A Deep River Year
September 24, 2014   

Now it is dark here, at 6 a.m.   Though it still feels like night, an internal alarm clock goes off inside me.   I stir, then pull myself to my feet, get dressed and head downstairs to begin this new day.  I am a keeper of routines.   For me, the daily rounds are as comforting as the ancient holy offices of the monastics.     I do not call my morning practices elegant names like matins and lauds, but they sustain me in much the same way.   I am comforted by the predictable framework that has stitched my life together through years of change.   I open the front door, step out to pick up the daily newspaper  and wish the world well.   Inside again, I turn on the coffee pot, which is a signal to the cats that food is coming.   They weave in and out of my path as I jingle the leashes in an attempt to call the dogs for their walk.   They come, but reluctantly, in these darker mornings. 

Our morning walk may take many different routes.  Sometimes the two dogs and I set out across the ball field and the path through the sand pits.   It is overgrown now, and my pants get wet going that way.   We may follow the railroad tracks along the cove, or go for a run in the old cemetery on top of the hill where a beautiful herald angel atop a tall pillar faces east to watch the sun rise.  Often in the dark mornings we stay on the sidewalks in the center of town, where streetlights show the way.   That’s what we did this morning.

Along this circuit a bus stops in front of the pharmacy in the darkness, and waits a minute as if somebody might show up for a ride.   A white pickup turns into the driveway of the doughnut shop.   Down the street the lights from inside the corner restaurant reveal a bald man in a leather jacket alone at the counter, bent over a steaming mug of coffee.   We turn down a side street, and the noise of the Main St. traffic suddenly falls away.   We walk together into the soft whir of crickets and the whisper of a breeze.   This morning’s quiet is the prize, the gift, of such early rising.  It is the silent smile of a day’s possibility, the wordless invocation of gratitude, my matins.

Morning Walk

They take me down familiar streets,
suddenly straining at the other end of leashes
for an elusive scent in long grass
or the provocative bark of a distant dog.
I breathe deep, too,
as if there might be something hidden
waiting to be noticed
in these hills and roads of home.
In a comforting window a light goes on,
and I look away as if to avoid intruding
on some intimate awakening.
This quiet time is lovely, healing.
I would not barge into a day without this time,
this tender place--a hollow of expectancy
where something may yet be born,
or an idea rise and circle for a while, like a bird,
or a remembered song of joy stir to life.
So we head into dawn,
looking for something to surprise us:
a tennis ball hiding in the grass,
a heron skimming the treetops,
a runner circling the streets in neon pink shoes,
a crimson leaf flickering by the pond,
like a flame.

--Timothy Haut, September 24, 2014

A Deep River Year
 September 17, 2014   

It is early morning, just before sunrise, and we are walking by the place where the old river road passes over the marsh.   The cove is filled with the long, grassy heads of wild rice.  No wonder that hundreds of red-winged blackbirds gather here.   Along the railroad tracks the chatter of birds is constant, as if a great meeting is in progress.    In the open water, swans, geese and ducks awaken, ready to find breakfast in the muck below the surface.   They flap their wings excitedly, then turn upside-down to feast, ignorant of the human presence.

Walking along the tracks, the air is rich with the aroma of wild concord grapes.   The remnants of acorns decorate the ground under tall oak trees.   And here and there long spires of goldenrod reach for the light.  Summer days slip past this way.   Up on the hill the apple trees are heavy with fruit, and down here, by the river, the leaves are already changing color.   It is cold here in the morning, and we walk quickly toward a new season.

The blackbirds know.   Their song is not the joyous trill of April.   It is really not a song at all, but the incessant noise of conversation.  They chatter, then rise and circle only to descend again into the lush grasses.   The prattle of birds goes on.    We cannot understand the subject of their communication.   Perhaps it is a sound made in assurance that in the failing light and the dying down of things, they are not alone.  We seek this too, in some ways.   We yearn to find company in the coming of darkness.   Some of us hold on to a companion simply out of that fear--that terror of growing old alone.   We are creatures who need others, need to hear voices.   We take wing, feel the tug and pull of seasons and stars.   Sooner or later the time will come when we must go.   But we will not do it alone.

Blackbird Promise

They gather here
in the tall marsh grass
singing a raucous song.
to the morning.
In blood and bone
they feel autumn's warning,
know the taste of darkness, cold and death.
It will not be long,
this goodness, this grace
of flower and seed.
The grapes are falling,
and the wild asters tell the tale
of a world that forever changes.
Now it is time to gather,
to be a living cloud,
or a congregation uncontained,
murmuring their practiced prayers
and exulting in the gold and green
of September's joyous day.
It seems they hear some secret signal,
then suddenly rise together into the blue
for a precious little while,
as if something should be seen,
or a promise could be made here.
They trust this:
The sun will rise.
The river will run.
They will wing their way together
into some new day.

--Timothy Haut, September 17, 2014

A Deep River Year
 September 10, 2014

Boxes of unsharpened pencils and stacks of notebooks fill the store shelves, and kids lugging oversized backpacks line up at the corners waiting for the buses to haul them off to school. These big yellow buses mean September is here, and a new season. And they carry the most precious of cargo. They make us stop and remember. Driving down a long straightaway of rural highway a couple of days ago, I got caught behind the afternoon high school bus unloading kids every hundred yards or so. That two or three mile stretch of road took an exorbitantly long time to traverse, and I am certain some of the other drivers in the lineup of cars behind me were not quite as patient about the length of their trip.

 My granddaughter reported that she, too, is riding the bus this year. Her new school is a little too far away for her to walk, as she did last year when she attended the elementary school just a few blocks from her house. She developed an aversion to riding the bus several years ago. As a little girl at school for the first time, she got on the bus at the end of the day and was one of the last to get off at the end of a fairly long, circuitous route. The busy day at school had taken its toll: she fell asleep, slumped down on the seat. The driver could not see her. And it wasn’t until the bus pulled into the lot for the night that the driver discovered one tired, scared little girl still on board.

 Hopefully, her bus trips will be more pleasant now. I still remember those rides to school in my own youth: Pete the bus driver and his funny welcome, the vague smell of sour milk and old thermoses, the thump of metal lunch boxes and the squeak of wet rubber boots tromping down the aisle in search of a seat. And I hold on to an old shame. One little girl on our bus route lived in a poor house in the woods, and she got on the bus each day with the same clothes and a worn jacket. Her hair was usually tangled, and she always stared at the floor as she made her way toward a seat at the back of the bus. She was usually greeted with smirks, muffled giggles, and rude gestures, such as kids holding their nose as if something smelled bad. Something did, but it wasn’t her. It was that nobody, not even I, ever offered her a seat.

Girl on the Bus

 Where is she now,
 the little one
 who did not belong
 among all the bright, beloved children?
 She was an outcast, once,
 poor, disheveled, lonely,
 who made the long, painful walk every day
 to the very back of the bus
 waiting for someone to offer her
 a place to sit.
 If I could find her now,
 I hope she would be tall
 and fair of face,
 one whose clear eyes
 has forgiven the folly of the world.
 I pray that her wounded heart,
 scarred by childhood cruelty,
 has been healed by a later love,
 and welcomed into a kinder world.
 If I could find her now,
 I would stand as she came by,
 invite her to sit by me for a while,
 perhaps in a seat by the window
 so that she could smile
 at the loveliness of the world
 and know that on this big bus we share,
 there is a place for her,
 for everyone.

 --Timothy Haut, September 10, 2014

A Deep River Year
 September 3, 2014  

The trip is short, not more than a half an hour or so, down this beautiful river to the place of wonders.   We were invited again this year to travel by boat with friends to witness the great murmuration of swallows.  Each year, beginning at the end of August, a majestic flock of tree swallows makes its way south on its annual migration.   And here, in the long reeds of an estuary island near the mouth of the Connecticut River, they come to make a nightly roost.   As we ride the tidal current, we wait for the hour of sunset, when perhaps half a million birds gather from miles around.   We watch them, circling overhead in dancing waves of life, moving as if they were one great winged creature, guided by some invisible force.  Then they drop silently, suddenly, and it is over.   The sun applauds, painting the water vermillion and rose, as we turn for home.

Out on the river, there is a kind of silence in spite of the boat’s motor.     The wind is loud, and conversation is difficult.    And the deep water beating at the sides of the boat collapses into a mighty rush of foam in our wake.    But the silence is of the world away from us, the quiet of gulls overhead, and muted laughter from a passing schooner.   It is as if the world holds its breath again as the color drains away into an exuberance of stars.

And here we are caught again in the great cycles of time and life.    This is the season of the annual migration of swallows, whose ancestors made this trip over the ages, answering a call as powerful to them as it is mysterious to us.   But we live amid a host of such mighty forces, too:   that little ache in the heart as summer moves into autumn once again;  the ebb and flow of the ocean’s tide against a waxing moon;  the great motion of constellations as Orion rises in the September sky;  the migration of children back to school; and the unremitting procession of death and birth, change and decay that mark all joy, all sadness.   This is our river, and tonight we feel the ancient call to return again to a place where, for a while, we can roost.

Carry Me Home, Old River

Carry me home, old River,

to the place I have never been,
that place to which I always return.
Sing to me a ballad I can remember,
a song of stars and wind and tide,
a serenade as true as moonlight
when the moon is nowehere to be seen.
Often I have sung my own song,
taken my own singular path
against the traffic of the world.
But in the evening
I feel the pull of blood and tide,
wish to join the tender migration
that binds the starfish and the stars.
So I come to you, boatless,
wishing to bend to your water,
to dip my hands, shoulders, body into your life,
to ride your silver stream
and feel its whisper and thrum,
tuning my own heartbeat to its rhythm.
I seek the place beyond seeing,
the island where the swallows rest,
the place both salt and fresh
at the meeting of all waters,
the ancient home where life begins and ends
in peace.
Carry me there, old River.

--Timothy Haut, September 3, 2014