Forgive me for having nothing nice to say in the face of war. The robins came back, though. I take this, more and more, each year as a mercy just for me and I wanted to share it with everyone I didn’t cook much this week. I made a stew with sweet potatoes and squirrels. It was supposed to be really bold, with ginger and scotch bonnets and cayenne, but I could barely taste it. This was troubling so I ate boiled eggs, and mackerel out of a can. I did make a nice little pudding with acorns, rice, maple sugar, simmered soft with eggs and milk. It was tender, easy to digest and I wanted to share it with everyone. I was so thankful for this new fluidity, you know sinking snow, waves of robins, the way even my rusty body moves more freely above thirty degrees mouth wide under the maple spout a sap drinker without a prayer until my dog fell into the river, running I watched her head slip under the ice and I went rigid, hard as a mother of war and I needed to share it with everyone She shook it off while I made a fire, shivering mad at myself while she forgave me even with nothing nice to say in the freshly washed face of death, and we went fishing.
A friend told me, a few days ago, about a national forest in Florida where they issue permits for digging earthworms. This inflamed a childhood fantasy of befriending a flock of robins to pull nightcrawlers for me to sell as bait, which reminded me of this poem I’d written. I looked it up to find I’d written it that day, February 25th, two years ago. There are some other synchronicities within the poem that maybe aren’t surprising because of our cyclical nature, but are interesting, and kind of comforting, nonetheless. You can read it here or listen to it by pressing play at the top of the page.
Mud Season
Quick
what’s the balm for death
cus worry isn’t working.
I barely just figured out blisters
now everyone is croaking
and everyone is next.
My worry trails are starting to show
the fawn around the roadkill doe
the dog around the dooryard
when you’re not home.
February twenty-fifth is frozen stiff
but mud-sliding into March.
Every spot free of snow
every pool of gold and hump of green
is alive with copper robins
heads cocked for worms.
When I was ten
up early tugging nightcrawlers
out of the spring-soaked ground
I thought
If I trained a flock of bug-eating birds
to do my dirty work
I’d already be fishing.
Why didn’t I do that?
The mud and air are so soft today
I just know I’ll wake up with woodcock
and that’ll be the bright spot
in this lukewarm thirty-four
The ravens stole all my shiny parts
and cached them way up high.
I thought I’d be safe, standing still,
dull compared to the glare of golden birches,
but they spotted me when I swayed for a man -
oiled my skin - let down my hair
and they swooped in
Now they taunt me from their towers,
the sap is rising to them
the maple moon climbs up
but I’m stuck down here
gone limp against the grabbing ground
a crab in a net
a cold, dud match
in carnival of Kinglets - crowns aflame
tossing their torches through the thorny canes
trying sweetly to throw me a spark.
I think I used to like to smoke.
Now I want to burn so bad
but I just can’t seem to catch.
There’s no space for impatience here
No time at all for sloth
but I just learned that the Passamaquoddy word for “field”
is a verb
so I’ll keep trying.
Don’t give up on me, Honey.
When a whale dies in Duck Cove
the whole Atlantic comes to dinner.
The orchard wanes
and morels sit while she goes.
When there’s a whiff of war
we remember our kin smell like roses.
What blooms after a childhood dies?
What orchids rise when whole forests fall? If you could use something soft and easy.
If you want to be a sap-drinker, too.
I have a piece out on how I make maple syrup. Try it, I promise, you’ll like it.
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