The gift of sunrise

Some years the local deer have, by this time in November, begun snacking on our Halloween jack-o-lanterns. Not this year. They’re snow covered and unnibbled. We’ve seen few deer or turkeys this year and have no idea what’s triggered the changed foraging patterns. Have home ranges changed? We don’t know. Perhaps now that firearms deer season is over we’ll see a few more whitetails. Or, not. In any case soon it will be time to dump the pumpkins under the pear tree and replace them with yule greenery. Eventually the deer or other wildlife will tidy up the pumpkin pile.

jack-o-lanterns nibbled to death  by  deer

Photo by J. Harrington

The pond up the road is now covered with skim ice on the east side of the road but not west of the road. Although we haven’t ever waded either pond, we presume the difference is because east of the road the water is more shallow and consequently loses heat more quickly. We’ll keep our eyes on both pools to see how ice-in proceeds.

Since we’re entering the season of Thanksgiving and yule tide, I’m going to file the news I learned today under he heading of early Christmas present. A book by one of my favorite poets, Joy Harjo, is the NEA Big Read in the St. Croix Valley. An American Sunrise is the volume of Harjo’s poems that provides the themes for next year’s Art Space’ programming. I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out and if and where I might want to be involved, over and above rereading the book.

An American Sunrise

By Joy Harjo

We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves. We

were surfacing the edge of our ancestors’ fights, and ready to strike.

It was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were straight.

Easy if you played pool and drank to remember to forget. We

made plans to be professional — and did. And some of us could sing

so we drummed a fire-lit pathway up to those starry stars. Sin

was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil, we sang. We

were the heathens, but needed to be saved from them — thin

chance. We knew we were all related in this story, a little gin

will clarify the dark and make us all feel like dancing. We

had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz

I argued with a Pueblo as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June,

forty years later and we still want justice. We are still America. We

know the rumors of our demise. We spit them out. They die

soon.

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