day.

Our Singular and Common Story

We're coming up on a couple of cold days and even colder nights, so today was squash gathering as well as apple picking time. I took my trusty wheelbarrow, Henry, out to the garden to help me haul them back to the basement for storage. While I was there, I stood still for a few minutes just to watch and listen. A couple of cows had given birth to late calves and they were out by the fence line, two mamas and two babies. The calves were lying in the grass, ears twitching and surely as happy to be alive in this beautiful world as I. After greeting them from a respectful distance, I went to picking. There's something both gratifying and bittersweet about those last few days in the garden.

On the way back to the house, I stopped to get what was left of the apples, leaving a few smaller ones for the deer that still visit my little orchard almost every day, waiting, I suppose, for nature's largess. I couldn't resist helping out a bit, the last of them being too high to reach. I'm so grateful for their company. Many evenings, from the porch, Buddy greets them enthusiastically as they make their way across the edge of  our land and into the meadow behind the house where their favorite resting place waits under the Norway pines.

After I got the squash and apples stored, I picked a few nasturtiums to go with the vegetables in the wrap I was fixing for lunch. I used to feel bad about eating them, they're so pretty, but I have two planters full and each time I pick them others quickly arrive to take their place. Now, I've stopped feeling bad and just eat them, filling myself with gratitude and pretty flowers. Life sure feels good as we head into autumn.

"I Want to Write Something So Simply"

I want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and as you read
you keep feeling it
and though it be my story
it will be common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think--
no, you will realize--
that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself,
out of your own heart
had been saying.

~ Mary Oliver, from Evidence

I'll Bet He's Eating Cheesecake Right Now

When I was 13, my sister Jane and I (I don't want to include those pesky commas and you can't make me) went over to Wisconsin with our parents for my father's family reunion. We didn't go anywhere very often, let alone over to another state, but it was the last time his family would be on the original homestead and so it was reunion time. The oldest brother in the family, who had lived there for years, was selling it and moving to town. His wife, we discovered, wasn't handling it very well, and so, when we arrived in the evening she was nowhere to be found. Jane and I went exploring along the river while the grown-ups stood and talked in the yard. At some point in our discoveries, we discovered her hiding behind a shed. In those days, unbeknownst to us, she'd been finding solace in the bottle, until solace turned into something else which showed up that evening along the Yellow River.

She came out of hiding and we stood by in silence as she wept and threw her arms around our father in utter and complete dejection. That and drunkenness. I do not say this out of anything but affection for this dear woman who always wore jewelry and bright red lipstick, and looked like an aging star. To my sister Jane and me, that's what she was and what she will always be. But in that moment we saw something we didn't understand. Not at the time. Turns out, leaving a home you've known pretty much your whole life isn't an easy thing to do.

I've told you before about that night in the cabin on the river, one of the coldest I've known. It was the same cabin in which my grandfather lived, until one day he took his shotgun out and ended his life, back in 1957. It had been a tough life. He'd turned to the bottle after he lost his leg in a logging accident. Then, he lost his wife to cancer, understandable given those circumstances, which took him even further into those dark Wisconsin woods. He would sometimes - my mother told me, not my father - take off his wooden leg and beat my father with it. Not long after that, my father left home and was on his own. He was 12 years old. But, those are stories for another day.

I'd like to add here, that my grandfather would like to be remembered not for those times, but for who he really was and is. He died when I was only 3 and so I never knew him then, but I've seen the photographs. In those early days, he had such kind and beautiful eyes. Inside those eyes is where his true self lived, and still does.

But, that's not why I started to write this. This is supposed to be about the first time I ever ate cheesecake. So, I'll try again....

The following day was the day of the reunion and the yard was full of aunts, uncles and cousins. Sometime in the afternoon, my cousin, Donnie, who looked like Howdy Doody and was almost as nuttily pleasant, tried to convince me to eat a piece of cheesecake. I had never heard of such a thing and had no intention of doing so, but he was so darn convincing and I prided myself in a willingness to try just about anything, so I finally caved in and ate a piece. Nothing fancy-schmancy. Just cheesecake. No fruit. Baked in an oblong metal cake pan.  But, what a revelation! Cheese cake? How could this wonderful thing be? After that first piece, I wanted another, and then another, but I managed to show some restraint and walk away, still filled with longing for just one more bite.

Alas and alack, I made up for it later and now it's not allowed in the house except on special occasions. Is the autumnal equinox a special occasion?  I was just wondering....

I suppose I should bring this back to my grandfather now, so I'll just say, I'm betting my grandfather has learned to love cheesecake, much more than the bottle. As a matter of fact, I know he has.





Mmmm. Cheesecake, Sting, and "Be Still My Beating Heart." It just looks unrelated.

The image is borrowed from Mr. Google.

Waking Up to the World

After reading about the angry protests happening throughout the Middle East and in Africa this morning, the words "World on Fire" popped into my head. Not knowing for certain why, I googled it and this is what I found:

If you'd like to spend a little more time in the world, the real world (which I hope you do), I invite you to see it through the eyes of Steve McCurry. He travels the world and then opens our eyes to it through his beautiful and soul-filled photographs. stevemccurry.wordpress.com


 

Pressing Matters

When I was very young, no more than six or seven, after watching my mother iron my father's clothes, even the handkerchiefs, I asked her if I could iron, too. I think it was the rhythmic yet precise movements I wanted to experience. And so, with what surely must have been a mixture of feelings - trepidation melding with the desire to encourage my interest in the necessary, but mundane - she left a small pile of handkerchiefs for me to iron. I could barely see above the ironing board, set up on the back porch, next to the chest freezer, where several summers in the future, a boy I liked would tell me he liked me, using the lyrics of a song. But, that long ago summer, I accidentally jostled the board and in a split second the tip of the iron fell on my wrist. As my mother applied a salve - another mixture, this one tinged with regret - I reassured her it was alright. Over fifty years later, I stand here in my kitchen, turn my wrist, and see it there: a faded triangle of silver nestled between two muted blue lines that form a 'y,' like a fork in the road. I look up and a triangle of silver light has sliced through the branches of a very tall Norway pine and settled on the rough bark. It's still morning on that back porch and here in my kitchen.





Painting by Grant Wood

Accountability

"A Million Young Workmen, 1915"

A million young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the
    grass and roads,
And the million are now under soil and their rottening flesh will
    in the years feed roots of blood-red roses.
Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another and
     never saw their red hands.
And oh, it would have been a great job of killing and a new and
    beautiful thing under the sun if the million knew why they
    hacked and tore each other to death.
The kings are grinning, the kaiser and the czar -- they are alive
    riding in leather-seated motor cars, and they have their
    women and roses for ease, and they eat fresh poached eggs
    for breakfast, new butter on toast, sitting in tall water-tight
    houses reading the news of war.
I dreamed a million ghosts of the young workmen rose in their
    shirts all soaked in crimson ... and yelled:
God damn the grinning kings, God damn the kaiser and the czar.

~ Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."  ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Buddy, Mighty Woodland Warrior

There's a breeze in the meadow, towels are drying on the line, and apples are falling from the trees. Not many days are finer than this one. Every once in a while the wind chimes sing out, but not enough to drive me batty. I like my wind chimes to be soft and occasional. I swore off chimes while living in Santa Fe as they were neither. No matter where I placed them the wind would run around that little adobe house and find them. But, here they seem to know there's only so much noise I can handle and they never cross that line. Perhaps they understand that now it's all about the birdsong.

My fall work list has been growing and is sitting there, staring at me, but today I'm ignoring it. Plenty of time to prune the rose bushes and hydrangea tree, move perennials to other beds, saw the lower, dead limbs off a few trees, and then take a look at the rest of my list. I almost wrote, 'the rest of my life.'  Sometimes, that's how it feels. But, I don't make plans. Life will make them for me and they'll be far better than anything I could have imagined. It's always been that way. No reason to believe it will change now.

Buddy and I just came back from a walk in the meadow where he managed to find a fairly fresh pile of bear poop. He's rolled in it about three times this year. As I run toward him yelling, "No, Buddy!" he rolls and rolls in happiness. Today, the damage was minimal and so I took a soft swatch of pine needles that was lying next to him and cleaned up the worst of it, finishing with a handful or two of long, still-green grass. He seemed so proud of himself, like a warrior who's one with the bears, their smell still lingering on the almost lion-like mane around his neck. I can't tell you how much I love him. There are no words.

And now, a short nap on the couch next to the open windows, where I'll fall asleep listening to the wind rustling the leaves on the trees. This is too fine a day to waste on lists. Buddy's lying on the floor next to me and we have some dreaming to do. We'll be running with the bears, my little woodland warrior and me.

Perhaps some of you will remember this poem I posted last year by Leslie Marmon Silko. It's one of my favorites: http://teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2011/03/alone-in-canyon-of-stillness.html



P.S. JB, my friend in Moab, Utah, called after reading this. It reminded him of a Greg Brown song we've both always liked. So, I decided to add it.

A New Religion

"New Religion"

This morning no sound but the loud
breathing of the sea. Suppose that under
all that salt water lived the god
that humans have spent ten thousand years
trawling the heavens for.
We caught the wrong metaphor.
Real space is wet and underneath,
the church of shark and whale and cod.
The noise of those vast lungs
exhaling: the plain chanting of monkfish choirs.
Heaven's not up but down, and hell
is to evaporate in air. Salvation,
to drown and breathe
forever with the sea.


~ Bill Holm, from The Chain Letter of the Soul: New and Selected Poems




Bill Holm was a Minnesota poet (1943 - 2009). His poems have been popping up here and there for the past few weeks, and it's as though I'm seeing him, reading his words for the very first time. I had trouble deciding which poem to share tonight, but this one asked so quietly and it felt so right.



Image: Joseph Cornell's "Tamara Toumanova 1"

At the Kitchen Table

"Perhaps the World Ends Here"

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what,
we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the
table so it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe
at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what
it means to be human. We make men at it,
we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts
of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms
around our children. They laugh with us at our poor
falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back
together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella
in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place
to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate
the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared
our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow.
We pray of suffering and remorse.
We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table,
while we are laughing and crying,
eating of the last sweet bite.


                                                   ~ Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo is a Native American poet, born in 1951.

Nampeyo, the creator of the pot pictured in the photo, is a legendary Hopi-Tewa potter (1860-1942).

In My Mother's Voice

Her voice was deep and rich, full of peace and promise, and that's not hyperbole or prejudice. She had an amazing voice. Whether speaking or singing, the timbre reached down into the depths of your soul, uprooted all that was unnecessary, and uplifted all that was. So, why I felt the need to speak for her, ever, is a mystery. I have some ideas, but those are metaphysical in nature and for another post, perhaps.

Mom kept the family peace, or tried to, despite the harangues that were sometimes leveled against her and rarely showed her hurt. I would quite often, out of a show of solidarity and great love, do that for her. As she remained silent I would jump up from my chair, usually at the dinner table, and raise my voice on her behalf, speaking (rather loudly) about my anger over the family's inability to accept whatever thought she had offered. Diving headfirst into what I saw in that moment as her infinite goodness, I would buoy her up whether she asked for it or not, and she never asked for it. She didn't need my help but that did not deter me. I pressed on in her defense until my own anger was spent.

If the subject was mushrooms and she had pronounced those growing in the yard as edible, even as other family members questioned her ability to know such things, well, they were going to be pronounced edible if I had anything to say about it. And say it I did, vociferously, all the while reminding them, in layman's terms, of her innate intelligence. But, it wasn't about her intelligence or her mushroom savvy. There were higher issues involved here and when I was young it was all about justice and the disenfranchised having their say. My mother did not fit that category by any specifications other than as a woman married to a man who sometimes resented (my interpretation) her brilliance.

If the subject was her weight - something she struggled with her entire life until disease took its toll on her body - and she was being castigated by my father even as she raised a fork to her mouth with another bite of blueberry pie, a delicious pie of her own making, I would stand up in her defense and in support not only of her culinary abilities, which were myriad, but also her right to have as many bites as she wanted. She could, in fact, "eat the whole damn pie if she want[ed]."

My tirades usually ended with me storming out of the room, taking refuge in my bedroom in the earlier days, or in the basement, and occasionally a certain secluded rock along the lake shore near our home. Eventually, another family member would come looking for me, reassure me I was right, although my timing might have been off, and then quietly lead this black sheep back to the fold.

In later years, when her voice had been eroded by disease and she could seldom muster a response, her voice would occasionally still come through - low, rough and whispered. Near the end, when I called her on the phone, desperate to hear her voice again, and told her I was thinking of going back to a relationship I'd left a few years before, she said, clearly and distinctly, "You can't go back."  It was not advice, it was a philosophical stance she was taking and it was the last time I recall hearing her voice in all its beauty. The strength it took for her to say that, and for me to hear it, serves as a reminder that life is always about moving forward. Moving forward and letting go, including every perceived act of injustice or unkindness. Just let it all go. It's what my mother would want.



In the end
these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?

~ Siddhartha

Life is But a Dream

Last night I had trouble sleeping and was awake most of the night. Not even The 23rd Psalm, which I've been repeating since I was a kid to help me sleep, could do the trick. Finally, I got up around 4:00, walked into the kitchen, made coffee and went online. With the blue moon on its way the old song, "Blue Moon" popped into my head, so I went to You Tube and listened to snippets of several versions including Ella Fitzgerald's and Julie London's before listening to Chris Isaak's and then Nat King Cole's all the way through. I sent Nat's version off to a friend, and then remembered another blue moon song, "Once in a Very Blue Moon," by Nanci Griffith, and watched that.

If this sounds discombobulated it's because I am.

I decided to try sleeping again but this time on the couch. What resulted were the weirdest dreams I've had in a very long while. They may have been instigated by the videos I watched because in the dream I'm walking out of the ocean under a very full, very blue moon ... literally, a blue colored moon. As a matter of fact, the entire scene is washed in blue. As the water falls away from my body, I walk up and stand on the beach. I hear sounds behind me and realize others, many of them children - all in silhouette - are also walking out of the water and speaking in a strange language. Someone I used to know is standing where the beach meets the grass and I ask her if she knows who they are and what they're saying. She just looks at me as though she doesn't know what I'm talking about and walks away.

Later, there's smoke coming from an unknown source inside the house I'm in and then I'm lying in a bathtub I realize has been replaced with one much more shallow than I'm used to and I don't like it. It's not porcelain like the old tubs used to be but has a raised filigree design all around the wide edge. It reminds me of the white iron headboard of my bed when I was a child.

Then I woke up.

Buddy was looking at me a little oddly from his place on the end of the couch. Still half asleep, I stumbled out the door with him and walked barefoot in the yard. The dew was cool under my feet and strange bird sounds were coming from the end of the driveway. Buddy and I both looked up at the top of the almost-dead tree across the road and there was a very large bald eagle with his wings spread out, white head and gold beak glinting in the early morning sun. He continued this strange cry for a couple of minutes and then relaxed his wings. He sat there for another minute or two, spread his wings again, and flew away.

Then, we walked back in the house and I decided to tell you about it.


"Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream."  ~ Jack Kerouac


Here's Nanci and the video that may or may not have plunged me into the ocean of dreams:

The Small Town Beating of My Heart

One of the things I grew to appreciate about traveling across the country was seeing small town America. There was a time, when I was much younger and in a hurry to get wherever I was going, that I would do whatever it took to avoid these little towns. They slowed me down, kept me from my destination and, at the time, I'd seen all I wanted to see of small town America in my own life. Rarely was I heading for a city, so it wasn't the towns themselves I wanted to leave behind, it was the mindset that seemed to go with them. The mindset might still exist - in my own small town I see evidence of it with a certain regularity - but I've gotten to the place where it no longer matters. What matters is the mindset I have for my own life. Now, when I travel, I like going through them to see what's happening and what they tell me about our country. Those same small towns I once eschewed invite me to play at being someone somewhere else and I have fun imagining what might be, given another life. Here's the poem that sparked the thought:


"Passing Through a Small Town"

Here the highways cross. One heads north. One heads east
and west. On the corner of the square adjacent to the
courthouse a bronze plaque marks the place where two Civil
War generals faced one another and the weaker surrendered.
A few pedestrians pass. A beauty parlor sign blinks. As I turn
to head west, I become the schoolteacher living above the
barber shop. Polishing my shoes each evening. Gazing at the
square below. In time I befriend the waitress at the cafe and
she winks as she pours my coffee. Soon people begin to
talk. And for good reason. I become so distracted I teach my
students that Cleopatra lost her head during the French
Revolution and that Leonardo perfected the railroad at the
height of the Renaissance. One day her former lover returns
from the army and creates a scene at the school. That evening
she confesses she cannot decide between us. But still we spend
one last night together. By the time I pass the grain elevators
on the edge of town I am myself again. The deep scars of love
already beginning to heal.

~ David Shumate

Note: I like what the poet says about his preference for the prose form: "[Prose poetry] allows me to use narrative and lyrical elements in ways that line break poetry does not. I find that it corresponds to my breathing, to the cadence of my heart."



The photographs are mine, taken in Valentine, Nebraska.

My Grandfather's Shepherd Moon

Perhaps it was late summer, even early fall. At any rate, it was a time not unlike this one. I was a teenager, sitting in the living room of our home on Birch Lake. We had moved there from our small farm the year before. I know it was after dark, that a lamp or two was on for reading. I don't know why, but I remember the low light. My mother was on the phone with my grandmother, her mother. I could only hear my mother's part of the conversation, but from the questions she asked and the tone of her voice, I knew something was happening outside the realm of normal. My father and I waited quietly in order to try to understand what event was altering our world.

When my mother hung up the phone, she turned towards where we were sitting. "Pa" had gone out after dark to look for his sheep, sheep that had been gone for many years. My grandmother had not been able to convince him of this, could not bring him back to the present. She didn't know where he was and needed help in finding him.

My grandfather, Moses, had raised sheep during much of his life and often, as a child, I had helped move them from pasture to pasture. It was a time of what seemed to be perpetual sunshine, with the wonderful feeling of warm wool between my fingers. But, that night would become the rest of his life: a sad and not-so-slow decline into dementia. Within three years he would be gone from this world.

In the interim, life changed dramatically for them: from a small farm to a small apartment in town, just a few miles to the north of where we had, for many years, shared a dirt road. From there, it was the nursing home, and it's not too hard to imagine the changes that wrought....

That night, my father went down to their farm and found my grandfather roaming around the hillside near his barn, still looking for his lost sheep. I couldn't tell you what happened immediately after. Perhaps my father simply returned to the house with him, hoping he would remain in the present long enough for a solution to be found. Maybe he went to the hospital for observation. I don't know. I don't remember. I do remember the look on my mother's face when she hung up the phone, as she realized what had happened, that her life, as she had known it, had forever changed.

Here's Enya's "Shepherd Moons." Shepherd moons are the small moons around ringed planets, such as Saturn. Their gravity is what keeps the rings organized and defines their borders, thus filling their role as "shepherds."  This link, which I found very interesting, describes them: http://www.helium.com/items/2092512-what-is-a-shepherd-moon-and-what-does-it-do  

Image: Winslow Homer's "Whittling Boy." It's one of my favorites. I love the sunshine on his straw hat, his high boots, the green leaves....

The Day My Heart Broke Wide Open

Well, the two little raccoons didn't make it. About a week ago, a storm blew in that included hail and a torrential downpour. The next day, it was looking like Mama had not returned. By the second morning, one was very near death - I found him on the path to the garden - the other was still hanging in there. I thought about just letting them go, let nature take its course, and then I realized I simply could not let them die without intervening on their behalf, without doing all I could for them. For someone who has said she's absolutely not afraid of dying, a small raccoon's death was suddenly unacceptable.

The local vet gave me the number of a wildlife rehab center only one hour from home. With instructions I'd already received from the internet, along with their information which reiterated it, I packed them up and brought them there. A white, fuzzy sweater I'd donated to Buddy when he first came home with me went into the box with them, along with straw and a water bottle filled with warm water. I tucked the sweater over the one that was almost gone and his sibling got the other end, who then immediately began making sucking sounds, believing Mama had returned after all. I don't mind being involved in that kind of subterfuge. Hope occasionally requires it.

But, it didn't end well. These things rarely do. And I was unexpectedly and inexplicably heartbroken. Heart broken. I could not stop sobbing. I like to believe my place is a sanctuary for wildlife, a place of refuge for all the little wild things, and this did not go according to plan. Sometimes, nature sucks. A lot.


However, I was not left alone in my grief. A friend and fellow blogger unknowingly, well, from a human perspective, offered a much-needed message through a poem he posted when I was in the depths of despair. I know, it sounds disproportionate when phrased that way towards two little raccoons. But, that's what it was.  The depths of despair. You see, it was the day my heart broke wide open to the world.

Here's the poem he posted:

"Lead"

Here is a story to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter the loons came to our harbor and died,
one by one, of nothing we could see.
A friend told me of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where they still sing.
And, believe me, tell no one just where that is.
The next morning, this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.

~ Mary Oliver



Isn't that beautiful?  And isn't it a wonderful universe?



Here is where I found the poem that day:coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com 



The loon is Minnesota's state bird.

A Neil Young Kind of Night

"Willow," by Katherine Bowling

There's something very comforting about the onset of night, the way the air feels thick and damp as the last light slowly leaves the sky. It's my favorite time to walk around the yard in my bare feet, with the dew settling on the grass and the hummingbirds making their final pass. People like to say it grounds you, I've even said it myself, and that might be, but mostly I just like the way it feels. So, while Buddy laid down next to the steps and listened to the approaching night, I walked among the flower beds, admiring the deep red zinnias that had just arrived. 

When we finally came into the house, after dark had settled in, I had a strong desire to listen to some Neil Young. I'm not sure what Buddy was in the mood for. He acquiesces to me most nights, curls up politely at my feet and pretends to be asleep. "Bound for Glory,"came first, as it often does when I'm in the mood for Neil, then this popped out at me. Maybe it has something to do with Buffalo Springfield and how much I've always loved "For What It's Worth,"  but I think it has more to do with Neil himself. He seems like such a good soul, with his slight knowing smile, as though he's tickled as can be to be here, making music. I'm sure glad he is. Life's a little sweeter with him in it: 

An Act of Bravery

Let's pretend we're in a bar in Los Angeles, an area near Echo Park. It's August 16th, let's say 1979 (that way, I could attend this soiree, as I was between marriages at the time). Just for tonight, we'll overlook the heavy smoke and make our way to the corner table where a rather rough-edged fellow, who has returned for this occasion, is seated with a few friends. RZ has just bought a round of drinks to celebrate. Someone else has brought a cake decorated with a 1950's pin-up girl in a sailor's hat (I can't say for certain, but I think "Hank" would like that). We've gathered to celebrate the birthday of a man I don't know well, probably not well enough to call him Hank, as his friends do, but I feel I've come to know him a bit through his poetry. He's not going to read his poetry tonight, though, he's just here to have a good time, as are we all, to celebrate life a bit more enthusiastically than usual. As is often the case, he has some words of wisdom to share with us, and we're ready to listen. He seems to be a brave man and brave men should be celebrated. We've learned it comes in many forms, but exposing your soul might be the bravest act of all. It's something he does well, and, it seems, fearlessly. Here's what he's telling us:

"War Some of the Time"

when you write a poem it
needn't be intense
it
can be nice and
easy
and you shouldn't necessarily
be
concerned only with things like anger
or love or need;
at any moment the
greatest accomplishment might be to simply
get
up and tap the handle
on that leaking toilet;
I've
done that twice now while typing
this
and now the toilet is
quiet.
to
solve simple problems: that's
the most
satisfying thing, it
gives you a chance and it
gives everything else a chance
too.

we were made to accomplish the easy
things
and made to live through the things
hard.


~ Charles Bukowski, from Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way.


Happy Birthday, Charles, and thank you for helping me to better understand another side of life.

Henry Charles Bukowski  (August 16, 1920 - March 9, 1994)

Making the Turn

Yesterday, while photographing the old cabin and checking out the summer residents, a single brown leaf fell just off my shoulder, settling on the step beside me. It felt like an omen of things to come. I had earlier sensed that slight change in the air that tells us we're turning the corner, summer is coming to a close. It seems premature, but it's been an odd summer.

On August 1, one of the ornamental crabs suddenly sprouted blossoms at the end of a branch, as though spring was beginning all over again. The picture I took simply does not do this oddity justice. Let's call it impressionistic. They hung around for at least a week, while the tree next to it began to shed its leaves. Mother Nature is certainly keeping us on our toes, isn't she?

Even as signs of an early fall take shape, the zinnias are coming on strong. What I cut for bouquets is replaced almost right before my eyes. Little beauties of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Two years ago, they hung on well into November. We shall see....

Several mushroom fairy rings are scattered about, along with these fine specimens, which I saw in the meadow on my walk with Buddy yesterday. Love that little heart-shaped thing, wrapped in a vine.

My vegetable garden has been sort of hit and miss. The parsnips ended up being a no-show. I used seeds I'd saved from two years ago, then learned it's not a good idea. I had only eaten a few pea pods before they vanished along with the kohlrabi, which disappeared as soon as it came up. I suspect the bunny family, but don't want to cast aspersions. 

My squash are doing great, though, as are the potatoes and onions. I've had several mornings of sauteed zucchini and new potatoes with scrambled farm-fresh eggs. Zucchini bread is next. 

The rain barrels have not been refreshed since last week. They're used mainly for a couple of small corner plots, planted with things like muskmelon (aka cantaloupe) and, earlier, radishes, that the sprinkler has trouble reaching in measured swoops. I like using rain water. So do the mosquitoes, unfortunately.

Getting back to the summer residents. Actually, they took up residence in the roof joists between the old and new(er) roof of the cabin sometime last winter. They, being a raccoon family. I let her and her babies stay put, despite all the online research I did that told me I should encourage them to move on. Now they're older and have set up camp outside, between the fireplace (have you seen anything so makeshift in all your born days?) and the birch tree, where the babies hide behind the boards, or try to. I'm sure Mama is nearby, as they appear very healthy, but I'll be keeping an eye on them from a safe distance.

Well, most of the time. Can you see the tail of the second one, just behind the boards near the rock? They think if they hide their faces, then I can't see them. Little cuties.

It's so peaceful today, I can almost hear them breathing. It reminds me of a quote I read a while back by Arundhati Roy, author of, The God of Small Things. She says: "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

Perhaps it begins with how we choose to see this world.

P.S. See that blue chair next to the cabin? It was there when I arrived over two years ago. I can't bring myself to move it. When Buddy first spotted it, he was a bit wary, giving it a wide berth and eyeing it furtively as he did so. I wonder if Otis is still there, quietly passing the summer away, watching over what was once his land, keeping an eye on things....

Saudade: "the love that remains"

"Happiness"

There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you have saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
           It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of the pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea...


~ Jane Kenyon




Occasionally, not very often, I come across a poem I love, but find myself wishing the final line or lines had either been slightly changed or not occurred at all. I don't pretend to know how every poem should end, or, for that matter, how any poem should end, but sometimes a line will speak to me more than the final line and I'll wish the poet had stopped there. And don't we all respond to what we read or hear from our own perceptions, our own feelings?  I do hope I've not been out of order those few times my heart has stopped at a particular place, closing the poem prematurely. Such is the case with the above poem. I found myself drifting away with the thought of   "to rain falling on the open sea...."

Miss Kenyon has passed from this world. But, if the veil between the seen and the unseen is as thin as it often feels to me, I'd like to think she wouldn't mind my mental omission of the last line. Not that she's giving it any thought. I'm left wondering, though, was she referring to herself in the last line, to her body, her life in which she had found a measure of happiness despite years of dealing with depression?  I don't know. But that certainly lends itself to more than one reading, and it is her poem, after all. So, when you read it again, and I hope you do, please add her closing line:
  

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.






Painting: "Saudade," by Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior (1850-1899), a Brazilian realist, and the wiki entry for "Saudade," which I found interesting. It provided the title for this post: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade

For more information on Jane Kenyon: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Kenyon

Still Life with Beet Leaves

Patterns have long held a fascination for me, whether they are found in nature or in the fabric of our lives. For instance, the sarong that came home with me the other day to be used as a table cover, or the amber necklace now lying inside a favorite pottery bowl. Even the notebooks I recently added to an ever-growing collection have patterns I couldn't seem to live without. On sale for $1.18 each, why would I even try?  From beet leaves to bark cloth pillows, these are just a few of the patterns that make up my life:

"... and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?"

~ Vincent van Gogh

The photos are mine.

The Beauty in Abandoned Cars

"There is beauty in weathered and unpainted wood, in orchards overgrown, even in abandoned cars being incorporated into the earth...."  ~ Ernest "Chick" Callenbach, author of Ecotopia

The detritus of life has always fascinated me. So, sometime in June of '93, when I was driving through the outskirts of town and caught a glimpse of an old car hiding in the woods, I made a note to call JB and ask him to check it out with me, see what photographic opportunities might be waiting.

What we discovered was not just one, but several old cars had been abandoned in the woods, left to become entangled in the trees and underbrush. We must have spent two hours wandering among them, snapping picture after picture, trying to show some restraint. These were the days before digital, when photographic restraint was tied up in a person's film budget, which had, for me, become a line item. But, on that afternoon in '93, I was having so much fun I may have allowed these matters to take a backseat.

This is just a sampling of how much fun I had. Restraint has never been my strong suit.

It should be noted, these cars were removed at some point and the woods are alone once more. I think that's a good thing, but there's a part of me that wishes they were still there, and not just because the Days of Digital are upon us. I would love to spend at least one more afternoon among them.

Photographs are mine.