Now's the time for the poems I planned to post last week. And it's another long one.

When Your Life Looks Back

When your life looks back—
As it will, at itself, at you—what will it say?

Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.
Flame curl, blue consuming the log it flares from.
Bay leaf. Oak leaf. Cricket. One among many.

Your life will carry you as it did always,
With ten fingers and both palms,
With horizontal ribs and upright spine,
With its filling and emptying heart,
That wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.
You gave it. What else could do?

Immersed in air or water.
Immersed in hunger or anger.
Curious even when bored.
Longing even when running away.

“What will happen next?”—
the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,
in the in-breaths even of weeping.
Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.
Whatever direction your turned as face to face.
No back of the world existed,
No unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for.

This, your life said, its only problem.
Here, your life said, its only house.
Let, your life said, its only order.

And did you have a choice in this? You did—

Sleeping and waking.
The horses around you, the mountains around you,
The buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.
Those of your own kind around you—

A few times, you stood on your head.
A few times, you chose not to be frightened.
A few times, you held another beyond any measure.
A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.

Mortal, your life will say,
As if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.
Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving.

-Jane Hirshfield

Sabbath Poem VII

There is a day
when the road neither
comes nor goes, and the way
is not a way but a place.

-Wendell Berry, 1997

I had a couple poems I was planning to post today, but sometimes plans aren't as good as you think. So I'm posting these two instead. One has been here already...and might give you an idea of what I'm thinking about. The other gives you an idea of my answer--specifically in stanza (stanza?) two. Based on these poems birds can offer some insight, so I guess it's good I'm working with them...On the other hand, one of the only lines I remember from the Odyssey is "birds can mean nothing."

On the Grey Wolf River

-----Little ouzel bird,
under
------cliffs of pillow lava,
over
-------ice-green
glacier rapids,
---------should I
------go back to the university,
-----------or what?

-Lewis Hyde, 1988


Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

-Wallace Stevens

Bound Home to Mount Song

The limpid river, past its bushes
Running slowly as my chariot,
Becomes a fellow voyager
Returning home with the evening birds.
A ruined city-wall overtops an old ferry,
Autumn sunset floods the peaks.
...Far away, beside Mount Song,
I shall close my door and be at peace.

-Wang Wei

Fully moved into the new place (the water is now suitable for drinking, you'll be pleased to know), and took some time to explore the backyard and take pictures. We have wild blackberries and huckleberries--I'm hoping to steal enough from the wildlife to make jam out of both. Life is a little hectic, a little tiring, a little wonderful. I spend a lot of time wading around in mud while the chicks stare at me and wonder why I'm so slow. The other interns have dubbed me "Drunk Crane" because I keep falling over and catching myself with my crane head, which results in it being caked black with mud.

A Quiet Poem

When music is far enough away
the eyelid does not often move

and objects are still as lavender
without breath or distant rejoinder.

The cloud is then so subtly dragged
away by the silver flying machine

that the thought of it alone echoes
unbelievably; the sound of the motor falls

like a coin toward the ocean's floor
and the eye does not flicker

as it does when in the loud sun a coin
rises and nicks the near air. Now,

slowly, the heart breathes to music
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand.

-Frank O'Hara

So here's the news: I'm up at Necedah, with my boat and my bike, which means it's for keeps this time. We moved Monday afternoon, the chicks moved Tuesday. 3 interns and 11 endangered chicklets, living in the middle of a National Wildlife Refuge--I don't think we're in Baraboo any more! But at least we have a toilet, and, as of today, potable water (it ran red and smelled like pennies before).

What we don't have, in my understanding, is regular internet, unless the DSL cable strung up between the trees gets working (it doesn't work now). I'll probably have access about once a week at the public library, where I am now. But I'll keep you posted, and, on the bright side, if I'm updating at the library I should have access to plenty of poems.

Happiness

So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.

When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.

They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.

I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.

They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.

Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.

-Raymond Carver

From left to right in the bottom picture we have: Fontina, Goat, Saganaki, and Queso. They're buddies. And in the top picture Saga is taking a bath.

I'm not really sure what else to say here, which is about as boring as if I put these in my wallet and carried them around and made people look at them on buses and trains. "That bird followed me around once!" Only instead of a wallet, I have this blog.

Yesterday at the farm we were encouraged to collect the early apples that had fallen off their apple tree--little bitter green ones, but Ralph (the farmer) told us they were good for pie. I figured apple butter is just like pie without the crust, looked up some recipes, and ended up using this one, though I used my hand blender because I don't have a food mill, replaced about half the sugar with honey, and made a half-batch (I ended up with 2 pints of butter, I'm not sure how much apple I had because I never weighed them). This was my first experiment with canning, and I'd say it's a success (the cans have sealed!).

Volunteering at the CSA and "eating in season" has, for me, meant figuring out how to use what I'm given instead of what I want. Produce needs to be dealt with before it goes bad, and I don't always want to make a pie (not to mention eat one) when I get fruit. Last week I made blackberry-mulberry cobbler, because it's easier than pie; lately I've been making a lot of soup with my vegetables (including radish soup...I don't recommend radish soup) because I don't want to throw them all in a salad and a little goes a long way with soup. I am also figuring out what produce I want enough to buy: lemons, mostly. Is this an unqualified success? No, not really; it doesn't feel like much, either, in terms of lessening my environmental impact. But maybe that's the way it should be, because the fact is this is starting to feel just like living, like part of my life, and isn't that what food should be? Once a week I help harvest the food I eat the rest of the week. There's some rightness to that, I think, regardless of whether it makes much of a difference on the large scale.

But back to canning: canned goods always make me think of Greg Brown and summer, probably because of his song "Canned Goods" and because the primary object of our canning at home was strawberries. What I'm trying to say is: this is the music I'm listening to this summer.
It's eclectic at best, and would include Greg Brown's "Summer Evening" but I couldn't upload it.

That's right, it's the county fair.

Well, the month's up, and Wednesday poemday is back by popular demand (...two people). I just decided I might as well take the month off.

Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
----And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
----And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway or on the pavements grey,
----I hear it in the deep heart's core.

-William Butler Yeats, 1888

Also, I am going to recommend this article unequivocally. But, yes, it is a review of a restaurant. I remember when Frank Bruni stepped down as the restaurant critic for the Times, and I didn't understand what the big deal was (who reads restaurant reviews if you aren't going to go to the restaurant?), but now I think I kind of get it. You (probably) aren't going to go to the restaurant. But it's something worth reading about for itself. So read it.