Morning pond croaking
Deep throated ice language
Sun dissolves in clouds.
Small Stone 4
Low sun and frigid wind battle; wind wins.
Surrender
I’ve surrendered to the holiday season. Finding it almost impossible to keep up any kind of regular writing schedule, a week ago I finally admitted there is just too much to do over the next few weeks to be trying to stay on track with all the writing projects both on paper and in my head — finishing the first draft of the NaNoWriMo novel, continuing edits on my memoir, An Island Journal, to be sharing with my prose writing group for feedback, or returning to some focus on poetry.
Instead I’ve been shopping for holiday gifts, making gifts, polishing the poem for my annual holiday card, visiting with family and friends in small and large gatherings, and enjoying having Sam at home, including a rousing game of Rummy 500 with Sam and Will yesterday evening. And then David and I went dancing!
Last night a friend celebrated his 60th birthday with a big party and fundraiser for a local soup kitchen. He formed a band to play at the party, and another good friend was also playing in the band. When David and I arrived, shortly after the band started playing, the dance floor was empty, so David and I got out there and started to fill it up. By the time the band got to their last song, the dance floor was full. The band was great and obviously having a great time playing together, the crowd was lively, and the fundraising successful. Fun times on a dark December night.
Walking
There was a list in my head, when I contemplated leaving my job last spring, of things I knew I wanted to do, things that take more time. I wanted to drink more tea. That sounds ridiculous, I know. Anyone can find the time to brew a cup of tea and drink it. Except I never did. And now I do.
I also wanted to walk more. Walking is great exercise and an excellent alternative to, and break from, running. But it takes much more time to get a workout equal to running by walking. Now at least once or twice a week I go with David on his morning walk. Yesterday we walked the snowmobile trail through the woods, where the first skims of ice are forming on puddles.
The night before I’d gone to the retirement party of a friend and colleague. I saw many people there who I hadn’t seen since I left my job, and everyone wanted to know how my retirement is going. “Well, I’m actually working a good bit,” I said, not able to call what my life is like now retirement. I have several hours of work a week on various projects, and am considering taking on a fairly major commitment (more about that later). But I’m also writing a novel, working on poems, reading, spending lots of time with family and friends, drinking tea and walking. And stopping to admire the patterns of oak leaves locked under cross-hatched ice.
Primary Season in NH
Is the kissing artificial, or the ball? Living in New Hampshire with a Presidential primary coming up, I get used to the signs on the side of the road, but this was a new one for me.
Moscow
Friday night I hiked up Neville Peak in Espom with the full moon lighting our trail up, even with clouds blowing past and over the moon. When the racing clouds did open to clear sky, the moon was as bright as a spotlight shining on us in the dark woods. At the top we could see the darkness of snow showers coming at us across the valley below, then spitting at our faces.
Yesterday afternoon I got on a plane to Moscow, and today I hiked through the Kremlin and across Red Square, again in spitting snow. The grandeur and glory and energy of a great city swirled around me, and the sharp wind cut into my clothes, reminding me of the coming winter. For now, I’m contemplating a hot meal, a full night’s sleep in a warm bed, and two days of hopefully interesting and productive meetings starting tomorrow.
And I’m up to 25,691 word on my NaNo! Nothing like a long plane ride to get some writing done.
Warm November
I went running in a short sleeve shirt this morning. I mowed the lawn in a tank top and shorts yesterday. As I ran, looking out across mist shrouded fields, passing my neighbor’s colonial breed of cows grazing with their bells gently ringing, I thought about another poem from The Truth About Death. While this poem was written five years ago next month, I thought it fitting for this morning. It was published the following year in The Sun. If you’ve never read The Sun, I strongly suggest you check it out. It’s a fabulous magazine, not just because they took four poems from my manuscript, but also because the writing is excellent, the politics are proudly humanistic and focused on the worth and potential of every individual, and all of us as a community of connected people, and there is a wonderful section each month full of short pieces by readers.
Warm December
Some days I don’t have enough time to cry,
and then I miss it. A beaded curtain of rain
hangs from the porch roof; the Johnsons
have Christmas lights up. This week
I’ve been seeing you in the waiting room
in a wheelchair: exhausted, willing your blood
to behave, to qualify for a clinical trial,
any guinea pig treatment. By then
you were a withered man. If you were alive
we would go kayaking this weekend,
just to say we’d done it in December.
Last November we calculated how many times
we’d made love. Now there is thunder.
Winterberries
We’re entering the season of winter bareness, as the last of the leaves turn russet and dark yellow, and just plain brown, on the oaks. The maple leaves are long gone. Most bushes have lost their leaves now too, including the winterberry bushes that flourish in wet spots around my house. After dropping their glossy summer leaves, the bush is a great swath of color in an otherwise quickly-becoming-dim landscape. We passed a bush this morning while walking, which made me think of this poem, from my manuscript The Truth About Death. Noticing brilliance was part of how I made each day work for me, in that numbing first year of grief. It still helps, a spark of color on a grey morning.
Now
Sunlight through the kitchen window
catches my glass of juice and fires
a moment of brilliance in my hand,
moving to my mouth, my lips. I drive
to work, I drive too fast, accelerating hard
up the hill from the traffic circle
a bright November morning, bushes
of winterberry red and red and red
against bare trees shiny with sunlight.
November Morning Haiku
Frosted barberry
White rimmed purple, red clusters
Winter announcement.
The Northeast Kingdom
We just spent two days in the Northeast Kingdom, and while I bristle at male gender references to almost anything, it is beautiful country. The term is used to describe the northeastern corner of Vermont, and is reported to have first been used by George Aiken, a former Governor of Vermont and a U.S. Senator, during a 1949 speech. Not surprising, that the term “kingdom” came from a man, but it is a gloriously scenic area, and I was there visiting one of my most brilliantly feminist friends — by that I mean her gender analysis is spot on and constant, underlying her fundamental views of how the world operates, which is probably why I was thinking about the “kingdom” thing in the first place. But what do you call the land a queen owns and governs? A queendom?
Beyond all that, we had a grand time. We arrived on a sunny and warm October afternoon and enjoyed the view of Lake Willoughby from the camp porch, Jay Peak in the distance. We ended up spending much of the afternoon sitting on the dock, late season sun warming our faces and backs, snacking, talking, listening to the water slap the rocks. David and I even went for a swim, though the water was so cold I could hardly breathe.
Yesterday morning, while Carol and Steve did camp close-up errands, David and I went to hike Wheeler Mt. Within a few minutes of starting the hike, we were climbing slabs of granite that form the western cliff face of the mountain. The foliage was stunning, with hillsides of yellow and orange rolling off into the folds of mountains around us. It was so glorious and exhilarating, I knew I needed to hike more. So after going back to the camp and helping Steve and Carol with more closing-down-camp chores, including completing the item on the list “Finish drinking all beverages and eating all the food,” we left to hike Mt. Pisgah.
Pisgah forms the eastern wall of the notch that Lake Willoughby slices through. From its ridge the views of the lake, a long rectangle of wind streaked water directly below, and the Green Mountains in the distance, were remarkable. We’d timed the hike so we’d get out of the woods right at dark, not having to worry about being any where by any time in particular. Afternoons like yesterday are when the reality of having left our jobs is most striking. Want to hike more? Okay, let’s do it.
As we walked back to the car, the low sun lit the yellow leaves of the hardwoods at the base of the ridge into a canopy of autumn glow. Just before the road, we crossed a boardwalk over a beaver bog, and the nearly full moon was rising in the east. A beaver swam back and forth across the small pond, and twice came to watch us watch him. We looked out over the silvered tree stumps standing in the still water once more, then got in the car and drove home, the big moon riding with us, feathering the dark ridges with a ghost haze, easing us back into a week that isn’t full of work. Yes, we are blessed.
Grace Mattern 