Wish (Blog Promp 4)

Speedwell Forge Lake, a favorite location for many people in Lancaster, PA, is now a mud hole. Tropical Storm Lee blustered through last year and cracked the beloved lake’s dam, making it necessary for officials to drain the water at the end of 2011. Now, many fear it will never be fixed because the state doesn’t have enough money and the once lovely boating and fishing site will be a thing of the past. Many have taken up the cause, hoping to raise funds in a campaign called “Save Speedwell.” They can be seen outside local grocery stores, asking for donations. They can be found walking down the street, their T-shirts insisting that we save the lake.

                It is the trees that wake me, though. Across the street from my house, they give a long, low wail before thundering towards the forest floor. They moan one last time (or is that a sob coming from my parents’ room?). They sigh a wooooosh as they sadly settle. Shocked, I scamper out of bed more quickly than usual and peer out my window, pressing my nose against the pane as if that will get me closer. An insect-like, orange machine lumbers slowly through the trees left standing. It pulls, pushes, lifts, crushes until only the trunks are left crisscrossing the ground like a giant game of Pick-Up Sticks. I inhale sharply. Lake? What lake? My home does not feel like home. 

                Later, I pull on jeans, open my front door, and peak outside. They are still there, these crab creatures that roar, leaving huge tire tracks in their wake. They roll down my road, dig into packed earth. I stand, arms crossed, and watch the monsters scuttle about as they take and take and take. Eyes brimming, I glance around, a scoff escaping my chest. Why not? There’s no life here anymore.

                Now, I drive down my road, towards home that has changed beyond measure. The last tree fell months ago when Dad died. The neighborhood is much brighter and hotter for it. Our protective, lush canopy is gone. Everything is brown, twisted and shrunken. I look every time I go by, and a deep sadness wells up from somewhere beyond me. Maybe from the forest that’s left. “Will they build houses?” some suggest. I hope not. No one has any better ideas, though. The land has been dormant now for months, and I want to scream for it, "How dare you?!" in all directions, to deaf ears, to shrugging shoulders, to useless arms.  They leave the trunks where they fell. We cannot even claim it as firewood, turn it into an offering. 

                The lake is a mud hole, they say. It’s a shadow of its former self, not even a shadow. A puddle. So, they fight for it. I watch. I place a few coins in a jar every once in a while. I wish that the lake would fill again from sweet rain out of spite only the earth can muster. I wish for those trees, now silent, to send out shoots of green. I hope for birds to spread their seeds so that the forest sings again when wind dances through open branches. 

I wish.

I hope my heart raw. 

What I Have Missed (place entry 4)

This morning, at 8 AM, the sky looked bruised, like it could have a good cry. Now, at almost 10 AM, it’s cheerful again, so capricious. A zephyr has coaxed the clouds into revealing a smiling sun. If I stand still for a moment, that same breeze ripples the branches and tosses the leaves coating the forest floor. To me, it says, “Be still.” I watch the sky move, and it reminds me of my father’s eyes. Something rippled beneath as if a current flowed too closely to the surface of his grey-blue gaze to be hidden for long. He had eyes like the ocean. I didn’t notice until it was too late. What could I have done anyway? 

Today, I turn my own gaze to the world around me, determined to see what I never have before. Little birds sing a lullaby. They play hopscotch among the vines and thorns. I bow my head to duck beneath the same branches, but the stickers tug on my curly hair anyway. Finally, I just crouch down; soothed by the wind and the way it makes me feel alive. Nearby, a rock peeks from below the crunchy, fallen leaves. Its cold surface is carpeted by fuzzy moss. Ahead of me, a long, thick branch beckons me with its rosy thorns. They are colorful amongst a forest of brown.

Before I know it, I have gone farther than I ever have in the past 2 months. I am surrounded by the haloed sun and the whispering winds and the knowledge that there is always something I’ve missed here. I am searching even as I hope I don’t find it: the imprint of his shoulders in the dirt, a patch of flannel torn by reaching limbs. 

I am searching for him. 

He’s not here, though. And in looking only for him, I have missed the beauty amongst the snarls. I have missed the strange little puff of grass growing inside the elbow of a tree root. I reach for it now, fingering velvety strands. Then, curiously, I pull a tuft from the earth and smell it to find that it’s actually wild onion! A tiny bulb clings to the end of one of the strands. I have missed the teeny, milky buds popping bravely through the grass in my backyard. They wave in the breeze. 

No, he is not here. I glance back at a large tree trunk, fallen among bristles, and I think of climbing on top of it, resting my head in my hands, and having a good cry. “Another day,” I decide. For now, I sit in my basement, typing this, listening to the whine of a draft moving through my chimney. For now, this will be enough.

"Hope is the Thing with Feathers..." (Blog prompt 3

                “There’s a cardinal!” I peek over Dad’s shoulder, trying to find the crimson feathers in the brilliant sunlight. “There. Do you see it?” he asks, pointing to the snow laden branches in our backyard. Finally, the little bird comes into view. He hops about, fluttering this way and that, dancing by himself. 

                Dad always noticed things like that. He knew the names of birds I couldn’t even distinguish. Through his eyes, they became precious, jewel-like to me. So, I decide to look for the Northern Cardinal this morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of color in my faded backyard. When I see them, I smile, thinking that I can feel Dad standing beside me, pointing them out, speaking softly as if we might scare them away. 

                Cardinals don’t migrate, which is why I see two of them this very moment, chasing each other up a tree in the middle of winter. They are silky, cheerful red against the tree tops, so vermillion that I imagine they are nature’s ornaments. They don’t molt, either. When I notice them among brambles and creeping vines, they simply cannot hide. I think they like it that way. All the better to show off their pompous crests. In fact, cardinals enjoy bushes and vines. They don’t nest too far from the ground, and they have no qualms with making their homes among humans. They prefer backyards and parks. For this trilling, cheeping bird, human expansion has been a blessing. 

                They are extraordinary for their plumage, but common enough. Yet, there is something about them that draws me. Yes, it is their connection to Dad, but I have discovered something about them: They are monogamous. Some say they even mate for life. So, when the male frolics about, carefully placing seeds into his female partner’s beak, he is caring for her. If she dies, he will mourn. Cardinals don’t seem like the grieving type, really. They are too bright for that. They cannot take on a mantle of midnight. They can stop singing, though. They can hide themselves for days if they choose. And then they go on, finding other mates, feeding other hatchlings. Certainly they act on instinct. I wonder, though, if these tiny singing creatures feel loss. Maybe, for a couple days, emotion fills their plump chests instead of song, overtaking what their bodies tell them they must do. Cardinals always come back, though, you know. They always find another tune, another breeze. They are hope against a stark white and brown winter world.

·         -I found info. On cardinals at the following websites: allaboutbirds.org, cardinalbird.org, and wild-bird-watching.com

Longing (place entry 3)

Really, stars are a collection of nuclear explosions. Hydrogen and helium react together, which builds heat and creates a glow that we see from unspeakable miles. The brilliant pinpoints we witness are actually so far away that the illuminations take many years to reach us. The lights are very old and very wise. 

I look up at the stars tonight, though, and don’t think about explosions and gases. I think of the Inuit people who believe stars are actually the lights around a great dance floor in Heaven. I tilt my head back to take in as much of the velvet canopy of sky as I can. Then, I imagine instead that the stars are little windows into a world we cannot really know. They reflect golden streets and some kind of brilliance so intense that we can only stand to see pieces of it down here. They are portals to Heaven, you see, and, every once in a while, Dad can peer down and watch me watching him. 

I take a deep breath of the silver night air, now, a chill pleasantly filling my chest as I settle onto the hilltop behind my house. The moon, the lesser light, plays hide and seek behind sparse tree branches. The longer I sit and watch, though, the higher it rises, an ivory balloon some child has lost his hold on. Tonight, the moon wears a halo. They say it will snow tomorrow, though, and I imagine it dons a fleecy, white cape in order to keep it warm. 

In the distance, trucks pass by on the turnpike, their lights competing with the playful moon. It’s strange to have a highway in your backyard, but, in the summer, when I open my bedroom window so that my room will cool at night, I hear these great monsters passing by with a slow, lonely howl. They are comforting for some reason. They echo my heart here. They remind me of longing. 

What is it that the moon longs for? I wonder if it wishes to rule the day as the sun does. Maybe it desires for influence, so it plays coquet as it tugs at frothy waves. Perhaps it can only wish for companions closer than stars. Or maybe it has the better deal because it can glimpse Heaven in little snippets. Is that what why the moon sneaks between the trees and peaks over mountain tops? Oh, to have the vanilla moon’s vantage point. If only I could see so clearly. 

Dead End Road (blog prompt 2)

“What’s your address?” the receptionist asks me. 

“I live on Dead End Road.” 

 

She looks up at me, incredulous laughter hidden behind pursed lips. “Dead End Road?” 

“Yup,” I nod and smile. I get this reaction every time. Yes, it’s a dead end. No, it is not the sight of some horror story. No, we are not lunatics or murderers. At most, the neighbors are nosy, silent until they have something to report to the police, which really turns out to be nothing at all anyway.

When you drive past my road, you will glance at the sign, point it out, and say, “Dead End Road! That’s creepy.” You’ll shiver a little as you go along your merry way. You will have no idea that it was once called Old Mountain Road. You’ll never see that, along this road that goes on for a little over a mile, the land has grown into us, tree roots curling around our homes so that we are comfortable in the heart of the forest. 

Maybe you don’t know this, but snow falling makes a sound. I’m pretty sure this is true in more places than my home, but I only learned it here, on Dead End Road (which you will drive by on your way to somewhere else). The sound is silence. Isn’t that a sound? The snow says, “Hush.” Then, it frosts our trees. Lace flirts as it swirls about us, whispering that we should stay inside for awhile and keep warm and cozy in the absence of noise. 

You might not know that, when you first turn onto my road in the fall, it is honey glazed. The tangled bushes that reach for the shoulder of the road are golden. They bring their own sunlight. When you pass on by in the summer, you’ll also never notice the way clusters of raspberries peak through brambles and blush happily. Oh, and they are so tangy and juicy and sweet!  When we were children, we picked handfuls and covered them in sugar and ate them until our fingers were stained and sticky. You won’t roll your window down and drift by as honeysuckles shyly wave at you. Their scent is heavenly, you know (You probably do, actually). It’s milky and gentle and it gets caught in a breeze so that it carries all the way to the dead end of our road, where the forest meets up with my backyard.

You’ll be surprised to find that Dead End Road has weaved its way into our lives, vines curling here and there when we didn’t notice. It is a comfort and terribly annoying all at the same time. Have you ever driven along a road encrusted with ice that sparkles like diamonds? Plows don’t make it back here too often. Dead End Road is an afterthought, but a lovely one. Have you ever spent days without electricity because a tree battered and played by the wind has fallen on your power lines? 

But our forest makes up for this. My backyard throws a party every fall. It sings in the wind and glows emerald in the spring. It kindly holds onto remnants of our childhood play and offers them back to me when I least expect it. I’m telling you: The next time you drive past Dead End Road, don’t laugh. It’s not really a dead end at all.

Proof (Place blog 2)

It isn’t until I’ve walked all the way across my yard and down the hill that I realize if I stop and be quiet, I can hear them: birds cheerfully caroling. I have tracked my foot prints in the snow, though, and every step makes a kind of crunching noise in the three inches of frosting that covers my lawn.  I hate to ruin unblemished snow. I always have. The best part about snow is that reverent silence it covers the world in just after it’s fallen. Of course, ten minutes later, the neighbor kids are out, scooping up handfuls and running crisscross in it, their energetic calls sending puffs of breath into the air. 

For now, it’s just me, the snow, and my thoughts, though. It’s 9:50 AM, and I am alone, the neighbor kids having gone off to school. I stand by the edge of the woods again.  Only, this time, the same forest has been transformed. It is hushed, dripping ice. I glance down at the snow gently holding earth, covering the heart of the matter. Around me, branches have oddly begun to bud as if the blanket of snow tricked them into warmth. From pert, new shoots, crystal beads hang suspended. Even the tall trees, their arms spread like webs, look as if they are more alive than they were two weeks ago.  They frame pictures of pregnant, grey sky.  Meanwhile, fine droplets of ice or water or snow (I can’t tell!) whisper as they fall from the heavy clouds. 

Such delicate jewels remind me… A couple days ago, I was driving home at night. I pulled up to my house and gasped. The ground was awash in glitter. Speckles of light flickered in the rays of my car’s high beams. “What on earth?” I puzzled. Then, I realized it was frost! Tiny shards of glass had formed over blades of grass because the ground was cooler than the freezing point. It was lovely. I stepped out of my car and just marveled. 

That’s how I feel now in my backyard, my feet quiet, my mind finally still. I close my eyes and breathe and imagine that snow does not, in fact, cover. It renews and washes and signifies that life will come from death. When I open my eyes again, I see the fog-laced woods, proof of a Creator I sometimes forget I believe in.

Home Is (Blog Prompt 1)

This is home: Branches reaching for the sky in prayer above my head, tangles of thorns and thickets to run and hide in, trails that curl and disappear, plump raspberries, endless imagination.  I have lived here since I was three, which is as long as I can remember anyway. My brother and I did not sit in front of the TV. We pushed open the sliding glass door in our kitchen, bounded down the deck stairs, and got lost. Who needs TV when you have an entire forest at your disposal? 

When I look out at the woods in my backyard (my chosen place), my back a silhouette in the golden sunlight, I understand that this is where I belong. I suppose we have thought of moving in the last several months because the memories here are thick and warm as the smoke curling from the chimney, but we simply cannot leave. 

We cannot. 

This is where my brother and I snuck out of the house at 2 AM one morning to explore the trails across the road from our house. Home is where Dad built us a tree house in the backyard. It’s the place we crouched by little springs of frigid, flowing water and watched closely for frogs and crayfish and salamanders. As Wendell Berry writes in his poem, “Stay Home,” “In the stillness of the trees I am at home.” The trees are disappearing, now, though. To the left, new neighbors have chopped grandfatherly trees and cut thick, twisted bushes for fear that these behemoths will fall on their newly-built house. I say, why did you move to the woods? Across the road, where the forest used to be so thick you couldn’t see through, they have cut thousands of feet of trees for no reason I can see. The trunks lay there, sad and forgotten, silent. 

Home is where Dad planted a garden in the rocky soil and loved it kindly so that it would produce green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers. It is where Mom planted flowers carefully in our front yard so that they would bloom bright reds and pinks and oranges. This is where she sewed seeds for hyacinth bushes that blossom sweet blues and pinks and purples. They smell like balloons to me when they celebrate spring.  Home is where we planted a still-miniature evergreen tree by our clothesline in the backyard. I glance at it every time I pull into my driveway and, now, I see that there is an “otherness” to it that Cronon would appreciate when he wrote, in “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” that “The tree in the garden is in reality no less other, no less worthy of our wonder and respect than the tree in the ancient forest…” 

Here, my imagination grew alongside the budding raspberries in July. My feet calloused from walking over rocks and sticks and cold dirt without shoes. My eyes widened as I watched Dad with pride when he nurtured his plants and gave them names I had never heard before. My trust in my brother developed when he protected me from falling trees (even if he did trip me with his next step).  This is my “wilderness.” It is so full of me and Dad and Mom and my brother that we cannot leave. 

"You stay home too" 

~"Stay Home" by Wendell Berry~