4 a.m., May 3…….
Looking up from reading Wolf Willow
…the clock quietly ticking…
suddenly I’m not alone in the cool
lamplit room:
Stegner is sitting there in the squeaking rocker,
rocking slowly, by the cold wood stove.
He says nothing, just a wry smile,
a knowing look, deeper
than his starry Manitoba sky.
Facing each other in old worn chairs,
Beston and Borland muse about New England,
blue blizzards and lilacs, blowing
endless seasons across the ancient glacial hills;
how gold sunlight shimmers the steep sand,
the white sea birds, cold blue waters
sparkling, forever breaking, shaping
the outermost Cape.
At the black window, holding a red and silver
balalaika, Pasternak stands vigilant
in an embroidered peasant shirt, looking out
into tall bare birches, cold spring stars.
He turns to me with that perennial question
on his raw-boned Russian face, revealing
the deep pathos of shattered ideals,
of war, and loss.
Suddenly Akhmatova blows in from the night,
chilled, scented with passion and dried perfume,
broken loves like tender blossoms,
drops of blood on late spring snow ….
And over in the shadows sits
dark-eyed Jane Kenyon: her fingers resting
from gardening, from making luminescent words.
She puts down her half-empty glass of red wine
and crumbles old newspapers with split kindling.
Her voice is rich with flowers, and the sorrow
of killing frost, saying to the rest of us
“someone needs to build a fire”.
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–Quilla
May 15.13
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Black Locust in bloom, mid May
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‘Dogwood Winter and Locust Honey’
(For the column “Seasons in the Mountains”, The Asheville Tribune)
From my Nature Journal:
In the chill of a cold May morning, I put on hot water for tea and walk outdoors to check for frost. 37 degrees—not quite cold enough for ice crystals to form on tender leaves and flowers, killing the early, developing fruit. Perhaps the Blueberries will make it this year. But in these highland valleys, late May frosts are not rare. Winter makes one last turn, her icy teeth piercing the sweetness, the succulence of summer.
Once again, we’re enjoying the somewhat predictable annual occurrence of ‘Dogwood Winter’, a late spring cold snap that blows in when Dogwoods are blooming, often bringing the last frost until fall. ‘Blackberry Winter’ soon follows, Blackberry blossoms coating the spiny thickets like late wet snow.
I gaze upward into the deep azure of the mid-May morning sky, and watch spring’s first Chimney Swifts twittering and wheeling through the bright blue air. These fast little torpedo-shaped birds have returned from wintering in the rainforests of South America. The Swifts were not here yesterday. They arrived overnight, flying in the hazy gold light of Arcturus, brightest of the high spring stars. The diminutive feathered bullets will stay until late autumn, catching countless millions of insects on the wing. Unlike most birds, Chimney Swifts remain in flight almost constantly from dawn until dark, perching only to nest and to roost.
On my morning walk when the woods are still cool I catch the exquisitely sweet perfume of Black Locust in full bloom. The resilient wood of this tree is known for its durability and resistance to decay, and thus was used by the earlier settlers for cabin sills and fenceposts. Honeybees render the abundant Locust nectar into a delicate, almost clear white honey, available by early June. Poplar is another spring honey, but much darker, both in color and flavor.
Although I dearly relish the tangy Sourwood of late summer, I prize a quart of early Locust honey, for its delicate flowerlike essence, especially delicious on a big hot biscuit with real butter. I fondly recall an old beekeeper from thirty years ago, when we lived much further back in the mountains. Jim closely tended his bees and their hives, keeping the major nectar flows separate, for the purest strains of honey. Late each spring he would set aside a quart of clear Locust for me. I remember the particular sweetness of the honey, the pale colors of sunlight passing through the years.
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–Quilla
February 7.12
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Afterwards, Solitude
Finally, the last person has gone home
and you have gone upstairs, to bed.
Papers and drink cups lie and sit
around the quiet room,
having served their purposes.
I walk outside.
Late, the spring stars have risen over the trees,
Arcturus is hazy gold with approaching rain.
A slow train rumbles upriver.
Wind chimes jingle softly in the dark.
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Taking a break from a Movie. . .
. . . I walk out into the warm spring dark.
To the west the old Hunter—-Orion, and his dogs
Sirius and Procyon, go to their summer rest
in the branches of the black oak woods.
Overhead, the bright gold Shepherd Star
Arcturus, wanders the fields of April sky.
The low places ring jubilant frog music.
Life again breaks loose the bonds of ice,
of death, and sings! O praises, hear Life sing!
^
Tall birches sway the soft night breezes
rushing through young leaves, like soft waters,
like young girls laughing at our unsolved mysteries.
I leave all this—much more than I can see or hear
or know (much less, understand)—go back indoors.
How out of kilter, we humans are:
spending years of nights watching other humans
saying inane things upon a screen.
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Ruach 333, by Quilla 