Song for Autumn

There was an empty spot on our walk this morning. And although my heart broke, just a bit, and my eyes searched--if only briefly--the ground for the simple leaf with the heart-shaped hole, so much so that even Dunc joined in the search, I took a deep breath, sighed and smiled all at once, and took comfort in the presence of my good--my best--golden friend, decided to enjoy the morning, the nakedness of the trees and the wider glory of the sky and the sun, unencumbered through the branches, casting wider swaths of honeyed light across the day.

There is much to be thankful for on an Autumn morning and even though my leaf is gone, my heart is full and content, and ready. My heart is always ready.

Song for Autumn

In the deep fall
    don't you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
    the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
    freshets of wind? And don't you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
    warm caves, begin to think

of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
    inside their bodies? And don't you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
    the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
    vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
    its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
    the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

Mary Oliver is my favorite poet. Do you have a favorite poem? Share it in a comment. The world is so much better when people comment.

Grandpa's Poetry

My grandfather is the kind of man by which I measure all others. It seems there was nothing he could not do or figure out. As a child I was fascinated by him, by the stories he told and the sound effects he injected throughout, the beeps and toots and whistles. He is a natural musician, playing the guitar, singing in his smooth tenor voice, learning the harmonica in only a day. It was my grandfather who taught me to whistle, and despite the fact that I whistle almost constantly, I will never be half as good as he is in his sleep. He knows how to fix things like cars and sinks and showers and toilets. He is an outdoors man and many of my earliest memories of him are centered around camping trips and fishing excursions or the places in-between, when he would set me on his lap and let me drive the turquoise green truck we took on so many of those trips, keeping a careful finger at the bottom of the steering wheel as I was hardly big enough to see over the dashboard. Grandma was kind enough to feign fear and cover her eyes as she squealed. But it thrilled me and Grandpa always made me feel capable and brave and I loved nothing more than when he'd rest his heavy hand on my shoulder and call me "son." He is a hunter with a tremendous love and respect for the wild places of the world. For as long as I can remember, when asked what he'd want if I were to become rich and famous he's said he wants a helicopter to take him to the most beautiful and remote places in Alaska where he could stand in a cold stream and fly-fish all day. When I was very young and got to spend a week with my grandparents, Grandpa and I had a routine that began the moment he walked up the front step. I would hide somewhere in the house and he would spend long minutes, tired and smelling of grease and the bus he rode across the desert to and from the I.N.E.L. where he worked, tromping back and forth through the kitchen and living room, down the hall to the narrow closet where Grandma kept the vacuum, peeking behind couches and under tables looking for me. I'd stay put, giggling into a clenched fist and chirping like a bird or squeaking like a mouse to attract his attention, and he would pretend not to see me, standing almost on top of me until I leapt out at him. He'd stumble back in shock and then hug me tight, tickling my ribs as he held me. And then, after he'd cleaned up, changing into a simple white t-shirt, he'd carry me downstairs in his arms and lead me through the family room to the stuffed antelope and deer heads mounted on the wall, which I would pet somewhat apprehensively, staring at my own reflection in their glassy black eyes. Then he'd lead me to the bobcat hide, tanned and hanging above the couch, which I would run my fingers through while Grandpa meowed softly in my ear. Then he'd set me down on the bearskin rug and let me peer into the eyes and open mouth of the thing, poke at the place its tongue should have been, trace the lines of its teeth. That mothball-scented basement family room is where I learned to love my grandfather and I think that was because it was his space. Grandma could do whatever she wanted with the rest of the house, changing and rearranging the furniture, making new curtains and drapes, painting, buying new lamps and fixtures, but the basement was his. It was where he kept his trophies, his hunting equipment, including the elk calls he'd occasionally let me blow into. Most importantly, though, it was where he kept the jars.

There were shelves and shelves of them, mostly old peanut butter jars, the glass kind, family-sized and heavy, thick so that when you peered into them their contents blurred and warped and refused to reveal themselves except by the red or green punch labels Grandpa had made and attached to the places where Grandma had washed away the paper Skippy or Jif labels. Elk, grouse, pheasant, skunk, they read; beaver, mule deer, roadkill, on and on, every manner of creature. And in those jars were bits of hide, colorful feathered wings, tails he'd collected. I spent many hours leaning over the arms of the rough-textured couch behind his work station, watching him open them and withdraw bits which he always let me stroke or caress with the back of my hand, fascinated not only by what they'd once been but also by what they were about to become. I don't know how he did it, but he spent hours extracting pieces of fur or strands of feather which he wrapped around a hook and mounted on a vice and spun and spun until after long hours he'd produced a bright and beautiful lure for his fly-fishing trips. My eyes lit up at the transformation and I wanted to throw my arms around him and congratulate him on his magic. Nothing was more wondrous than his ability to change one thing--something so alien, disconnected as it was from the thing it had been--into something luminous and more alive than all those heads and skins hanging from the walls around us. My grandfather could spin gold! And there is nothing I wouldn't give to sit in that basement and see him do it again.

This morning at the park Duncan followed close, almost behind me, near to my body, watching me as though waiting for something, his eyes wide and head slightly cocked, ears up. His ball was at home where he'd dropped it in all his excitement and bum-shimmying in front of the door while waiting for me to leash him up. I had nothing to throw his way. and held out my empty hands for him to see. He did a little prancing hop at me as though I was hiding something which he'd discovered and wanted. But I had nothing. Scanning the ground I spotted a large branch which had broken free of the naked and sickly elm above us. Moving quickly I snapped off the last brittle four feet of the thing. Duncan plopped down hard, his tail wagging beneath him, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Hardly able to contain themselves, his front paws danced in place as I worked, peeling the smaller leafy twigs off the main branch, shucking them and dropping them at my feet, until I'd finally fashioned the perfect throwing stick, smooth and nearly nub-free. As I tossed it across the park, watching it spin and arc in the air while Duncan chased after it, his head craned back and his tail sticking straight out, I thought of Grandpa and his flies, his taking and making, the way he taught me, without knowing it, how to write poetry and how to move through this life, looking at things exactly as they are but also seeing them for what they could be, should be. In my mind those flies, those scraps of long-dead animals and birds, are still humming and darting over the speckled lakes and rivers of southeast Idaho, more alive in their tethered flight than I could have imagined peering into their peanut butter jar-kennels.

I do not know how to tie flies, and despite Grandpa's best efforts, I never managed to catch anything fly-fishing next to him on the south fork of the Snake River. There are many things my grandfather knows which I will never be able to do but his whistle is not the only thing I've inherited. I can turn branches in flying toys and fulfill the dreams of my own "son."

"Mad, Naked, Summer Night!"

All I want tonight is to kick off my flip flops and walk barefoot through the park, down by the lake, holding hands with the one I love. I want to take a bottle of beer for each of us, leave the kittens and Duncan behind and go off on our own, with only the stars and the moon and night blossoms to spy on us and smile as we slip past them. I want to feel as safe and immortal as the teenagers who gather in small groups or in couples and hope we can't smell their pot or don't hear their whispered, amateur dirty talk, followed always by awkward snickers of embarrassment. I want to hold his hand and walk the trail and feel like we did way back when, when confessions were new and exciting and staying up all night talking was not out of the question. I want to run and laugh and not feel as old as I do, with this aching back and these unending practical concerns that the young have no idea are about to swallow them up. Reading is not enough; I want to live the words of Whitman's poem:

Press close, bare-bosomed Night! Press close, magnetic,
nourishing Night!
Night of south winds! Night of the large, few stars!
Still, nodding Night! Mad, naked, Summer Night!

I want. I want. I want. This is what Summer is all about. Wanting and wanting and wanting some more, wanting enough to get through the rest of the year.

Blossom Spring

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure -
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
(from Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth)

Today as we skirted the lake and turned south into Lilley Gulch, where the willows have filled out nicely and the brook is running clear and steady, I realized four seasons are not enough. There is a time, an in-between period, when Spring is not just Spring but Summer also, and, as we've experienced this past week on the edge of the flowering and vibrant Rockies, Winter, too. The blossoms in the trees have faded and fallen, but the grass, freshly cut and fragrant, is thick and a kind of green that will not last long. The warm, left-over days of Summer that have bled into Autumn have been named Indian Summer so why shouldn't these bright days with perfect temperatures and cool breezes not have a name? Indian Spring, maybe? Or Blossom Spring? These days are unique, caught as they are between the rain and damp of April, and the searing heat that browns and dries the world in June and July. This is the time when the trees flower and rain petals on the earth, when the wind is still strong enough to hold a kite, but not cold or boisterous. The Russian Olives along the shores of the lake and the bank of the stream are beginning to bloom and it will only be a matter of weeks before their glorious, lemon-buttery sweetness fills the air and is carried across the fields on the breeze. The still-budding trees are just learning to cast shadows as they practice the art of making cool, gray shade. This is when baby rabbits, prairie dogs and foxes emerge from their nesting spots and venture out into the grass, ears pert and big, eyes as wide as the world they're seeing for the first time.

And each day we walk, Duncan and I stumble upon something new––splashing our feet in the creek, gazing for long moments at the ants and their big shadows as they rush across the cement and into the wilds of the grass, marveling at the jungle-like Sumac that springs up along fence lines. We have no choice but to stop and savor the bounty that has exploded into our world, searing our senses with tranquility and the joy of our most pleasant and vivid flying dreams.

Stationary Path

Before I leave, almost without noticing,
before I cross the road and head toward
what I have intentionally postponed—

Let me stop to say a blessing for these woods:
for crows barking and squirrels scampering,
for trees and fungus and multi-colored leaves,

for the way sunlight laces with shadows
through each branch and leaf of tree,
for these paths that take me in,
for these paths that lead me out
(A Blessing for the Woods, Michael S. Glaser)

There are three large trees that grow on the edge of the property between the fence and the street. They are enormous things, perhaps six feet in diameter at the bottom of their gnarled trunks. Quite often Duncan stops at the foot of each and cranes his neck up to catch a glimpse of the countless squirrels which play and lounge and live there. Although they are still naked on top, last week's cold and snow spurred some growth and I don't think it'll be long before the sidewalk and street are bathed in their heavy shade.

It's long been a fantasy of mine to not only live in a tree but to somehow build a village at the top of some mighty wood, like something out of Tolkein or Star Wars. As a child I spent hours reclining under the tall trees on the campus of Idaho State University envisioning tiny people with their tiny roads built across wide boughs and branches winding their way up to the suburban quiet on the edge of the furthest and highest of leaves.

Last Summer Duncan and I lounged in the long grass at their trunks and I lost myself gazing up at them, all those fantasies and memories rushing through my imagination again. Today we stopped for the first time since then. Duncan tends to grow restless if we stop in one place too long, ever eager to sniff and lay claim to new territory, but at the base of a tree he is content, his eyes sweeping every nook and cranny for real and imagined squirrels. I knelt down next to the thick elephant skin bark and studied the ants crawling across the gouged surface, following the lines and ridges like cars traversing the mountain and valley roadways. They are magnificent things, these trees. Following their paths is almost as good as walking, like moving without moving, flying over vast and intricate landscapes from the safety of the ground.

Spring

Today is the day when bold kites fly,
When cumulus clouds roar across the sky.
When robins return, when children cheer,
When light rain beckons spring to appear.

Today is the day when daffodils bloom,
Which children pick to fill the room,
Today is the day when grasses green,
When leaves burst forth for spring to be seen.
(Spring, Robert McCracken)

What a glorious blue sky and what mighty winds blow across it. What joy in the laughter of the children as they run on the soccer pitch, their red and blue jerseys catching the gusts, ballooning this way then that. When I was young, on gusty afternoons like this, I imagined I needed only to stretch my arms out wide enough and jump at an exact moment to be lifted and carried across the yard, then set back down, perhaps on my belly, on the newly dried earth.

There are the twigs, pulled from the trees and sent flying all around, carried by the wind, but also by Duncan, who is surely impressed with their numbers. He chases them and tackles them before they slide across the sidewalk, chews them a few moments until they are nice wet then spots the next one, and then the one after that, each new discovery more precious than the last. And then, finally, with such abundance all around him has no choice but to throw himself into the grass and roll and roll, his hair pulling it up until he is covered in a dusting of green and fading yellow.

And the trees, magnets to the wind, could not seem taller and fuller in their nudity. They have celebrated the day, baked in warm light until exploding with buds––mere balls, tiny and red, almost brown, but swelling and growing, making promises they have no choice but to keep. These trees out front, along my sidewalk, are old and have seen this before, but they whisper their excitement and the wind carries it across the fields, across the street, over each blade of grass, sharing it with all who will listen. "This is Spring," they say. Finally at last they say it. "Spring has come."

Walking the Dog

Walking the Dog
Two universes mosey down the street
Connected by love and a leash and nothing else.
Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves
While he mooches along with tail up and snout down,
Getting a secret knowledge through the nose
Almost entirely hidden from my sight.

We stand while he's enraptured by a bush
Till I can't stand our standing any more
And haul him off; for our relationship
Is patience balancing to this side tug
And that side drag; a pair of symbionts
Contented not to think each other's thoughts.

What else we have in common's what he taught,
Our interest in shit. We know its every state
From steaming fresh through stink to nature's way
Of sluicing it downstreet dissolved in rain
Or drying it to dust that blows away.
We move along the street inspecting shit.

His sense of it is keener far than mine,
And only when he finds the place precise
He signifies by sniffing urgently
And circles thrice about, and squats, and shits,
Whereon we both with dignity walk home
And just to show who's master I write the poem.
(Howard Nemerov)


*Cartoon courtesy of Mark Dean

So Much Depends Upon

So much depends
upon
the red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
(The Red Wheel Barrow William Carlos Williams)

The week was lived for this night's sunset, caught as it was around and between the big boughs of the tree, Duncan's Tree. It wasn't just the gold on the clouds against the last of the day's blue, or even the darkness of the tree seen from behind––not quite a tree any more, but the shape of one, its memory––but the two of them together, happening at once, a perception of action and inaction. That was why the week was so long and at times unendurable because the universe, behaving as the universe does more often than we'd like to admit, was saving this, knowing that as Duncan and I returned home, tired and chilled and looking forward to the quiet of the weekend, that I would glance––so accidentally––in the direction of the mountains for one last glimpse of the day and catch my breath. The reason for the week, painted against the sky for everyone to see, so difficult but also easy. Like a favor. Or a blessing.

The Place Between Paths

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends. (Shel Silverstein)

I have never been a fan of sidewalks. I like that they're available, especially when they're good ones, shady in the summer and clear in Winter, but given a choice between strolling across a nice patch of grass or easing down a paved lane, as Jerry Garcia almost certainly said, I'll take the grass.

Sidewalks are too tame. They're for the safe people, those who need to be directed even in their leisure. There's little room for spontaneity on a sidewalk, as first you're led this direction then later led that direction. Like a sheep. Sidewalks lack an element of danger, a spirit of adventure. They're the equivalent of ordering the same meal at a favorite restaurant, over and over again. They're clean and quiet, like a library, and lack any musical element, unless, of course, you're on a bike. But to walk them is to enclose yourself in a sterile environment, to hang a Do-Not-Disturb sign on your chest, to live of a life of dotted i's and crossed t's in a land of stop signs and fences.

But that place–that unknown place–where the sidewalks end and adventure begins, that's the place Duncan and I like. We prefer the grass, tromped and matted or thick and wild, even a dusty, barren stretch of land is better than a block of cement. We enjoy cutting our own path, stopping when we like for as long as we like, to examine a wildflower, a leaf that's avoided the blower, an ant mound overflowing with dark crawling bodies. It's the places between paths where the spirit of the walk can be found, the joy of the going, the pleasure of the doing. They're the back way, the scenic route, the very place adventure is born.

Duncan is like a child in this respect: he doesn't need the logic or practicality of a trail, he is nourished by the whimsy and frivolity of an open place. He has taken me places and showed me things I would've been too busy to discover on my own. Without him I think I may have lost my way amid the marked and paved lanes of this world.

Weather

The rain started last night. A lonely, Chet Baker trumpet kind of drizzle. The windows ran with the dripping color of the street and traffic lights and everything had a hazy ring around it, a halo or glow, an aura. And it was cold, a nut tightening, skin squeezing cold, the first of the season. It was the kind of weather that drops the leaves fast, and then drowns them until they wash away into dirt. It was a cold crawl-into-bed-early and pull-the-covers-up kind of night. But Duncan insisted on going out several times, just to get his nose wet and to veer back and forth, left and right, finding a way to hit each of the puddles. It didn't let up. All night it drizzled and as I fell asleep, my back to the window, I could hear the soft patter of the drops on the sidewalk right outside. Duncan and the cats curled up all over the bed: Winnie on my hip, where she usually sleeps, Pip at my chest, Olive up high on the pillows, her feet tucked under my head, Duncan spread in a line perpendicular to myself, forcing me into a tight ball, cramped but unwilling to disturb any of them, unwilling to let them think me ungrateful for their small, warm bodies.

It kept it up most of the day. I drove to work through cold and wet and mist and stepped into a puddle climbing out of my car. When I slipped outside for a smoke at ten, I huddled near the side of the building, thinking the long sleeved shirt I'd put on wasn't enough, but then, by two, the clouds had dissipated completely. The sun was out and it was actually hot. The sky had turned that beautiful shade of Autumn blue, a far away blue, like blue reflected off a blade, blue like something fragile. By the time I got home I was ready to change into shorts and a sweat shirt for my first evening walk with Duncan.

He pulled me down Bowles, past the Carls, Jr and the Red Robin, where we cut across the parking lot, through a low stand of bushes and onto the trail around the lake. Almost immediately he caught the scent of a rabbit and nearly cut himself trying to pull his way through the brambles. I pulled on his leash, said, "Duncan, come," sternly, and once we were moving down the trail, praised him for finding the rabbit and following orders. He hardly noticed. He spent the rest of the hour sniffing out every copse of willows and every tree for more rabbits and squirrels.

As I followed him up the hill away from the lake we came to the edge of the prairie dog town (which he had almost no interest in) and a wide expanse of tall grass, now yellow and only just beginning to fall. The sun, behind us, was bright and gold, allowing even the ants to cast long, dark shadows. And the grass was brilliant before us and I was thankful Duncan led me there, through the dark and wet of last night to the radiance of this afternoon. He could've cared less, but I was happy to share that moment with him.






Dogs may not be poets, but they can lead us to poetry if only we're willing to see the world through their eyes.