Orion Rising

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August 2, 2005

Oak and Sky

We should have started from this: the sky.
A window without a sill, frame, or pane.
An opening and nothing more,
but open wide.

I need not wait for a clear night
nor crane my neck
to examine the sky.
I have the sky at my back, at hand, and on my eyelids.
The sky wraps me snugly
and lifts me from below.

From "Sky" by Wislawa Szymborska

Five pairs of feet pad across islands of shadow and sun on the packed sand of the road as my two dogs walk with me under a canopy of low oak trees. It's before noon, but the heat of the day shepherds the three of us into the sparse shade at the edges of the road. The cloudless sky seems to melt into the shimmering horizon and in even seems reflected in the packed sand beneath our feet. We are a long drive (and short ferry ride) from the familiar mountains that define our horizon at home, though the same sky envelops everything here, its air thick with the humid embrace of high summer off the New England coast.

August has always been a time of reflection for me, as the dog days of summer slip slowly by and I begin to prepare for the coming school year. This summer -- Orion's first -- has seen us mostly at home, trying to share everything we love about the North Country with our son and finding new places and perspectives as we look through his eyes at a world we thought we already intimately knew.

Afternoons spent by waterfalls deep in the woods, where I would stand in the water with Orion in my arms, hoping the sun would hover forever above the ridge of white pines to the west; a day cycling through our beloved Notch; climbing to my old haunts above treeline; or just sitting in the shade of the cedars in our yard, listening to the chatter of red squirrels and watching clouds float over the peak of our roof. I have memories from the summer to fill volumes, though little time to record them; here, as Orion dips his toes into the ocean for the first time with a characteristic giggle and the dogs play beside him in the gently breaking waves, I would rather be outside with Orion than in here, lest I miss some laugh or hint of a smile half-hidden beneath the brim of his sun hat.

I cherish these days of sky, sand, sea, and dappled shade, though while I take time to think back on the summer, I also look ahead to bringing Orion -- my little mountain man -- back to the mountains where he became the center of our lives.

You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.

Li Bai

Posted by pavel at August 2, 2005 3:00 PM

Comments

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