A black brook carves the white snow
This is my black and white world today
Robin is dying
and I am alone with the waters
in this dark hemlock grove.
I cannot move into my morning
I am stuck in the black and white
breathing the life of the winter air
as Robin is dying.
"This is a real winter for a change,"
my neighbors proclaim
at the Post Office and the dump
the General Store and the library.
A real winter.
I think back to the last two winters
of rain and brown, mud and darkness
depression, restlessness, and the longing
for a snowstorm to blanket the sorrows
of my view and fill me with the energy
to go among the wetlands and the woods
and be a part of the life of this place.
A real winter
when my muscles are strong
from shovelling snow and tracking.
A real winter when silence settles deep
into my bones and all that moves sleeps.
A real winter.
I ask my wife the weather keeper
when was the last time we had a real winter?
1995? 1987? 1978?
I read that the winter of 1636 was a good one.
710 million years ago
the planet froze to the equator
600 million years ago
life disappeared into the whiteness
of Earth's albedo.
Were those real winters?
From solstice to solstice
the light waxes and wanes
we watch the landscape change
we bring fires to darkness
and we crave the rebirth of spring.
I want to yell at the trees today
Robin is dying
and there is nothing real
except the air that I'm breathing
and the black and white of this time.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
LUNACY
Lunacy gallops into my dreams
in striped pajamas
"What's that?" she cries
"It's the moon," I say.
"The moon."
We race on snow
frozen solid like concrete
barefoot in our pajamas
drawn by shadows
bluer than ice
and trees dancing
across a canvas of darkness
whispering prayers of madness
we are alive!
We are alive!
We are alive
in the winter sky
moonstruck
with werewolves
and owls
and fishers
coyotes and bats
diamonds on ice
melting into deep pools
of promise.
There is no dance
like tripping with crystals
in the shadows of night
stepping to the beats
of our minds
singing the laughter
of wonder
as the snow weds the light.
We are alive
sliding barefoot
in striped pajamas.
in striped pajamas
"What's that?" she cries
"It's the moon," I say.
"The moon."
We race on snow
frozen solid like concrete
barefoot in our pajamas
drawn by shadows
bluer than ice
and trees dancing
across a canvas of darkness
whispering prayers of madness
we are alive!
We are alive!
We are alive
in the winter sky
moonstruck
with werewolves
and owls
and fishers
coyotes and bats
diamonds on ice
melting into deep pools
of promise.
There is no dance
like tripping with crystals
in the shadows of night
stepping to the beats
of our minds
singing the laughter
of wonder
as the snow weds the light.
We are alive
sliding barefoot
in striped pajamas.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Canis Latrans
My tortoise shell cat, Lily, climbs into my lap. She will not let me write. She demands that I stroke her chin and forehead, stimulating all those scent glands that were she a wild cat, she would be rubbing against trees and rocks. Instead, she is content to mark me as I tell her about Coyote. It is important that she listen because she is prey and Coyote is predator. It is a primal, inextricable relationship.
Canis latrans is an ancient being. Older than the wolf, Coyote has walked this planet for some sixty million years. Long before our own arrival, Coyote first appeared in a time called by those who chronicle eras, the Eocene. Coyote evolved on the open plains of the North American continent after the decline of the dinosaurs. They flourished from the Arctic tundras to the high plateaus of Central America, advancing and retreating with the glaciers. While all that remains of the sabre-toothed tiger of that era is a fossil, the ancestors of Coyote that feasted on that tiger's flesh still roam the landscape.
The appearance of Coyote in these eastern hills is still somewhat of a mystery. It was not until 1957 that the existence of the first coyote in Massachusetts was confirmed. The tale of its travels from the central plains west and south and finally north and east is one of adaptation and interbreeding with other canids. One hypothesis has lone coyote dispersers mating with feral dogs. This coydog was the first of the eastern coyotes. This scenario, however, is unlikely since such a breeding does not result in a strong viable species. The habits of feral dogs do not support the proliferation of the species. Coyotes are pack animals and they rely on both the male and female to raise midwinter litters. Male dogs are not motivated by paternal instincts and single parenting is risky business in the competitive world of the coyote. Such litters would have low survival rates. A more probable theory is that the western coyote bred with the eastern Canadian wolf. This makes for a larger coyote than its western cousin and would also account for the different colorings of the eastern coyote.
I continute to tell Lily that there are fewer coyotes in the woods this winter. There are not nearly as many tracks as in past years. I have also seen more snowshoe hare and red fox prints. I remember the dead coyote that I carried out of the brook last spring. It had been shot. I also remember the farmers that I met early one morning. They were shooting coyotes at the edge of their fields. They were protecting their livestock. Hunters have been out killing coyote to protect the deer that they hunt in the fall. Coyote is on the most wanted list and in many states, they are hunted year round. They get no respect.
I tell Lily that she is in far greater danger from the coyotes than the livestock and the deer are. Coyotes take house cats. Still, I believe there is a place in these woods for the wily predator. It fills the niche of the wolf and the cougar and man. We are all predators and prey in the natural order of things. This competition for survival is what strengthens the species.
Lily sits up and stretches. She kneads her claws on my legs. She jumps from my lap and heads to the front door, scratching to go out. I open it and let her into the wild.
Canis latrans is an ancient being. Older than the wolf, Coyote has walked this planet for some sixty million years. Long before our own arrival, Coyote first appeared in a time called by those who chronicle eras, the Eocene. Coyote evolved on the open plains of the North American continent after the decline of the dinosaurs. They flourished from the Arctic tundras to the high plateaus of Central America, advancing and retreating with the glaciers. While all that remains of the sabre-toothed tiger of that era is a fossil, the ancestors of Coyote that feasted on that tiger's flesh still roam the landscape.
The appearance of Coyote in these eastern hills is still somewhat of a mystery. It was not until 1957 that the existence of the first coyote in Massachusetts was confirmed. The tale of its travels from the central plains west and south and finally north and east is one of adaptation and interbreeding with other canids. One hypothesis has lone coyote dispersers mating with feral dogs. This coydog was the first of the eastern coyotes. This scenario, however, is unlikely since such a breeding does not result in a strong viable species. The habits of feral dogs do not support the proliferation of the species. Coyotes are pack animals and they rely on both the male and female to raise midwinter litters. Male dogs are not motivated by paternal instincts and single parenting is risky business in the competitive world of the coyote. Such litters would have low survival rates. A more probable theory is that the western coyote bred with the eastern Canadian wolf. This makes for a larger coyote than its western cousin and would also account for the different colorings of the eastern coyote.
I continute to tell Lily that there are fewer coyotes in the woods this winter. There are not nearly as many tracks as in past years. I have also seen more snowshoe hare and red fox prints. I remember the dead coyote that I carried out of the brook last spring. It had been shot. I also remember the farmers that I met early one morning. They were shooting coyotes at the edge of their fields. They were protecting their livestock. Hunters have been out killing coyote to protect the deer that they hunt in the fall. Coyote is on the most wanted list and in many states, they are hunted year round. They get no respect.
I tell Lily that she is in far greater danger from the coyotes than the livestock and the deer are. Coyotes take house cats. Still, I believe there is a place in these woods for the wily predator. It fills the niche of the wolf and the cougar and man. We are all predators and prey in the natural order of things. This competition for survival is what strengthens the species.
Lily sits up and stretches. She kneads her claws on my legs. She jumps from my lap and heads to the front door, scratching to go out. I open it and let her into the wild.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Tracking Coyote
I look out at an inch of new snow. It makes for great tracking. "I am here," I tell myself as I strap on my snowshoes. "I am here to track Coyote."
I was captured by Coyote in the spring some thirty years ago when I first wandered these hills with my old dog Gabe. We were following a logging road when we came upon a litter of coyote pups frolicking. Gabe didn't see them, but I stopped dead in my tracks and my hackles went up. The coyotes stopped, too. We stared at each other. I imagine I was the first two-legged they'd ever seen. Slowly I turned, not wanting Gabe to pick up their scent and become interested. I began to sing as I retraced my steps and the coyotes fanned out around us and escorted us all the way home.
My imagination was captured. The eastern coyote began speaking to me and I have been on its trail ever since. It has sung below my bedroom window and answered my calls from the summit of a mountain. I have watched a pack in the dunes of Provincelands and I have carried a bloody coyote out of the stream where it died. I have read about all the coyote extermination efforts and how Coyote just keeps on going on, producing more offspring as she becomes more threatened. I have delved into the mythology of Coyote--the trickster, the shape shifter, the grey ghost--and I have gained a great respect for this creature that is so much more than just a wily scavenger. Coyote is a sacred force that speaks from a world that is endangered and Coyote refuses to die.
As Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz write: "Coyote and his kin represent the sheerly spontaneous in life, the pure creative spark that is our birthright as human beings and that defies fixed roles and behavior. He not only represents some primordial creativity of our earlier days, but he reminds us that such celebration of life goes on today, and he calls us to join him in the frenzy. In an ordered world of objects and labels, he represents the potency of nothingness, of chaos, of freedom--a nothingness that makes something of itself. There is great power in such a being..."
I spot a coyote track in the snow. It is a direct register. The hind foot falls directly into the front footprint and it looks like a one-legged creature trotting through the woods. The prints are good. There is a visible X in the middle of the paw. Her path is straight. She is not curious, but headed somewhere. I follow her up to the top of a knoll. She stops and surveys the landscape. This is her world. This is my world. We are both here today in the new snow. I take a deep breath and head home.
I was captured by Coyote in the spring some thirty years ago when I first wandered these hills with my old dog Gabe. We were following a logging road when we came upon a litter of coyote pups frolicking. Gabe didn't see them, but I stopped dead in my tracks and my hackles went up. The coyotes stopped, too. We stared at each other. I imagine I was the first two-legged they'd ever seen. Slowly I turned, not wanting Gabe to pick up their scent and become interested. I began to sing as I retraced my steps and the coyotes fanned out around us and escorted us all the way home.
My imagination was captured. The eastern coyote began speaking to me and I have been on its trail ever since. It has sung below my bedroom window and answered my calls from the summit of a mountain. I have watched a pack in the dunes of Provincelands and I have carried a bloody coyote out of the stream where it died. I have read about all the coyote extermination efforts and how Coyote just keeps on going on, producing more offspring as she becomes more threatened. I have delved into the mythology of Coyote--the trickster, the shape shifter, the grey ghost--and I have gained a great respect for this creature that is so much more than just a wily scavenger. Coyote is a sacred force that speaks from a world that is endangered and Coyote refuses to die.
As Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz write: "Coyote and his kin represent the sheerly spontaneous in life, the pure creative spark that is our birthright as human beings and that defies fixed roles and behavior. He not only represents some primordial creativity of our earlier days, but he reminds us that such celebration of life goes on today, and he calls us to join him in the frenzy. In an ordered world of objects and labels, he represents the potency of nothingness, of chaos, of freedom--a nothingness that makes something of itself. There is great power in such a being..."
I spot a coyote track in the snow. It is a direct register. The hind foot falls directly into the front footprint and it looks like a one-legged creature trotting through the woods. The prints are good. There is a visible X in the middle of the paw. Her path is straight. She is not curious, but headed somewhere. I follow her up to the top of a knoll. She stops and surveys the landscape. This is her world. This is my world. We are both here today in the new snow. I take a deep breath and head home.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Gallop Poll
A gallup pollster
comes galloping galloping
through my telephone line.
Do you have a minute?
he asks
and I chime,
Oh yes! Oh yes!
seizing the chance
to speak my mind.
Are you happy?
he asks
on a scale of one to ten
I say
Oh yes! Oh yes!
I'm a ten!
He pauses
and asks again
A ten?
Oh yes! Oh yes!
A ten.
How much money
did you spend yesterday?
he asks.
None,
I say.
None?
he questions again.
None
I say
again.
Did you ride in a car?
he asks.
Oh no
I reply.
Did you watch TV?
he asks.
Oh no.
I reply.
Are you happy?
he asks again.
Oh yes! Oh yes!
I give it a ten
Do you practice
a religion?
he asks.
Oh yes
I say.
I'm a pagan.
A pagan?
he asks
Oh yes
I say
A pagan.
I don't know
where that fits
he says.
Is it
Christian
Jewish
Buddhist
Muslim
Agnostic
Secular
or Atheist?
What about other?
I ask.
No
he says
that can't be right
Pagan is a religion
Oh yes
I say,
It's a ten.
Let me get this right
he says
You spend no money
you go nowhere
you watch no TV
you're a pagan
and you're happy?
Yes, I say
a ten.
A ten
he replies
A ten.
"The most radical thing you can do with your life is to be happy." Dr. Patch Adams
comes galloping galloping
through my telephone line.
Do you have a minute?
he asks
and I chime,
Oh yes! Oh yes!
seizing the chance
to speak my mind.
Are you happy?
he asks
on a scale of one to ten
I say
Oh yes! Oh yes!
I'm a ten!
He pauses
and asks again
A ten?
Oh yes! Oh yes!
A ten.
How much money
did you spend yesterday?
he asks.
None,
I say.
None?
he questions again.
None
I say
again.
Did you ride in a car?
he asks.
Oh no
I reply.
Did you watch TV?
he asks.
Oh no.
I reply.
Are you happy?
he asks again.
Oh yes! Oh yes!
I give it a ten
Do you practice
a religion?
he asks.
Oh yes
I say.
I'm a pagan.
A pagan?
he asks
Oh yes
I say
A pagan.
I don't know
where that fits
he says.
Is it
Christian
Jewish
Buddhist
Muslim
Agnostic
Secular
or Atheist?
What about other?
I ask.
No
he says
that can't be right
Pagan is a religion
Oh yes
I say,
It's a ten.
Let me get this right
he says
You spend no money
you go nowhere
you watch no TV
you're a pagan
and you're happy?
Yes, I say
a ten.
A ten
he replies
A ten.
"The most radical thing you can do with your life is to be happy." Dr. Patch Adams
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