Where are the dragonflies?

For reasons I don’t understand, the photos I took of dragonflies are clustered around May and June and again in late July, August and September. Local dragonflies appear to go on vacation during July, along with many other Minnesotans. Several years ago I made a bar chart of the flight weeks of dragonflies based on information from Dragonflies of the North Woods [First Edition]. Although there are some noticeable gaps, there isn’t an overwhelming break in July, but we rarely see dragonflies for much of mid-month. It’s unfortunate, since there are so many deer flies they could feed on during July.

four-spotted skimmer dragonfly, late May

Photo by J. Harrington

Perhaps this is the time dragonflies are clustered around the marshes and water bodies in mating season? It is the time when many bird songs disappear since mating territories are no longer being defended, or so I’ve read. I can vouch for the fact that mornings are quieter now than they were in May and June.

A related matter that also troubles me is if I learned what’s going on with the disappearance of dragonflles, would I remember what I’d learned. The old saying of “use it or lose it” seems particularly relevant to my memory and learning things. If I don’t have a frequent use for a piece of information, it seems to drift toward the bottom of my memory banks, making access more difficult.

Fly, Dragonfly!

By Joyce Sidman

Water nymph, you have

climbed from the shallows to don

your dragon-colors.

Perched on a reed stem

all night, shedding your skin, you dry

your wings in moonlight.

 

Night melts into day.

Swift birds wait to snap you up.

Fly, dragonfly! Fly!

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Today’s actions make tomorrow’s memorials

For a holiday weekend that represents the unofficial beginning of summer, we're “enjoying” another gray, showery, cloudy, dreary day. At least next month is normally the wettest month of the year around these parts. I know, it could be worse. We could live in Gaza or the Ukraine or Sudan. By this time next year maybe we’ll think we are living in a war torn country if MAGAt threats come to pass.

let’s not turn cloudy skies into dark days

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m pondering what those, like my father and father-in-law, who fought in World War II to protect and secure our freedoms, would think of what we’ve done with and to the country they left US. I suspect my father would be a little bit ashamed and embarrassed and fearing that he’d maybe been played for a sucker. I doubt very much he would have relied on the  “leadership” of a con man, one a presiding judge has found civilly adjudicated of having committed rape. One also charged with numerous felonious actions against US while claiming to ”Make America Great Again.” The country my father fought for may have its warts, but is worth improving more than destroying.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I ask you to tap into your memories and remember what was great about your childhood. Did all your friends and neighbors share what you felt was great? Did anyone try to stop you from enjoying learning? [I remember that certain movies were banned but don’t recall book banning or burning as has happened recently. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.] Anyhow, please think about whether, if everyone enjoyed the things that made your childhood best, would that help make America great? What would a great America look like to you? What kind of America would be important enough to you to defend in a world war? Remember that many citizens strongly opposed the Viet Nam war, just as many oppose the current support for Israel’s attack on Palestinians.

At the Retirement Home

Tony Barnstone

^{U.S. Soldier, 194th Armored Regiment, retired, Brainerd, Minnesota}

I’ve had both knees replaced. I’ve got a steel
pin in my hip. I don’t hear you so good,
but I’m not stupid, son. How would you feel,
surviving the Bataan Death March, no food
for days, no water, and the ones who fell
behind were bayoneted where they lay,
and now you’re marching off to death? Real hell
is not old age, though. No, taking away
the rights we died for, saying torture’s right,
that’s hell. Hand me the iron and those shirts,
would you? Thanks, son. As long as I have fight
in me I’ll love this country till it hurts.
And it does. This is worse than what I saw
overseas. Torture. In America.

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A purview of coming attractions

We're in the last week of the seasonal crossover. On Saturday next, both the meteorological and the astronomical autumns will be in alignment. In a week, we’ll be enjoying less than twelve hours of daylight, and the days will continue to shorten until December 21. Then they’ll get longer by a few seconds on the 23rd and thereafter lengthen more and more.

time for autumn colors to emerge

Photo by J. Harrington

This is a busy time of year for us. I keep feeling that the Better Half and I should have done a more careful management of the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law’s scheduling. His birthday is mid-month September. Their daughter was born near the end of the same month and their wedding anniversary is early October. It sort of replicates my unfortunate circumstances of having been born within a week of Father’s Day. Families and individuals should be authorized to rearrange things so important dates don’t all pile up on each other. Our son is a classic example of bad timing. He was born on Christmas which, while kind of a bummer for him, is the best Christmas present I could ever hope for. We always make sure to end Christmas by noon so the afternoon can be his birthday.

The thunderstorms in the extended forecast make the prospects of a brush pile burn on the equinox look iffy. Living where we do, there’s always the possibility of a blizzard around Halloween. Which reminds me, I need to remember to change the oil and gas up the snowblower. Sigh! If we avoid any significant snowfall before Christmas season begins (or beyond), I’ll have a great Thanksgiving celebration.

In addition to autumn being the traditional harvest season when row crops are combined, we’re entering a period in which, if we’re lucky, we can harvest another crop of wonderful holiday memories of times spent with family and friends, weather permitting.

Untitled [Each crisp autumn]

Rose Styron

Each crisp autumn
there are fewer leaves, more clarity—
light cycles of the haymound
odors of late roses
rivers rushing where we
once meandered
content in the casual chaos of each
season, plotting no espionage
because we did not know
the world as terror then.

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Getting hooked on self care

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

Henry David Thoreau

Well, thanks to the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law, I’m already ahead of last year on at least one front that’s important to me: fishing. Plus, the weather couldn’t have been more pleasant. We spent a couple of hours this morning in their boat on a nearby lake, playing with little bluegills and a couple of pint-sized bass. The official reports on the lake note an abundance of both species but below average sizes. I can vouch for that. Many of the bluegills were so small they couldn’t mouth a size 14 or 16 wooly worm, but it was fun watching them try to eat it within a few feet of the boat. It has been entirely too long since I’ve been fishing. Last year we (the Better Half and I) totally failed to wet a line. We’ll try to do better from now on. (I just remembered Yoda's “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”)

It turned out my fly casting isn’t as rusty as I feared it might have become, but I established a new personal worst by somehow entangling the leader in the innards of the fly reel. I’ve never done that before. The old phrase “Use it or lose it!” comes again to mind since the fly rod I took this morning hasn’t seen daylight for several years. Slowly but surely all my fly tackle will get sorted out, organized, and put to good use. In fact, I just realized that some gold-ribbed hare’s ear nymphs I tied years age, that may well not fool a trout, could be just the thing for playing with pan fish next time we go out. I’ll also remember to bring a fly rod more in line with the diminutive size of the fish, which will undoubtedly make for excitement when something bigger eats the fly.

flies for pan fish or trout

Photo by J. Harrington

Come afternoon it's time again to do the weekly Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] pickup. This week’s box contents include:

• COLLARDS
• KOHLRABI
• GREEN BELL PEPPER
• CUCUMBER
• SUMMER SQUASH, and
• GREEN CABBAGE

Last week there was a note in our box that Bilko cabbage was missing. We probably ended up with extra summer squash and green beans. Part of the fun of CSA membership is there are no guarantees of what will be delivered. It’s not the same as going to a big box store and picking one of these and one of those. I have mixed feelings about the lack of green beans this week. They’ve been really tasty but we’ve eaten quite a few the past couple of weeks. As unreasonable as it may sound, I really wish someone would figure out how to make fresh vegetables as tasty as junk food. Else, it feels as if doing something that I know is good for me is almost a punishment, despite the Better Half’s creativity with salads and side dishes and quiches.

Now, I’m sharing with you a challenge I’m making to myself: over the duration of at least the summer, I’m going to engage in one or more of these 60+ self care ideas every day. Feel free to join in. It’s a variation on the concept that “Living well is  the  best  revenge.” 

Remember

Joy Harjo
1951 – 

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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On Memorial Day

My mother, sisters, and I were fortunate. Her husband, our father, returned alive from his service in WWII and, some years later, the Korean “Police Action.” Many others, from those armed conflicts and the wars that preceded and followed them, lost husbands, fathers, brothers, friends who were defending their country. Memorial Day is the day we have chosen to publicly remember and honor them.

eagles soar

Photo by J. Harrington

Today’s Star Tribune has reprinted an editorial from 1946 that points out how we can most effectively honor our war dead not only today but year round. A history professor at Boston College, Heather Cox Richardson, in her Letters from an American, poignantly describes the significance of the premature loss of so many through the remembrance of one.

One of the ways I’ve tried to honor and remember those in my immediate and extended family who have served the country is by helping to support an organization called Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing. They are “dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active military service personnel and disabled veterans through fly fishing and associated activities including education and outings.” I can’t be sure, but I think my Dad would approve. To the best of my knowledge, he never owned a boat but he seemed to enjoy the few times we managed to go fishing together in mine. That’s something else I think about on Memorial Day.

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields. 

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It’s freedom (from frost) season

Here in the North Country, we have definitely left Spring behind and entered Summer mode. Temperatures over 80; thunderstorms in the forecast Tuesday through Friday; and it’s still almost a month until Summer solstice. One of my favorite singers, Janice Joplin, had a great hit with a song titled Get It While You Can. The lyrics and the attitude Janis lived seem at least as needed today as they were when she recorded them five decades plus ago.

it’s swallowtail and monarch season

Photo by J. Harrington

I was doing a few outside chores this afternoon and the bugs and the heat were wearing on my nerves. It turned out that, if I shifted my attention to the beauty of different flowers that were blooming around me, and kept my eyes open so that I could, and did, see the first monarch butterfly of the season, the bugs and the heat were less troublesome than if I continued to focus only on the annoyances and excluded the good parts of the day. Don’t tell our dogs, but I think I’m picking up this attitude adjustment from them. They’re always ready to enjoy food, or a walk, even if they just had a tick pulled from an ear.

We’ll spend part of tomorrow fondly remembering and reminiscing about my father and father-in-law and their service in the armed forces during the last century. It’s sad that the war to end all wars wasn’t; that the Civil War continues to be fought in a very uncivil manner; and that the freedoms the Second World War was fought to protect are threatened in our country by the same kind of attitudes that helped the Nazis gain power. We’ll also celebrate the fact that we will officially be beyond the threat of frost season after tomorrow.

May we all have a holiday full of better memories.

So Much Happiness

Naomi Shihab Nye - 1952-

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

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As the sand plain blooms

As noted numerous times in prior postings, we live on the eastern edge of the Anoka Sand Plain. This morning plants that survive on our sandy, well drained soils are beginning to come into flower. We saw hoary puccoon and think we saw spiderwort (we didn’t walk close enough to get a good look).

hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens)

Photo by J. Harrington

For good measure we’ll add this picture of the dame’s rocket we were going to post yesterday when blogger and Google were harassing us about not uploading pictures unless we allowed them to track us through cookies here.

dame's rocket (Hesperis matronalis)

Photo by J. Harrington

It was a strange day because we also encountered a similar message and needed to re-log-into Skype. I have no idea what was going on on or around the internets. The world in which I try to function has become dysfunctional enough that I’m now determined to become more mellow, even if it kills me. (In case any of you are familiar with the serenity prayer, an executive summary of that prayer is "screw it!” or a four letter version of that verb. We expect to be muttering it more frequently this summer.)

In a Disused Graveyard

By Robert Frost

The living come with grassy tread

To read the gravestones on the hill;

The graveyard draws the living still,

But never any more the dead.

 

The verses in it say and say:

‘The ones who living come today

To read the stones and go away

Tomorrow dead will come to stay.’

 

So sure of death the marbles rhyme,

Yet can’t help marking all the time

How no one dead will seem to come.

What is it men are shrinking from?

 

It would be easy to be clever

And tell the stones: Men hate to die

And have stopped dying now forever.

I think they would believe the lie.

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Music to my ears

Not birds this time, childhood, poetry and folk music are today’s themes.

poetry and music, cornerstones

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning, early, I was reading a poem in Laurie Allmann’s delightful An Hour from Now, the last stanza of which reads:

I rise to go,
wanting to howl in protest like we did as
kids roaming the neighborhood,
always called inside too soon,
just when it was
getting good

That triggered memories and a return to my childhood, growing up in one of Boston's neighborhoods and recalling the unfairness of having to quit playing just when it was getting good. That brought to mind the phrase “ally ally oxen free” which I misremembered as part of a Peter, Paul and Mary song from high school and/or college days. Turned out, after some internet research, the line is actually from the lyrics of a song written by Rod McKuen and recorded by the Kingston Trio [see below].

As I was bemoaning my faulty memory, the Better Half reminded me that Paul Stookey of PP&M did end one of their songs with the line “Ally ally in free,” which is how we ended playtime in Boston when we were called in for supper. The PP&M song is It’s Raining and it’s heartily recommended you click the link and give it a listen.

I’ve not thought of my grammar and high school days for too long. When I was a junior or senior in high school, my mother managed to get me a pair of tickets to Peter, Paul and Mary’s concert at the Totem Pole ballroom in old Norumbega Park. That let me unduly impress my hot date of the summer but took me down a peg or too in my own eyes since my connections had failed to secure tickets for me. (I was working part time as a bell hop at a local restaurant / motel complex and thought I was “grown up.”)

The Kingston Trio’s song is titled Ally Ally Oxen Free and reminds me of how long we’ve been trying, and failing, to make a world safe for children. And am I the onlly one old enough to remember Rod McKuen?

"Ally Ally Oxen Free"

Time to let the rain fall without the help of man
Time to let the trees grow tall. Now, if they only can
Time to let our children live in a land that's free
Ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free

Time to blow the smoke away and look at the sky again
Time to let our friends know we'd like to begin again
Time to send a message across the land and sea
Ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free

Strong and weak, mild and meek, no more hide and seek
Time to see the fairness of a children's game
Time for men to stop and learn to do the same
Time to make our minds up if the world at last will be
Ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free

Writer(s): Rod Mc Kuen, Yates Stephen

 

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It’s only 350 days ’til next Christmas

The Christmas tree has been denuded. Brittle, pointy, holly clusters are in the trash. Memories of younger days before empty nester time are floating rampant, like the ghosts of Christmas past, which they are! This year’s deconstruction went pretty smoothly with limited cursing by the man of the house as ornaments refused to be removed from branches. One of the all-time better Christmas albums, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas, lent an appropriate background to the day’s activities.

all gone goodbye for now

Photo by J. Harrington

Between now and Valentine’s we’ll celebrate MLK day and groundhog day and, with luck, an extended January thaw. But, for a few days, the magic of Christmas will be conspicuous by its absence, unless we learn to keep the feeling of Christmas in our hearts all year round. How hard could that be?

carrying the light of Christmas to Valentine's

Photo by J. Harrington

We had advent and Yule candles this year and we’re going to carry over two of them, the red ones in the hurricane lamps, until Valentine's. The cheery flames at dinner will serve as reminders of yule time and help warm our hearts through the cold days ahead. It’s not everything, but it’s a start.

Taking Down the Tree

By Jane Kenyon

"Give me some light!" cries Hamlet's

uncle midway through the murder

of Gonzago. "Light! Light!" cry scattering

courtesans. Here, as in Denmark,

it's dark at four, and even the moon

shines with only half a heart.

The ornaments go down into the box:

the silver spaniel, My Darling

on its collar, from Mother's childhood

in Illinois; the balsa jumping jack

my brother and I fought over,

pulling limb from limb. Mother

drew it together again with thread

while I watched, feeling depraved

at the age of ten.

With something more than caution

I handle them, and the lights, with their

tin star-shaped reflectors, brought along

from house to house, their pasteboard

toy suitcases increasingly flimsy.

Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.

By suppertime all that remains is the scent

of balsam fir. If it's darkness

we're having, let it be extravagant.

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The more things change...

The tree has been cut, shortened to fit the house, and is likely to get decorated over the weekend. Tomorrow the Better Half will bake her famous orange Christmas cookies and I will head for the big city to do a little shopping. Once again I will enter a book store sans the company of a responsible adult, so who knows what may happen.

If the sourdough rises overnight, tomorrow afternoon will be baking time for me (the kitchen isn’t big enough for two bakers at a time) since, in our  house, cookies usually take precedence over bread. A few years back, before we became empty nesters, Christmas cookie baking was a bigger deal. One year, or maybe two, I even got involved in the creation of a gingerbread village. All of this is leading to the observation that some of the best Christmas presents ever are happy memories from Christmases past with family and close friends, both four and two legged. Think about that the next time a MAGA relative sounds off at a family gathering. Remember that the Magi brought frankincense, myrrh and gold and that silence is golden.

Santa’s gingerbread village

Photo by J. Harrington

Among the ornaments going onto the tree this year are three new (to us) owls, antique french ornaments. I have long had a thing about owls and the Better Half often humors me with owl ornaments of various kinds. I just noticed several other owl ornaments on the tree and am beginning  to contemplate, for next year if the fates allow, a separate, smallish tree with all, but only, owl ornaments. Thinking  about that, maybe Mother  Nature will provide a Christmas present with an actual owl, probably barred, sitting in one of our trees where I can see it. It’s been quite some time since any owls have been seen around the yard, at least by me.

This posting was interrupted by a case of tipping (over) Christmas tree. I went off to get a bigger stand which seems to be helping. Stay tuned. All of which is causing me Christmas flashbacks to my father wrestling some Christmas trees into submission in the bay windows of the dining room in our Dorchester triple-decker. Some things may go into remission, but they never really change.

Christmas Cookies By C. F. Kelly

The mixer in the kitchen purrs; it twists and tosses as it stirs the cookie batter Mom will bake and then let me help decorate. The silver cutters wait in lines to shape their own unique designs when rolling pin has done its job and flattened out the doughy blob. She wipes her brow, adjusts her sleeves, and starts to cut out holly leaves, then picks the joyful rocking horse and stars and bells and birds, of course. The trees and Santas wait their turn, while angels, next to snow men, yearn to don their robes and join the crowd? I’m sure they want to sing out loud. The powdered sugar frosting spreads with ease and forms the sticky beds on which the colored sprinkles rest, where red-hot buttons look their best. And I would like to make it clear that these creations disappear because in spite of looking neat, they’re really baked for us to eat.

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The tease of a tree

Two weeks from today is the 2022 Winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere). Locally at 3:48 pm. Days will start to get longer on December 22, but only by one second, and temperatures will lag. Normal daytime high temperatures won’t get above freezing until late February or early March. Of course, we’re already into the second week of meteorological winter so we’re getting used to the snow and cold.

Yesterday’s birthday party was a success. The Texas barbecue dinner went well with my sourdough bread, or vice versa. The Daughter Person enjoyed her presents and the company of those bearing them. Beginning tomorrow, I think I get an early Christmas present, a week’s worth of daily high temperatures above freezing. That’ll make cleaning up after the intermittent snow showers less painful, starting tomorrow for this morning’s snow.

a tree of our own, soon

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ve not yet cut our tree because: other things. Maybe Friday? Decorate it over the weekend? That should work, weather permitting. Then we focus on Christmas / Son’s birthday on the 25th. Meanwhile, we (I) don’t have a clue what most of the family wants for Christmas. As usual, the Better Half will probably bail me out with crucial information over the next couple of days. In any event, so far we’re doing better than the Christmases when my father was fighting the Korean War and, I vaguely remember, my mother would head for the Christmas tree lot on Christmas Eve or the one before and haggle with the seller to get the price down as low as possible.

Christmas Trees

By Robert Frost

(A Christmas Circular Letter)

The city had withdrawn into itself

And left at last the country to the country;

When between whirls of snow not come to lie

And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove

A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,

Yet did in country fashion in that there

He sat and waited till he drew us out

A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.

He proved to be the city come again

To look for something it had left behind

And could not do without and keep its Christmas.

He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;

My woods—the young fir balsams like a place

Where houses all are churches and have spires.

I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.

I doubt if I was tempted for a moment

To sell them off their feet to go in cars

And leave the slope behind the house all bare,

Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.

I’d hate to have them know it if I was.

Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except

As others hold theirs or refuse for them,

Beyond the time of profitable growth,

The trial by market everything must come to.

I dallied so much with the thought of selling.

Then whether from mistaken courtesy

And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether

From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,

“There aren’t enough to be worth while.”

“I could soon tell how many they would cut,

You let me look them over.”

                                                     “You could look.

But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”

Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close

That lop each other of boughs, but not a few

Quite solitary and having equal boughs

All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,

Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,

With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”

I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.

We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,

And came down on the north. He said, “A thousand.”

“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”

He felt some need of softening that to me:

“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Then I was certain I had never meant

To let him have them. Never show surprise!

But thirty dollars seemed so small beside

The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents

(For that was all they figured out apiece),

Three cents so small beside the dollar friends

I should be writing to within the hour

Would pay in cities for good trees like those,

Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools

Could hang enough on to pick off enough.

A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!

Worth three cents more to give away than sell,

As may be shown by a simple calculation.

Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.

I can’t help wishing I could send you one,

In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

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Autumn-triggered nostalgia

The dogs and I got a really good look at an almost full moon this morning. It was bright white and high in the sky when we took our early after breakfast walk. As we reached the end of the drive and turned onto the road, I looked around and started to hear in my head the lyrics to a wonderful Cat Stevens hit from years ago. Although we posted yesterday that some call the September full moon the Harvest moon, I’ve always considered a harvest moon to be mellow yellow rather than bright white. Perhaps I’m remembering the years in which the Harvest moon occurred in October rather than September.

October full moon 2014

Photo by J. Harrington

Late night, early, early morning temperatures were in the low 40’s when the dog walking under the Harvest moon was going on. That contributed a lot to an autumnal atmosphere, although the deer we saw the other day are still in their summer coats. That must mean we’re in the midst of what I think of as a shoulder season, like the shoulder on a road is neither road nor field, we’re in the transition time between summer and autumn. Then shortly after peak autumn, we enter the shoulder between autumn and winter in late November, early December, unless, of course, we get another Halloween blizzard.

Lest we forget amidst the other trials and tribulations of the day:

Photograph from September 11

By Wisława Szymborska
Translated by Clare Cavanagh

They jumped from the burning floors—

one, two, a few more,

higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,

and now keeps them   

above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,

with a particular face

and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time

for hair to come loose,

for keys and coins

to fall from pockets.

They’re still within the air’s reach,

within the compass of places

that have just now opened.

I can do only two things for them—

describe this flight

and not add a last line.

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In memory of ...

Too many lives have been prematurely ended. Too many wars have been fought, some declared, many not. Our politics are again (still?) matters of life and death. I would suggest, as strongly as possible, that, in memory of those who have given their all to defend our freedoms, and those who mourn because of freedoms abused, we are well past the time when we need to stress responsibility more than rights. Exercising the latter while evading the former is wrong and not how we should be, or wish to be, remembered.

rest in peace

Photo by J. Harrington

When I was young, I would join my family on Memorial Day at the cemetery in which some of our predecessors were buried. That place is now half a country away. I wonder, from time to time, if our restless, often relocating society is undermining our sense of responsibility to each other. If you don’t have relatives in a local cemetery, does that diminish a sense of belonging? Do family graves help nourish our roots?

In Flanders Fields

John McCrae - 1872-1918

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 
To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
    If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
        In Flanders fields.

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Autumn’s memories

Neighborhood maple leaves are starting to turn color. Temperatures are pleasantly seasonal. More local apples are appearing at local grocery stores. (Honeycrisp apples from Chile seem to lack the flavor of locally grown.) Today, for the first time in some years, I ate a McIntosh. I don’t remember the ones in my childhood being quite as tart as the one I ate today.

autumn’s color begins

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning  a couple of tom turkeys slowly pecked their way through the back yard. Inside  the house, our dogs began barking. The turkeys stood straight  up, looked around, saw nothing, but decided the woods looked more appealing than the yard, and so headed toward the tree line, but without panicking. I found myself  wondering how they'll fare during the upcoming winter, and if one or both will be around come next spring’s hunting season. I also wondered if I’ll be ambitious enough next spring to get a license and sit under a tree at dawn for one or more days in a row. The amount  of time spent this winter practicing turkey calls will be an indicator of how seriously I want to hunt next spring.

One of my morning readings these days is a rereading of So Little Time: Words and Images for a World in Climate Crisis, edited by Greg Delanty. This morning I fed my New England roots by reading Hayden Carruth’s Marshall Washer. For the ten years or so before I left New England for Minnesota, parts of each autumn were spent in Northern New England, primarily Vermont, hunting ducks and grouse and, occasionally, whitetail deer. I believe I came to know some folks like Carruth and Washer and to respect them and their values. Part of my heartache these days is there no longer seems to be enough like them or those who first responded to the tragedies of twenty years ago today.

Everybody Has a Heartache: A Blues

By Joy Harjo

In the United terminal in Chicago at five on a Friday afternoon

The sky is breaking with rain and wind and all the flights

Are delayed forever. We will never get to where we are going

And there’s no way back to where we’ve been.

The sun and the moon have disappeared to an island far from 
anywhere.

Everybody has a heartache — 

The immense gatekeeper of Gate Z–100 keeps his cool.

This guardian of the sky teases me and makes me smile through the mess,

Building up his airline by stacking it against the company I usually travel:

Come on over to our side, we’ll treat you nice.

I laugh as he hands me back my ticket, then he turns to charm

The next customer, his feet tired in his minimum wage shoes.

Everybody has a heartache — 

The man with his head bobbing to music no one else can hear has that satisfied

Feel — a full belly of sweet and a wife who sings heartache to sleep.

In his luggage (that will be lost and never found) is a musty dream of flying

Solo to Africa, with a stop on the return to let go the stories too difficult to

Carry home. He’ll take off his shoes to walk in a warm, tropical sea.

He’ll sing to the ancestors:

Take me home to mama. No one cooks like her.

But all the mamas worked to the bone gone too young. 

Broken by The Man.

Everybody has a heartache —  

Everyone’s mouthing fried, sweet, soft and fat,

While we wait for word in the heart of the scrambled beast.

The sparkle of soda wets the dream core.

That woman over there the color of broth did what she was told.

It’s worked out well as can be expected in a world

Where she was no beauty queen and was never seen,

Always in the back of someplace in the back — 

She holds the newest baby. He has croup.

Shush, shush. Go to sleep, my little baby sheepie.

He sits up front of her with his new crop of teeth.

Everybody has a heartache — 

This man speaks to no one, but his body does.

Half his liver is swollen with anger; the other half is trying

To apologize — 

What a mess I’ve made of history, he thinks without thinking.

Mother coming through the screen door, her clothes torn,

Whimpering: It’s okay baby, please don’t cry.

Don’t cry. Baby don’t cry.

And he never cries again.

Everybody has a heartache — 

Baby girl dressed to impress, toddles about with lace on this and ruffle on that — 

Her mother’s relatives are a few hundred miles away poised to 
welcome.

They might as well live on a planet of ice cream.

She’s a brand new wing, grown up from a family’s broken hope.

Dance girl, you carry our joy.

Just don’t look down.

Everybody has a heartache — 

Good-looking punk girl taps this on her screen

to a stranger she has never seen:

Just before dawn, you’re high again beneath a marbled sky,

I was slick fine leather with a drink in my hand.

Flying with a comet messenger nobody sees.

The quick visitor predicts that the top will be the bottom

And the bottom will flatten and dive into the sea.

I want to tell her:

You will dine with the lobster king, and

You will dance with crabs clicking castanets. You will sleep-

Walk beyond the vestibule of sadness with a stranger

You have loved for years.

Everybody has a heartache — 

This silence in the noise of the terminal is a mountain of bison skulls.

Nobody knows, nobody sees — 

Unless the indigenous are dancing powwow all decked out in flash and beauty

We just don’t exist. We’ve been dispersed to an outlaw cowboy tale.

What were they thinking with all those guns and those handcuffs

In a size for babies?

They just don’t choose to remember.

We’re here.

In the terminal of stopped time I went unsteady to the beat,

Driven by a hungry spirit who is drunk with words and songs.

What can I do?

I have to take care of it.

The famished spirit eats fire, poetry, and rain; it only wants love.

I argue:

You want love?

Do you even know what it looks like, smells like?

But you cannot argue with hungry spirits.

I don’t know exactly where I’m going; I only know where I’ve been,

I want to tell the man who sifted through the wreck to find us here

In the blues shack of disappeared history — 

I feel the weight of his heart against my cheek.

His hand is on my back pulling me to him in the dark, to a place

No soldiers can reach.

I hear the whoop-cries of warriors calling fire for a stand 

Against the brutality of forgetfulness — 

Everybody has a heartache — 

We will all find our way, no matter fire leaping through holes in jump time,

No matter earthquake, or the breaking of love spilling over the dreck of matter

In the ether, stacking one burden

Against the other — 

We have a heartache.

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A Memorial Day icon

Fort Snelling is in Minnesota. Fort Snelling National Cemetery is adjacent to the the Historic Fort. A decade or so ago, an amateur photographer took a photo that has become an icon for Memorial Day. The Star Tribune published the back story on the photo and  the photographer. Today seems like a good day to share the photo and the story behind it as we honor the memories of all those who gave all in service to their country.

Fort Snelling Cemetery eagle by Frank Glick

The Fort Snelling area is sacred to the Dakota people, who know it as Bdote, “where two waters come together.” It is a place of many memories for many reasons for many peoples. May we all see ourselves and each other in beauty and gratitude.

Eagle Poem

By Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

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On the eve of Memorial Day...

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, "a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died in the performance of their military duties while serving in the United States Armed Forces.^[2]" Although my father served in both WWII and the Korean "police action," and my father-in-law served in WWII, neither "died in the performance of their military duties," for which their families are grateful. However, both men have now passed on and we tend to remember them as much or more so on Memorial Day as on Veteran's Day, perhaps because Veteran's Day rarely triggers a three day weekend at the beginning of summer and is often overshadowed by Thanksgiving two weeks afterwards.

Memorial Day poppies

When I was young and living in Massachusetts with my family of origin, I remember seeing, and hearing, military honor guards firing salutes at various cemeteries on Memorial Day. Since we've no family members interred in Minnesota, we've not visited any cemetery on Memorial Day or any other time. Our remembrances tend toward the private kind rather than a public honoring of those who deserve to be remembered for their sacrifices to protect their country.

In Flanders Fields

John McCrae - 1872-1918

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 
To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
    If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
        In Flanders fields.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.