WATERWHEELS AND SAWMILLS
There might be a way back,
we missed the turn
I saw it in the old time fiddle festivals,
The covered bridges, smaller houses
Easier to heat now but then it took
Iron arms to cut all that wood
But the dreams were strong
Dirt roads, wagons and horses,
Cattle and walking to school
There were tradeoffs, I still like modern medicine and rock music
But maybe it is not necessary to travel more than ten miles to find
that which is truly the heart’s desire.
Life wrested rom thef woods and fields sailing craft and
water-powered sawmills,
they could only cut the wide flooring when it was really pouring
People creating a life out of the land
What do these villages look like?
When they last through time.
They look like the Italian or French countrysides, or New England hill towns, a hamlet gives way to a field, then to the forest,
A place for hawk, otter and human
Bounded by natural divisions of hill, mountain, lake, brook and river
People have come to these places again and again for their usefulness
Not just their beauty
The power of water to cut wood
And then the beauty of the grain is noticed
The power of wood to heat
Some comfort is drawn
The good soil giving abundant crops
Thanksgiving and
Time to reflect
Sitting in the sunset light on the porch
A little applejack and a banjo tune
MY BELGIAN DRAFT HORSES
Tommy and George are just happy
to get plenty to eat
We know each other well by now
There is a rhythm to our chores and
Hauling logs in from the woodlot
Cultivating the garden
But it all makes more sense
When we are driving along and
Talk to the neighbors as we
Trundle by
How’s the garden?
Good’nyours?
Music Saturday night ya know!
We’ll be there
Live in light and bliss
Breathe deep
Seek peace
CRASH OF 2008
Governments and global industry
Trying desperately to save themselves, nationalize the banks
Buy up bad investments
God knows the rich shouldn’t have to endure hardship the likes of which the rest of us face
Nobody will borrow to buy anything
If we don’t have work to pay for it
Never mind keeping our homes
The middle class is almost gone and with it , the last hope of democracy
We are apparently headed back down the economic ladder
Perhaps to horse drawn wagons
and steam locomotives. The transition could have been easier
with some forethought.
Baldwin brook
Runs up the narrow valley
Called drake woods road
And then route 17
There are at least
Eight narrow waterfalls,
Each worthy of many paintings
There used to be many mills along the brook,
But they wash away like the 12 inches of rain that night in “98, that took a hundred yards of highway with it when it went down town
The ghosts of the covered bridges
Reach up in the imagination
Above the concrete spans that have
Replaced the dirt farm
And mill road that came snaking up the hill
It was never an easy life,
And has not been for me either
After thirty years
Of building many homesteads around these parts
We still have a local sawmill at least but it runs courtesy of Mr. Caterpillar
And not the fortnightly rain
But the beams rise nonetheless
Although with crane and comealong
We ruin our backs at a less precipitous rate
And all our power tools make us wonder how in the world all these places got built as well as they did
It still took me a generation to build a home and two barns, even with all the modern help
My kids joke and say dad’ll just make it out of wood and paint it
And I do, but I still don’t have the arms of those ole-timers
THE INLAND SEA
At dawn, the lines slip through the cleats, and the sheets fly through the blocks spinning as the sails rise on the masts,
of the small fishing fleet headed out of Westport
The breeze rises fitfully at first, and then comes on steadily
The voices carry across the water
Captains commands and the resounding acknowledgements
It took a long time to relearn
How to fish and build the boats out of the local woods when the plastic ran out, but the small fleet that heads out
Is the pride of the lake and their captains know as much biology as sailing
And so the fish stocks remain
And the people are fed
A perfect fall morning
With clearing mist
Setting nets for walleye
Some years just enough
Some enough to salt for winter
And some years enough to trade
Iced down on huge blocks cut from the lake and ponds in the winter just like they used to do before cheap energy
It used to take a long time to get here
In the old days and may again
The local culture will then become even more unique
As everyone becomes native
And has to
Thinking beyond the car
Learning to drive a horse and wagon or even a team
just like the amish eight year olds
Ride a bike with a basket for groceries
Or sail a boat across the lake
I like that speed 5 knots
About 6 miles an hour
I live that far from town,
and I like it about that far
The speed feels right
Time to converse and think and
Watch the kestrel fly over the wagon
Toward the hayfield
You don’t get as much done at that pace
But what was so important in the hurry anyway
Have we sacrificed our sanity for
Speed and wealth
WHO IS THE I
that seeks the light
who is the one
who desires
who is the one
who really knows the path
toward wisdom
t
easing the innately
unknowable, ineffable truth
out of the cosmic cloth
leading one toward the humility
of the awakened state
watching the theatre
of the collective mind
BREAD AND PUPPET
Dancing round the fire
Flames leaping up to the milky way
Drums , guitars and flutes
Sing and talking timeless tongues
The pageant pointing us the right way, poking fun at villains
A vignette, a hint of what yet might be
Later, in life, dancing round the fire of the heart, in the sufi dervish way
the radiant light of being
resolving into us
something timeless, those nights
distilling the essence of what is most human, most vital
our highest potential
skan, Lakota for life force
nature moving, all nature dancing
TO HOLD
To hold the spirit light
Within the heart
To bring this light to bear
Upon one’s daily creative impulse
In a world which seems asleep
To both its peril and
it’s potential destiny
Then this is all we could hope to do
Here on earth
It would not do to stand on the mountain and merely watch destiny unfold
Destiny will enfold all of us
Love lifts us into the place of letting love into all of creation
And allowing the life force energy god spirit to just come through
Healing and transforming
Minute by minute, day by day
And week by week
Cover Artwork courtesy of Barbara Dickason |
