Mary Oliver, poet of the rugged soul, champion of kindness, lover of the world’s broken beauty. 1935-2019.
I wanted
The past to go away, I wanted
To leave it, like another country…And nobody gets out of it, having to
Swim through the fires to stay in
This world.
— Mary Oliver
A milk truck rolling slowly up Bridgeman Hill catches the sunset on its long, silvery side. The mud-splattered Booth Bros.’s truck reflects that sky behind and above me — ruby clouds — and that movable art mural is so wonderfully awesome I’m taken out of time, snapped back into the world only as the truck has nearly passed and I realize the driver has lifted one hand, waving a greeting.
I watch the truck continue its gradual roll up the hill, where pavement gives way to dirt road. As I descend down the hill, the village glows beneath that magnificent sunset — the granite town building, the long strings of electric lines, the houses well-tended or ramshackle — players in a landscape of cosmic beauty.
When the winter chrysanthemums go,
There’s nothing to write about
But radishes.
—Basho
Standing in mud and slush in the dark last night, we watched women spinning cords with knots of flames. Their faces concealed in the darkness, I listened to the women talking and laughing, each of their laughs remarkably distinct.
Later that night, walking down Montpelier’s State Street, with hardly anyone around, we admired the mighty Christmas tree at the State House. On the capital’s shiny dome, Ceres — goddess of agriculture, grain, and motherly love for children — reigned.
Vermont — realm of wild blackberries, chittering sparrows, lush forests, and the deep, dark winter. There’s no denying this state holds its portion of troubles, but also the willingness to lift fire, spin it around in the darkness, and laugh.
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter….
— Pablo Neruda
My 13-year-old’s wild to travel. I see in her eyes, in her schemes, as she wonders where her life will go, which way she can push her boundaries. I understand this sentiment. At 22, I gave little thought to a 9,000 mile cross country trek, save swapping a gas-fueled Toyota for a diesel Rabbit. This was during the first Gulf War, when the price of gas soared.
But now? Maybe it’s the early onset of snow that’s choked so much of Vermont’s roads or — more likely — simply that I’m at the place in life where I think, heck, remain rooted. Figure out this one particular place.
Walking after dark — darkness falls so early, early these days, before I pull out my cutting board to begin preparing supper — I think of Chris Hedges’ line: faith is the belief that the good draws to it the good. I read this good as a verb and not a noun. What a notion — that goodness is a physical force in the universe. I know violence begets violence, that using drugs leads to more drug use, that civility in a house tempers anger, knocks down the edges, and bends dialogue towards decency — and that the inverse of this is true, too.
On our back porch, the wind chimes call in a scatting of cold breeze this morning. Later, in the rising light, cardinals will appear, flashy red against all this white.
Rain moved in overnight, but yesterday was a sultry 80 degrees, the school kids running into the library and standing just inside the door, panting, their faces rosy, sweaty. A grandfather and I stood talking in the doorway. About an hour more, you think, this lovely weather will last? I asked. He laughed.
After work, I swam while my daughter sat on the bank with our friend and her old rabbit, stroking the bunny’s white fur and talking. The pond water — when I thought swimming had ended weeks ago — had an initial flash of cold. Then I swam out where the deep, nearly inky water held me, tepid. The dragonflies are gone. I grabbed fallen, floating leaves.
I knew the sun would set before long. I had chores. My friend was leaving. And yet — swimming, October 10, northern Vermont. Mark that.
#10 Pond/Photo by Molly S.
Reading Daniel Mason’s new novel, The Winter Solider, I’m reminded of first reading Russian novels — Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev — when I was a teenager. How hungry I was for those books — what will these characters do? — in their snow-buried landscapes. Tender green shoots of spring poked through the gritty ice.
This reading mirrors the kind of life I carved out as an adult. Live on a hundred acres of woods, work outside in all weather, pull your toddler along the backroad in the sleet, just because…. Know that where the moon rises above your house is essential. Be afraid; know that the snow and the long-toothed northern cold can and will maim and kill, but how beautiful this world is…..
They were five hours east of Debrecen when the train came to a halt before the station on the empty plain.
— Daniel Mason, The Winter Soldier
Cambridge, Vermont
Stony Soil Vermont 