This post is overdue by a couple weeks, but now seems as good a time as any to note that I finally escaped my nearly six month stint of unemployment. The Trustees of the Reservations, a group I've been volunteering with, hired me as a seasonal ranger at Bartholomew's Cobble. It's not a bad gig--thus far I've been working in the visitors' center, pulling garlic mustard, mending fences, and helping with canoe trips. I also live on the grounds of one of the Trustees' historic houses, Naumkeag (pictured), during the work week (I commute back to north county on the weekends).

More information on all of these things to come, probably-maybe. But for now, that's a new thing in the general landscape of my life. It keeps me busy.

Poem

I don’t belong in this century—who does?
In my time, summer came someplace in June—
The cutbanks blazing with roses, the birds brazen, and the astonished
Pastures frisking with young calves . . .
-------------------------------------That was in the country—
I don’t mean another country, I mean in the country:
And the country is lost. I don’t mean just lost to me,
Nor in the way of metaphorical loss—it’s lost that way too—
No; nor in no sort of special case: I mean
Lost.

Now, down below, in the fire and stench, the city
Is building its shell: elaborate levels of emptiness
Like some sea-animal building toward its extinction.
And the citizens, unserious and full of virtue,
Are hunting for bread, or money, or a prayer,
And I behold them, and this season of man, without love.

If it were not a joke, it would be proper to laugh.
—Curious how that rat’s nest holds together—
Distracting . . .
---------------Without it there might be, still,
The gold wheel and the silver, the sun and the moon,
The season’s ancient assurance under the unstable stars
Our fiery companions . . .
------------------------And trees, perhaps, and the sound
Of the wild and living water hurrying out of the hills.

Without these, I have you for my talisman:
Sun, moon, the four seasons,
The true voice of the mountains. Now be
(The city revolving in its empty shell,
The night moving in from the East)
—Be thou these things.

-Thomas McGrath, 1972

Witness

Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.

-Denise Levertov

Camping Out

I watched the nesting redstart
when we camped by Lake Winnepesaukee.
The tent pegs pulled out in soft soil.
Rain made pawprints on the canvas.

So much clings to the shoes,
the old shoes must be discarded,
but we're fools to think that does it:
burning the scraps.

I listened for the rain at Mt. Monadnock,
for the barred owl on a tent peak
among scrub pines in Michigan.
I can hear my father stir

and the cot creak. The flap opens.
He goes out and never returns
though the coffee steams on the grill
and the redstart sings in the alders.

-Edwin Gladding Burrows, 2001

Memorabilia

--Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,

----And did he stop and speak to you?

And did you speak to him again?

----How strange it seems, and new!

--But you were living before that,

----And you are living after,

And the memory I started at—

----My starting moves your laughter!

--I crossed a moor, with a name of its own

----And a certain use in the world no doubt,

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone

----'Mid the blank miles round about:

--For there I picked up on the heather

----And there I put inside my breast

A moulted feather, an eagle-feather—

----Well, I forget the rest.

-Robert Browning

I'm almost done with my year of monthly mixes (the first one was here--December, January and March are also online). This is April's--I would post May's, but I haven't put it together yet. Also, I like this one. As usual, it's fairly long and fairly eclectic, and even though I try to avoid this, it features most of my standbys (Greg Brown, Dylan, Tom Waits).
Speaking of April, a person I know named April said she sent this link along to some folks, so if new people are reading this--hello. At this point I tend to approach the endeavor with the attitude of a person hollering at a cliff (or into the void of the internet). Which is to say: it's mostly for my own entertainment, because it keeps me reading poetry and taking pictures. If it entertains other people as well, that's great. Welcome.

Spring

Somewhere
---a black bear
------has just risen from sleep
---------and is staring

down the mountain.
---All night
------in the brisk and shallow restlessness
---------of early spring.

I think of her,
---her four black fists
------flicking the gravel,
---------her tongue.

like a red fire
---touching the grass,
------the cold water.
---------There is only one question:

how to love this world.
---I think of her
------rising
---------like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
---the silence
------of the trees.
---------Whatever else

my life is
---with its poems
------and its music
---------and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
---coming
------down the mountain,
---------breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her--
---her white teeth,
------her wordlessness,
---------her perfect love.

-Mary Oliver, 1990

This one's for dad, who thought that one poem about the dog was by Mary Oliver, when actually it was by Jane Kenyon. So here's a Mary Oliver one (last time I posted Mary Oliver, it was for mom, and almost two years ago). This one's also for the bear that came down the mountain last week, upturned the bird feeder and the compost bin, and left dusty footprints on the front porch.