For a sustainable Summer

In addition to our spring plantings being stressed by the drought this summer, the Better Half and I planted something that seems to have attracted the attention of the local deer, or maybe it’s rabbits, but there’s a clump of plants I’ve been hand-watering that’s been gnawed into almost nonexistence. That’s frustrating. Maybe it’s comic relief, but right next to the chawed-on plants is a small dust bowl that’s getting used by at least one of the local turkeys.

Cooler weather and the possibility of rain return this coming weekend, so there’s that to hope for. At the moment, we’re under an ozone advisory until at least 9 pm Thursday. Following the precautionary principle, we’re going to forego the prospect of fly-fishing for now and hope Friday is a better day. In fact, it would be wonderful if the rest of the weather this Summer turns out better than what we’ve had so far this year.

beardtongue (Penstemon grandiflorus)

Photo by J. Harrington

Milkweed is beginning to develop flowerheads but we don’t see any little caterpillars nibbling on them. Many plants, including orange day lilies and penstemon (beardtongue), plus at least one of the asters we planted this spring, seem to be aborting flower formation, due to drought? Once again I’m getting concerned about a shifting baseline syndrome conditioning the younger generations to think that this is what Summer is supposed to be like, with skies full of smoke from afar and ozone from who knows where, and drought.

Tomorrow, at 9:37 am CDT, we’ll honor Summer Solstice with our own private ceremonies. We hope you’ll do likewise. It will be difficult, but we need to transform our culture into one that recognizes and acknowledges our dependence on Earth’s natural systems for our continued ability to survive, let alone thrive. Our economy and culture continue to behave as though it’s fine to use next year’s seed corn in tonight’s chowder. That’s not sustainable.

Solstice Litany

By Jim Harrison

      1

The Saturday morning meadowlark

came in from high up

with her song gliding into tall grass

still singing. How I'd like

to glide around singing in the summer

then to go south to where I already was

and find fields full of meadowlarks

in winter. But when walking my dog

I want four legs to keep up with her

as she thunders down the hill at top speed

then belly flops into the deep pond.

Lark or dog I crave the impossible.

I'm just human. All too human.

      2

I was nineteen and mentally

infirm when I saw the prophet Isaiah.

The hem of his robe was as wide

as the horizon and his trunk and face

were thousands of feet up in the air.

Maybe he appeared because I had read him

so much and opened too many ancient doors.

I was cooking my life in a cracked clay

pot that was leaking. I had found

secrets I didn't deserve to know.

When the battle for the mind is finally

over it's late June, green and raining.

      3

A violent windstorm the night before

the solstice. The house creaked and yawned.

I thought the morning might bring a bald earth,

bald as a man's bald head but not shiny.

But dawn was fine with a few downed trees,

the yellow rosebush splendidly intact.

The grass was all there dotted with Black

Angus cattle. The grass is indestructible

except to fire but now it's too green to burn.

What did the cattle do in this storm?

They stood with their butts toward the wind,

erect Buddhists waiting for nothing in particular.

I was in bed cringing at gusts,

imagining the contents of earth all blowing

north and piled up where the wind stopped,

the pile sky-high. No one can climb it.

A gopher comes out of a hole as if nothing happened.

 

      4

The sun should be a couple of million miles

closer today. It wouldn't hurt anything

and anyway this cold rainy June is hard

on me and the nesting birds. My own nest

is stupidly uncomfortable, the chair

of many years. The old windows don't keep

the weather out, the wet wind whipping

my hair. A very old robin drops dead

on the lawn, a first for me. Millions

of birds die but we never see it—they like

privacy in this holy, fatal moment or so

I think. We can't tell each other when we die.

Others must carry the message to and fro.

"He's gone," they'll say. While writing an average poem

destined to disappear among the millions of poems

written now by mortally average poets.

      5

Solstice at the cabin deep in the forest.

The full moon shines in the river, there are pale

green northern lights. A huge thunderstorm

comes slowly from the west. Lightning strikes

a nearby tamarack bursting into flame.

I go into the cabin feeling unworthy.

At dawn the tree is still smoldering

in this place the gods touched earth.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.