Today is the last day of this Minnesota legislative session. The evening weather forecast for today is full of thunderstorms. Some of us don't think that's coincidental. Democrats have a one vote edge in the senate and the house is evenly split with a Republican speaker. Will we ever grow up enough to elect those who believe solving problems is more important than win-lose? Should we only vote for those with knowledge about Multi-solving?
One of my long-time favorite authors has a (relatively) new book. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass and The Serviceberry, has written Bud Finds Her Gift. I'm planning on sharing it with our five year old granddaughter soon. Meanwhile, Ive been enjoying it myself. (Evidence I'm just an aged kid? Perhaps!)
Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) in bloom
Locally the trees are mostly leafed out with few bare branches visible. Lilac buds have developed on our bushes. It's about time to look for trillium in bloom. The rain we're supposed to get over the next several days should help bring some additional flowers into bloom but may make planting season messy and muddy for farmers in the area.
Yesterday, I baked a round loaf of sourdough bread full of blueberry jammies. The jammies turned the dough into a slippery, sticky mess, perhaps aided and abetted by suboptimal starter. The crust is darker than I like and the crumb more moist than I prefer. The bread is edible but I need to work on my technique. I'm not baking regularly enough to stay in shape; actually, to keep my loaves in shape. Time to adopt Samuel Beckett's perspective: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."
Yesterday Saturday's snow melted back to bare ground. Several inches more is currently in the forecast for next weekend. Maybe the forecast will improve by midweek. Non-freezing rain is preferable to snow. On the brighter side, red osier dogwood stems are bright red and willow branches have turned golden. Spring is waiting in the wings.
Several pairs of swans are hanging around on the graying ice of Pool 1 in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area and we spotted flocks of waterfowl loafing in an oversized farm-field puddle south of Forest Lake. Slowly we expect frozen to thaw, migrants to return or pass through, and more wildlife and avian mating to get underway. Writing this blog posting yesterday was interrupted by one of the most spectacular sunsets I can recall seeing. This morning I saw and heard a "V" of northbound Canada geese. There may yet be hope for an end to winter.
I'm looking forward to seeing if the serviceberry bushes I (re)planted last summer made it through the winter. (The first bushes died withing several weeks. The current ones made it through several months of Summer and Autumn.) Although tempted to write "I hope they made it," my current rereading of Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark has put a twist in my understanding of "hope." She writes:
“I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the
foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts
necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by
principle in the meantime. There is no alternative, except surrender.
And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandons the soul.”
I really like that belief although I've never thought of hope that way. Perhaps I'm not too old to augment or modify my beliefs. Anyhow my rereading is to help maintain some semblance of sanity in today's world and to prepare for reading Solnit's latest, The Beginning Comes After the End, which was published last week. I expect to get a copy within a fortnight.
There is much happening, or not happening, in the world about which I can do little by myself. Several of the conservation organizations to which I belong are not as assertive as I would like about the issues I find important. One thing I can control, on a good day, is my reaction to the world and my behavior. (Who else do you know that keeps a small poster that says "You know it was a good day if you didn't hit or bite anyone.") (Re)reading Solnit (and Donella Meadows Dancing with Systems) is a big factor helping me to put a few good days together.
Last week we saw a very rare occurrence for Minnesota in mid-February: not one but two separate and distinct motorcycles were on the road last Saturday! We've be experiencing an extended, unseasonably warm spell for about a week now, with several daytime high temperatures approaching or exceeding 50℉. Much of the snow on the driveway has melted down to the ice layer that was laid down last month with freezing rain. It will be interesting to see if most of the ice melts before it rains and snows later this week. This is not your grandpa's average North Country winter. However, the weather this past week does have me believing that spring iis not just a hypothetical possibility.
I'm getting close to finishing reading All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. Over the weekend I read Judith D. Schwartz' essay "Water Is a Verb." In part it restated a theme from Hydrate the Earthas a significant solution to our emergent climate crisis. Agriculture and land management are affected by climate change, but the hydrologic cycle and the ability of plants and healthy soil to function as carbon sinks has not been given enough attention of an appropriate type.
Similar perspective adjusting themes are found in Paul Hawken's Carbon and Erica Gies' Water Always Wins. Each of the preceding sources helps us look through the correct end of the telescope to see that much of the solution to our problems involves better, more integrated management of what we do, rather than making a mess and cleaning it up afterward. Think more systems management rather than pollution control.
As I thought about some of these themes and approaches, I found myself reverting to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, a book I read more than 50 years ago. She was much more successful at limiting the excessive reliance on the pesticides of her day than we have been at mitigating and adapting to our addiction to fossil fuel production and consumption. Improving our soil health and water health and therefore public health may turn out to be a healthier solution for our planet and its inhabitants. Check out one or more of the books and authors mentioned and see what you think.
She’s been in this world for over a year,
and in this world not everything’s been examined
and taken in hand.
The subject of today’s investigation
is things that don’t move by themselves.
They need to be helped along,
shoved, shifted,
taken from their place and relocated.
They don’t all want to go, e.g., the bookshelf,
the cupboard, the unyielding walls, the table.
But the tablecloth on the stubborn table
—when well-seized by its hems—
manifests a willingness to travel.
And the glasses, plates,
creamer, spoons, bowl,
are fairly shaking with desire.
It’s fascinating,
what form of motion will they take,
once they’re trembling on the brink:
will they roam across the ceiling?
fly around the lamp?
hop onto the windowsill and from there to a tree?
Mr. Newton still has no say in this.
Let him look down from the heavens and wave his hands.
This experiment must be completed.
And it will.
—Wisława Szymborska
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
Winter is approaching, a time for slowing down and storytelling. For some of us that also means more reading, although I suspect the Better Half is dubious that, for me, more reading is possible. She may have a point but I'm now working hard to limit doomscrolling and reading more positive content. You'll see what I mean below when you get to the cluster of links.
some years the deer don't wait 'til after Halloween
The pumpkins and jack-o'-lantern have been put in the field behind the house so deer can feed on them. The local firearms season ends today so no one is likely to be accused of hunting over bait. I didn't hunt this year (again) and the Son-In-Law only hunted here one day after we saw a wonderful buck just before dusk one afternoon this past week.
This year I've done a much better job of managing and mulching leaves than I have in years past. We've got lots of bare ground that needs reseeding with shade-tolerant grass. Maybe next year I'll look for shade-tolerant sod. Is there such a thing?
The replacement serviceberry bushes seem to be surviving. Their leaves changed color this past week. I may try to water them once more before the snow sets in. The local weather forecasts have been including showers that never arrive so I've been holding off watering in hope that....
There is a wonderful, thoughtful "featured essay" in The Guardian. I urge you to take some time to read Megan Mayhew Bergman's The last frontier of empathy: why we still struggle to see ourselves as animals. I particularly enjoyed it since I've recently started reading David R. Boyd's The Rights of Nature. I suspect there's a number of folks who might be more comfortable if such themes were reframed as the responsibilities of humans. A long time ago I was taught that having rights incurs corresponding responsibilities, a lesson that seems to have been lost on all too many of our "leaders."
Ada Limón captures many themes related to nature and rights in her wonderful poem Startlement, from her new collection of the same title. See what you think as you read the version printed in a recent interview with her.
Startlement. It is a forgotten pleasure. The pleasure of the unexpected
blue-bellied lizard skittering off his sunspot rock, the flicker of an
unknown bird by the bus stop. To think, perhaps we are not
distinguishable, and therefore, no loneliness can exist here. Species to
species in the same blue air, smoke, wing flutter buzzing, a car horn
coming, so many unknown languages to think we have only honored this
strange human tongue. If you sit by the riverside, you see a culmination
of all things upstream. We know now we were never at the circle's
center. Instead, all around us, something is living or trying to live.
The world says what we are becoming, we are becoming together. The world
says one type of dream has ended, and another has just begun. The world
says once we were separate, and now we must move in unison.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
This week, Oct 5 - 11, is Banned Books Week. Please try to read at least one from the lists of thousands of books banned during the past year. Remember, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Keep your mind busy by reading. Disobey Big Brother and The Party!
After today, actual temperatures should approach a more seasonable level than the windy mid- to upper- 80s we've been experiencing, at least most places other than Washington, D.C., where folks are busy exhaling hot air and blaming someone else rather than actually solving problems for anyone other than pedophiles or the top 1% of wealth holders.
According to the Minnesota DNR, locally we should experience peak leaf color about the end of the week, so next weekend would be a good time to put down the banned book you've been reading and got for a walk or drive and do some leaf peeping. While you're doing that, you might want to think about how Joy Harjo has managed to not get any of her books banned.
And whom do I call my enemy?
An enemy must be worthy of engagement.
I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.
It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.
It sees and knows everything.
It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.
The door to the mind should only open from the heart.
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
The week just ended our area "greened up." Grass that had been brown grew and greened. American goldfinch males are now mostly chrome yellow. Decorative bushes in urban yards are in pale pink flower. Thunderstorms, some of which may be severe, are forecast for tomorrow.
Thursday this week coming is May Day. It's also "Beltane (Beltaine, Belltaine, Bealtaine, Beltain, Beltine, Bealteine, Bealtuinn,
Boaldyn), meaning ‘bright fire’ or ‘lucky fire’ is held on May 1st (May
15th in Scotland) and celebrates the start of summer, the crop and
pasturing season." Some local farmers have been working their fields already.
Yesterday, Independent Bookstore Day, the Better Half and I headed for our local Indie, Scout & Morgan, to pick up my recently arrived copy of Phenology by Theresa Crimmins. Earlier, I had enjoyed reading the beginning of Bookstores are arsenals of democracy. If we don't lose power tomorrow, I'll finish the essay while watching the rain. The theme is sadly fitting for current events and a reminder that we've been "here," or near here, several times before. With any luck, Kash won't last nearly as long as J. Edgar!
We got five or six inches of snow late Friday and early Saturday. The birds have been pouring in to the feeders: goldfinches, juncoes, woodpeckers, cardinals, bluejays, nuthatches and chickadees for the most part. My aging shoulders ache from wrestling with the snow blower. Spring can’t arrive soon enough as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, we’re again looking at a week ahead full of days with high temperatures in the single digits, at least according to my smartphone weather app. The Weather Underground outlook is marginally more optimistic.
On a more pleasant theme, we got an early start baking Irish soda bread this week, instead of waiting until next month for St. Patrick’s Day. I’ve almost finished reading a book the Daughter Person lent me (which the Better Half assures me she read to our kids when they were young): Wise Child by Monica Furlong. I have no memory of it but find the current reading to be delightful. I’ll be curious to see how I react to the other two books in the series. Mentioned previously on these pages has been the forced bulb garden the Better Half gave me for Christmas. Watching it bloom has helped my sanity immeasurably during this interminable winter season. A version from 2023 is shown above.
Despite the goings on in D.C., this is still Black History Month. As a matter of fact, here’s a link to this year’s presidential proclamation announcing it. (I took a screen shot as backup.) Today’s poem feels fitting for all of US during the times and goings on the administration is shoveling on US. I wonder how much “love of country” will be in the air come Friday.
It’s the middle of the last week of 2024. I’m contemplating a New Year’s Resolution to give up doom scrolling. That probably also means no more reading Guardian and slashdot. But, other than support the #resistance, there’s only so much you and I can do to increase sanity and kindness while we wait for evolution to do its job. Have you figured out how to not watch a MAGAt train wreck in progress?
On the other hand, one of the books I’m reading, What If We Get It Right?, is full of examples and good news on how smart, creative, folks are dealing with our “climate futures.” Based on what I’ve read so far, they seem to be having an awfully good time while they’re at it. Plus, the extended weather forecast, at least for the moment, has several days with sunshine (whatever that is) coming up around the start of the new year. I was about to write that we can’t create our weather when I realized that’s precisely what we’re doing by increasing climate volatility with our greenhouse gas emissions. Maybe we need to focus on fixing more than fighting while we wait for evolution to do its job.
One of my Christmas presents from the Better Half is a “spring morning” forced bulb garden. Green sprouts have already appeared, much like last year’s version. I’m looking forward to an early spring, at least indoor, and maybe even in the yard. We’re now in the midst of an early January thaw. The snow is melted. Mornings and nights are foggy / hazy / freezing, making for slippery travel. I remember reading, several years ago, a report that asserted climate change would make Minnesota’s winters more like Missouri’s. There appears to be a fair amount of accuracy in that assessment.
I do believe the world has entered a period of major transformation. Perpetual growth isn’t feasible on a finite planet. Our global economy is based on the necessity of perpetual growth. We must develop and implement alternatives such as Doughnut Economics and a Steady State Economy. The knowledge is available. It’s up to US to provide the political will to use it. Maybe the incoming administration will provide just the impetus we need to do much better in the future we help create.
For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.
Open the door, then close it behind you.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.
Give it back with gratitude.
If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.
Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.
Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.
Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.
Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you. Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.
Don’t worry. The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.
The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.
Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.
Do not hold regrets.
When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.
You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.
Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.
Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.
Ask for forgiveness.
Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.
Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.
You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.
Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.
Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.
Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.
Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.
Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
Today is the penultimate day of September 2024. Haven’t seen a hummingbird at the feeder all week. Wasps and/or hornets are about everywhere, building nests and being annoying. Temperatures have been running close to 20 degrees above normal this week past but are expected to become seasonable, or close to it, come mid-week, early October. This in a state that decades ago became famous for a Halloween blizzard. This morning I found a woolly bear showing four bands of ginger, of 13(?) total bands. It’s an unrepresentative sample size, but it may portend a winter thats more wintery than usual. Meanwhile, there’s at least half a dozen lilac bushes in the neighborhood that are in bloom.
In a typical year, we’d be looking toward peak leaf color over the next couple of weeks. It’s been very slow developing this year. September has been more like July, plus we keep discovering more lilac bushes in bloom. Birds and butterflies seem to be moving south, but that must be due to day length more than our weather. Did I mention all the lilacs in bloom? In September?
We aided and abetted our Granddaughter and her friends and relations celebrate a 4 year old's birthday last week. I had forgotten that just opening presents is considered as much fun as playing with or trying on what’s getting unwrapped, especially if there’s a big pile of presents to be unwrapped before we get to the birthday cake. There was a strong horsey theme since a certain 4 year old has been taking, and enjoying, riding lessons these days.
It looks like, with two minutes to go in today’s game and a nine point lead, the Vikings are going to beat Green Bay and start the season 4 and 0. Our football fan son will be gleeful. I’m still touchy having rooted for a team that’s lost the Superbowl four times. (Final today: Vikings 31 Green Bay 29)
I’ve been working, without as much success as I’d like, at letting go of expectations and living in the moment. With the weather changes and the constant revisions in technology and business practices, that seems wise but requires the retraining of a lifetime’s conditioning. I have a book on order that should arrive this coming week, written by Jenny Odell, titled How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. I’d been toying with reading it and, in one of the reviews I read, saw the mention of bioregionalism. I was hooked and look forward to reading about the combination.
The Woolly Bear
Along a silvan lane, you spy a critter creeping with a mission, a woolly bear fattened on autumn flora. So you crouch, noting her triple stripes: the middle ginger, each end as black as space. Her destination is some unnoticed nook, a sanctuary to settle in, greet the fangs of frost, then freeze, wait winter out—lingering, lost in dreams of summer, milkweed, huckleberry. Though she’s in danger of obliteration by wheel or boot, your fingers now unhinge her. She bends into a ball of steel. No “ouch” from bristles on your palm as you prepare to toss her lightly to the forest litter.
She flies in a parabola, and lands in leaves. Though she has vanished, both your hands hold myriad tiny hairs, a souvenir scattered like petals. When this hemisphere turns warm again, she’ll waken, thaw, and feast on shrubs and weeds (the bitterer the better) then, by some wondrous conjuring, released from larval life. At length she will appear a moth with coral wings — they’ll bravely bear her through a night of bats or headlight glare, be pulverized like paper in a shredder, or briefly flare in a world that will forget her.
If the weather were like today’s year ‘round, I might be willing to give up four seasons. That’s how nice today is after yesterday’s downpours (2+ inches in our area). Overnight we dropped into the mid50’s and reached the mid70s today with sunshine and a gentle breeze. I’m going to hope all stays dry and maybe mow tomorrow.
Meanwhile, remember the old tv program Hawaii Five-0? And the tag line “Book ‘em, Danno?” I’m applying that as I start to bring some semblance of organization to my stacks and shelves and boxes of books. Undoubtedly it would help if I had the sense to use a simple sort such as arranged alphabetically by author’s last name, but that’s not really how I think. I try to organize by genre and / or theme like rivers or poetry of place. Then I lose it when I have to decide where to shelve a book of poems about the St. Croix River and does the Kinnickinnic get a separate section to itself with mixed nonfiction and poems? Nor does it help that I confound my collection of unread and partially read books by rereading some at the same time. I wonder of there’s a local group therapy available for those like me, or am I alone in these conundrums?
I do realize how lucky I am that this is the kind of issue that gets my attention. There are many things about which I’m troubled but can’t really do a lot. There’s one book I’ve been looking for for about 10 days now and I can’t find it. That’s something I believe I should be able to do something about but I keep tripping over “but how to organize?” No doubt it would simplify things if I sold some of the excess but that would necessitate getting books organized well enough to decide what I might want to sell. Catch 22 strikes again. If I live long enough, I’ll probably make some progress, especially if I narrow down my eclectic list of interests. But that seems like throwing out baby, bathwater and bath tub, too radical a solution to a problem of limited shelf space.
It’s finally stopped raining long enough for me to do a second grass cutting of the season in the back yard. I was also going to mow our ditch where the dogs do most of their business but an orange butterfly, with spots, a fritillary I think, landed on some of the yellow wildflower/weed blossoms that would have been mown into oblivion. That deterred me from ditch mowing today.
Earlier, the Better Half and I headed off to the farm to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture [CSA] share. The share box contained:
GREEN CABBAGE
EITHER CARROTS OR GOLDEN NUGGET CHERRY TOMATOES (I think we got carrots)
SNAP PEAS
KALE
BEETS WITH TOPS
SCAPES
BABY ONIONS
SLICER CUCUMBER, and
CILANTRO
During the drive we got a look at a couple of whitetail does and a few small flocks of wild turkeys. All in all a pleasant way to start a weekend.
Yesterday we threatened, or promised, depending on your viewpoint, to spend more time engaged with fly-fishing. Last night, while (re)reading Peter Kaminsky’s Fly Fisherman’s Guide to the Meaning of Life, we reached the chapter on A Fly Fisher’s Essential Reading. I thought you might enjoy seeing what and who's listed:
In Our Time, Earnest Hemingway
Trout Madness, Robert Traver
A River Runs through It, Norman Maclean
Tarpon Quest, John Cole
Fy Fishing through the Midlife Crisis, Howell Raines
Superior Fishing, Robert B. Roosevelt
Spring Creek, Nick Lyons
Hatches, Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi
The Fly and the Fish, John Atherton
Fishing wth McClane, A. J. McClane
I was pleased to note that I’ve read about half of the titles listed and other works of several of the authors listed. Once I’ve confirmed whether or not a couple of titles are lurking somewhere on our book shelves, we may add one or two of these to an upcoming Christmas list.
I’m not happy with the presumed choices in presidential candidates this election, but the odds are strongly against my vote going anywhere except the Blue column. Do I care enough to vote in the local (state) primary? We’ll see. At the moment I’m not aware of any contests that affect my legislative, congressional, or statewide races. My thinking is that the Democrats have made such a mess of things that I’ll give them a vote but no more dollars. In fact, I’m contemplating going beyond that reduction.
Some years ago, a writer named Seth Godin claimed we now live in an “attention economy.” Several out-of-state Democrats have been spamming my email box with requests for donations. I keep reporting them as spam but the messages continue to arrive, doing no more than pi** me off at the sender candidate, the Democratic Party, and all politicians in general. I am officially, as of today, withdrawing my attention from the political economy until about November 5th or whenever I get around to early voting.
No matter what I do, the political system is unlikely to reform itself. It is, therefore, my responsibility to prevent it from doing unnecessary damage to my mental, emotional, and physical well-being. I intend to take the time I’ve been spending looking at news and doom-scrolling social media doing things that are of more immediate relevance to my life and much more capable of bringing joy into my existence. Mostly, that’s going to involve participating in, reading about, and enjoying fly-fishing, environmental healing, and similar themes.
A former Speaker of the House, from my home state of Massachusetts, Tip O’Neil once noted that “All politics is local.” I’ve been active in local issues and opportunities, it’s time to become more so. My life needs decluttering and this feels like the best time and theme on which to start. The political world, especially, is full of more bitching and moaning than I can (under)stand.
Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed: He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
You can thank my Better Half for today’s posting. This morning she sent me a gift link to a Boston Globe article about the upcoming launch, this Friday, June 14, of Ada Limón’s You Are Here project at the Cape Cod National Seashore. We’ve been enjoying and sharing her poems for almost a decade now. We’ve already read the poetry anthology that’s also part of her poet laureate project, You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World, and intend to reread it more carefully over the summer. I’m finding it challenging to relate some of the more creative poetry forms to my perspectives on nature and want to decide if the issue is with me, the poems, or the combination. I have a strong predilection for plain-spoke poetry and I think that may be the source of my discomfort with some of the selections.
As an interesting aside, at least to me, none of the seven poems and poets selected to be installed on picnic tables at the seven National Parks are included in the anthology. Perhaps it’s a spread the wealth, broaden the awareness, strategy. I think I’m going to need to print each of the picnic table poems and add those pages to the back of the anthology. What perfectionist OCD? Me? Nah!
I found it silly,, how happy it made me, to be reading about the event scheduled for Provincetown this Friday. Cape Cod in general, and P’town in particular, are part of “home" to me. I only visited the city on a few occasions, but my friends and I regularly fished for stripers off of Race Point most summers for several years before I left New ENgland. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go read some poems and wax nostalgic. You can take the boy out of the ocean but you can’t take the ocean out of the boy.
I used to pretend to believe in God. Mainly, I liked so much to talk to someone in the dark. Think of how far a voice must have to travel to go beyond the universe. How powerful that voice must be to get there. Once in a small chapel in Chimayo, New Mexico, I knelt in the dirt because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. That was before I learned to harness that upward motion inside me, before I nested my head in the blood of my body. There was a sign and it said, This earth is blessed. Do not play in it. But I swear I will play on this blessed earth until I die. I relied on a Miracle Fish, once, in New York City, to tell me my fortune. That was before I knew it was my body’s water that moved it, that the massive ocean inside me was what made the fish swim.
I think I’ve finally figured out a way to spend more time appreciating, enjoying, and being grateful for what I have (instead of focusing on what I want that I don’t already have). Over the course of the summer, I’m going to get my stacks of books organized. They may not end up well organized, but whatever I end up with will be an improvement over the random, mixed stacks lying hither and yon. In the process, I hope to distinguish among those already read, those partially read, and those unread. At the risk of being excessively optimistic, I may also get my fly-fishing gear organized so that, if the wind stops blowing and the rain stops falling torrentially, I may get to go fishing.
It has slowly occurred to me that I can’t try to better organize my personal library until I’ve first organized my personal library. As Lao Tzu noted some years ago “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” My single step is this public announcement of my intent to organize my library. I almost typed “try to organize” until I remembered Yoda “Do or do not. There is no try.”
That’s all for now. I’m going to clean oak catkins out of the gutter so it will stop overflowing onto the front stoop. It will be interesting to see if my strength matches my growing ambitions.
I've read a couple of books by, and read a blog of Chris La Tray, mentioned below. I've read a number of works by two of Minnesota's Poet Laureates, Joyce Sutphen and Gwen Nell Westerman. I believe poetry can, and does, help bring folks together in a meaningful way and bridges differences among US. Perhaps you remember Minnesota’s US Senator, presidential candidate, and poet, Gene McCarthy? We could use more poet-lawmakers like him.
State Poet Laureates Write Rural Into Their Rhyme Schemes
by Pat Raia, The Daily Yonder May 15, 2024
Recently, Barbara Smith's son Jason was playing a game of pool with his buddies in Wyoming when he abruptly left the game to attend his mother's poetry reading.
“The other men came with him and they were surprised and I think happy to be there,” Smith recalls. “I don't think they had been at a poetry reading before.”
As Wyoming's poet laureate, it's Smith's mission to bring poetry to communities throughout the state, especially to those for whom poetry seems least accessible.
She thinks that's especially important in rural communities that want to preserve their collective past.
“I like to go into places in small communities such as libraries where people can come together and talk about their experiences, and I encourage them to write their experiences, and about finding a home here – to tell their story – the real history of America that can be written.”
Wyoming Poet Laureate Barbara Smith. (Photo provided)
Appointed last October by an Executive Order from Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, Smith is one of 46 state poet laureates, or State Poets, throughout the U.S. who are appointed according to legislative directive. In most cases, including Wyoming, the state's Arts and Humanities Council collects nominations from the public, then makes recommendations for gubernatorial appointment. Most serve two-year terms though some serve longer. All serve at the pleasure of the Governor.
While most state poet laureates conduct occasion-specific readings of their work at special sessions of the State Legislature, appear at literary festivals, lead poetry workshops, and write poems for commemorative and other special events around the state, each poet laureate creates his or her own agenda after accepting the appointment.
For Nebraska State Poet Matt Mason, that means traveling to schools all over the state demonstrating that students – and their teachers – can be poets, too.
“I visit the largest schools in the state and the smallest rural ones, too and the kids and their teachers can't imagine writing their own poetry, so I tell them that if they write a poem and put it in a drawer then go back five years later, if they have the same feeling (when the wrote it), then they have done it,” says Mason who was appointed to his position in 2019 by then Governor John Ricketts. “In rural communities especially I want to get people to see that poetry and the rest of the arts are normal.”
In fact that's the mission of many poet laureates from largely rural states, even though these states have oft-unrecognized rich literary histories.
Nebraska Poet Laureate Matt Mason. (Photo provided)
According to Erika Hamilton, Ph.D. director of literary programs for the nonprofit organization Humanities Nebraska, Nebraska has been naming State Poets since 1921. Two years later, Oklahoma became the seventh state to name a poet laureate.
More recently, Wyoming's first poet laureate was named in January 1981, and Montana appointed its first poet laureate in 2005.
A rural poet laureate is fundamental to reminding residents of rural communities of the culture that they share, says Rachel Clifton, executive director of the Wyoming Arts Council.
“For example, Wyoming is the least populated state in the country but we have a lot of shared experiences,” Clifton says. “Putting [rural communities] in forefront gives [those experiences] a different lens and understanding.”
That's why Oklahoma poet laureate Jay Snider makes sure that every one of his presentations includes a history lesson, too.
For the past 20 years, Snider has been writing and publicly reading what he calls “Cowboy Poetry,” rhymed and metered ballads that men driving cattle on the Chisholm Trail from Texas through the Oklahoma Territory to Kansas would recite to the herd.
Oklahoma Poet Laureate Jay Snider. (Photo provided)
“On the cattle drives they learned that the cattle would settle down if they sang or recited poetry because the last thing you wanted was a stampede,” Snyder explains. “They wrote about their work, their horses, the cattle and ranching – about their lives – and that's what I've been going to schools and museums to encourage kids to do – it’s all about the stories.”
In Montana, poet laureate Chris La Tray travels the state's vast distances sharing stories and poetry with students elementary school through college, groups of adults, and seniors. His poetry addresses issues of cultural identity, nature, and what the future looks like in Montana.
“I may be in front of an audience for an hour and only read three poems [because] it's about storytelling,” says La Tray, who is a member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. “Ultimately a poet's job is to speak truth to power.”
According to Smith, that's especially important in rural areas of Wyoming where communities grapple with recent attention from outsiders that will almost certainly bring change.
Montana Poet Laureate Chris La Tray. (Photo provided)
Among them are Bill Gates, who plans to build the Terra-Power Natrium nuclear power plant in Wyoming's high desert region, and folks relocating to rural communities from the well-heeled Jackson Hole area of the state.
“People from Jackson Hole to are looking to buy up traditional ranches there, and build gated communities – so it gets expensive for the people who are living there, also people will be moving in the area to build and support the plant all with the expected impact on the cost of real estate,” Smith says of her home state. “My mission is to engage people (in the desert and elsewhere) to explore what's happening in their communities by means of poetry.”
Meanwhile, Jay Snider believes that promoting poetry and encouraging young poets is crucial no matter where people live.
“I still write cowboy poetry, but I've read and studied classical poetry as well,” Snider says.”I want to bring that to the forefront too, because if we don't keep that alive we're going to lose the whole genre in one generation.”
This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
Yesterday, the first hummingbird of the year, a female ruby-throated, showed up at the nectar feeder. Today, I noticed an abundance of trees covered in blossoms, roadsides and medians highlighted with bright yellow floral accents, but no sign, yet, of Canada goose goslings, at least for me. The Better Half claims to have seen some near the Sunrise River pools during the past few days. Spring continues to triumph over winter in more and more ways, with ephemeral wildflowers and downy goslings still to come. Meanwhile, we’re still working up to getting this year’s fishing licenses. That’s next week’s priority, after we celebrate Mother’s Day.
Canada geese on a small pond, no goslings visible yet
I’ve been enjoying reading Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability. I got a copy through a non-renewable interlibrary loan and doubt I’ll finish it before the due date. That probably means a request for a copy of my very own goes on a list for Father’s Day or my birthday next month. It was very shortsighted of me to manage to get born so close to Father’s Day that sometimes all the celebrations (and presents) get jumbled into one. Our son out did me though. He was born on December 25.
Our major accomplishments for today are likely to be getting the first half of the year’s property taxes paid and using elbow grease and Bartender’s Friend to remove 80% plus of the calcium ring around the inside of the downstairs toilet bowl. One or two more episodes and the remains should end up just about invisible. It had gotten to be a continuing point of annoyance to get the bathroom essentially clean but still have that stain staring up at us. Hard water, even with a good softening system, can be a pain to live with.
As you can see from today’s report, one of the problems with retirement is you never get a day off. We’ll just try to make the best of it that we can, for as long as we can.
Today is the day the first bare-chested runners appear, coursing down College Hill as I drive to campus to teach, hard
not to stare because it’s only February 15, and though I now live in the South, I spent my girlhood in frigid Illinois hunting Easter eggs
in snow, or trick-or-treating in the snow, an umbrella protecting my cardboard wings, so now it’s hard not to see these taut colts as my reward, these yearlings
testing the pasture, hard as they come toward my Nissan not to turn my head as they pound past, hard not to angle the mirror to watch them cruise
down my shoulder, too hard, really, when I await them like crocuses, search for their shadows as others do the groundhog’s, and suddenly here they are, the boys
without shirts, how fleet of foot, how cute their buns, I have made it again, it is spring. Hard to recall just now that these are the torsos
of my students, or my past or future students, who every year grow one year younger, get one year fewer of my funny jokes and hip references
to Fletch and Nirvana, which means some year if they catch me admiring, they won’t grin grins that make me, busted, grin back--hard to know a spring will come
when I’ll have to train my eyes on the dash, the fuel gauge nearing empty, hard to think of that spring, that
distant spring, that very very very (please God) distant spring.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
With the unusually warm weather we’ve been enjoying, I started thinking about reconnecting the outside hoses and turning on the water supply. The prospect of grassfires remains moderate in our area so a readily available water source might be advisable. Then again, we can expect below freezing overnight temperatures through the rest of this month. Frozen hoses wouldn’t be very helpful. Then again, I didn’t drain the hoses last autumn when we shut off the water to the outside faucets. Maybe the best option will be to check things out next week if we really get several days in the 60s.
Even with, perhaps especially with, an almost snowless and coldless winter, I’m feeling pent up and penned in as a consequence of excessive time spent resting on my gluteus maximus muscles during the past several months, combined with day upon day spent looking at a drab, oak-leaf covered landscape.
Sometime, I think last year, the Better Half gave me a copy of Things to Look Forward to. I believe it’s time to reread it, perhaps several times. The next seven+ months are likely to be trying, regardless of the results come November. Many, probably most, of US are going to need things to look forward to and (re)learn to be grateful for. Trials, tribulations and turmoil are likely to beset US until we again reach a more stable balance and restore a modicum of, if not tranquility, at least tolerance for those with variant viewpoints.
