Nelsense: Three Seasons of Home
If distance
and destinations
are measures of success,
then we are failures, wandering
in determined meanders to nowhere.
The difference is to decide.
Discovery and a curious,
thirsty desire to know
our home place:
these are worthy goals.
To gain an intimate knowledge
of treasures hidden
under rocks and rotting logs,
of nests in sedges,
the feel of a green snake’s scales,
taste of cranberry, cattail and Indian cucumber,
our senses are tuned. In stillness, we pause to wonder
at the twitch of a snowshoe hare’s ears, the flash of bald eagle tail,
the yip of an unseen forest creature,
the laughter of a pileated woodpecker,
sermon of a red-eyed vireo,
musk of a beaver mound,
fragrant breeze of sweet gale;
deep, oozing mud, soft sphagnum, stately pitcher flowers,
rough, bear-clawed bark, jellied egg masses,
wild strawberries growing sweet
in the shade of bracken ferns.
To know it all
in this grand mystery: the place
we have chosen, the fertile space
where we have planted
the hungry roots of our wondering,
wandering souls:
This I call success.
Kathy Schillemat
July 12, 2011
REFLECTIONS: ON MY BIRTHDAY, 2009
The ice went out with April’s rain, windblown.
The open pond now greets its springtime guests.
The full Egg Moon reflects, like glitter thrown,
Upon the ducks about to build their nests.
The wood ducks drift covertly, just the same.
The mallards squawk, with landing gear alight.
Misnamed ring-necks,
whose bills should claim their name,
Join hooded mergansers, not veiled from sight.
The full Grass Moon reflects, like lilies afloat,
And casts its rays, like arms around the spring,
Embracing sprouts of new aquatic growth,
That’ll feed and shield the soon-to-be ducklings.
My birthday comes, as April opes the pond,
For life to sprout, and hatch, in springtime’s dawn.
Karen Tolman
2009
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As sap buckets are rapidly being replaced by miles of commercial blue plastic tubing, my romantic notions of maple sugaring; collecting sap from the buckets, boiling it down, with family and friends, around a wood-fired back yard pan, dipping homemade donuts into the syrup; have become tangled up in the lines of tubing.
SAPPED
Wounded by drillings,
Bleeding from the holes,
The sap of life flows,
Through vein-like hose,
From the sugarbush trees;
Then sweetens my life
With its gift, sacrificed.
Karen Tolman
2008
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ENTROPY
There’s Grampa splitting wood
He’s fueled by gruel
Cause his teeth aren’t good.
There’s sun on his shoulder
And sweat on his brow
Our lives are tied up in
This heat thing somehow.
After his breakfast is eaten
And wood set alight
He’ll be hungry again
And cold by tonight.
So it’s back to his porridge
And back to his axe
It turns out the old guy
Can never relax
The reason for all this
As most everyone knows
Is that energy comes
And energy goes.
Dave Upton
2005
