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July 1, 2005
Moments of Glad Grace
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the 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.
from "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats
I returned on Monday from several days away (at the biennial ASLE conference) to find that I had been gone much longer than I had thought.
The field across the road had grown into a thicket of flowers -- apparitions of Vetch, Hawk Weed, shoulder-high Meadow Rue and Queen Anne's Lace -- the night air heady with their ghostly fragrance. The sky was clear, and, though my bed was calling me after my long trip, I watched as cascades of lightning bugs tumbled across the meadow seeking one another in the darkness, pooling only briefly in a dance of constellations. Even though Orion's constellation is guiding people elsewhere this season, the memory and strength of his stars surrounds me even here in our overgrown meadow.
Orion, too, has grown more than I could have expected in a week. He is regularly munching on root vegetables and peas, with the aid of two new (sharp!) teeth. In every hour of absence, I cherish the moments of presence all the more. In my free time, learn'd astronomer-inspired wanderings at the conference, I visited the Oregon coast one afternoon. I think I was looking for something there, in the dunes and sand and wind. I sought my goal in a sheltered cove where the Siuslaw River enters the Pacific. There, behind a jetty lined with driftwood, I found graying, wind scoured logs larger in girth than almost any living tree I had seen in the Northeast. The gnarled trunks, some thirty feet long, gray from their years in the sun, were maps of (and to) places I had not been and did not know. I traced the whorls, ridges, and valleys with my palm, trying myself to find a purchase in this place so far from home and family.
One trunk with its base exposed -- apparently submerged in the high tide, but now bare and visible -- revealed within the concentric ridges of its uncountable growth rings the vestigial sapling of the great tree's early years. Solid, spindly branches radiated out from the heartwood, trapped inside, but preserved by the outward growth of decades, perhaps centuries of rings. I think I found what I was seeking in the maps and metaphors limned by these ancient trees -- a guide to the way home to be with my own sapling before he grows up too much more.
Posted by pavel at July 1, 2005 11:03 AM
Comments
Oh, that last picture is priceless! :-)
Posted by: Lorianne at July 1, 2005 1:38 PM
Grandpa is telling him something but, of course, Orion knows better. Good for him! And two teeth! When did that happen?
Posted by: Gina at July 5, 2005 9:14 PM
as always a wonderful and graceful read. you have a marvelous way with words and an artful way of completing the circle. thanks!
Posted by: Anne at July 7, 2005 1:47 PM
Did the monkey have anything to say?
Posted by: Melinda at July 7, 2005 7:01 PM
The monkey seems to be the only one actually reading...
Posted by: Pavel at July 8, 2005 8:55 AM