A Deep River Year - 2017

Last weekend was damp and cold. A cool, wet Spring has had its virtures. The flowering trees have been luxurious in their blossoming. The lilacs have scented the air for weeks, and the tulips and daffodils have lingered well past their usual finale. But now, suddenly, it is warm, and the earth beckons for a summer planting. Yesterday was hot, a day for moving slowly. But we spent the day digging deep holes and planting shrubs and flowers ...as a warm sun beat down upon our backs. 
 

At the end of the day we rested in our comfortable chairs out in the back yard as a late afternoon breeze stirred the newly green leaves at the edge of the woods. And this is a pleasure: to sit in a tender, growing place surrounded by the chatter of birds and the whisper of wind. One moment a hummingbird whizzes its way to a feeder, and a few seconds later a downy woodpecker comes to the same place to drink. A crow drops into the birdbath while squawking a "hello," and house sparrows flutter in the fresh turned earth of the garden as they give themselves a dust bath. A family of baby birds yammer from a birdhouse on the side of the barn, waiting for mama to return with sustenance. And then the orioles drop in, glorious in orange and black. Their arrival each May always feels like a surprise and an elusive gift. They come to peck at the oranges arrangedat the edge of the garden just for them, although the canny catbird seems to eat its fill as well. We would have such beauty with us forever, if they would stay. But like sweet Spring itself, these visitors are all the more precious for their brief, enchanting visit.


 May Orioles


A pair of orioles appear
bright as morning light,
their flaming feathers
a Springtime fire.
They are guests at our offered feast:
a juicy orange sliced in two
and placed on poles
at our garden's corner.
They chatter a greeting,
perhaps a grateful prayer
in the tongue of birds,
then eat voraciously
before swooping and soaring
high into a canopy of leaves.
They appear suddenly,
out of nowhere,
their presence a gift
which lasts for just a little while,
before they are gone.
This, like all blessings,
is a sign of love's presence,
the miracle always around us,
coming and going as a joy,
tender, glorious, orange,
feathered and fleeting,
calling us to watch, watch,
and be glad.
--Timothy Haut, May 21, 2017

A Deep River Year - 2017

Once a gnarled old apple tree stood behind our house here in Deep River. Its fruit didn't amount to much. The little yellow apples were hard, misshapen, wormy. They littered the ground on early September days. And as the sun was still warm and redolent of summer, the apples would slowly soften in the grass and attract swarms of yellow jackets. It was a challenge to rake them up, because the wasps preferred to have me leave a buffet of apples for them. I tried to make apple sauce a few times, but it was a lot of work to core the little things and carve out all the wormy spots and rotten parts. So about the only purpose they served was for little boys to engage in apple fights. That they did. And, on those evenings, they would fling those little apples into the sky and watch as curious bats swooped down to see what was flying through the air and appearing on their radar.


But it was in May when that old tree was at its best. My son Adam's birthday was May 2, and I remember with gladness the days when he, his brothers and friends romped through the yard. They were young and innocent and beautiful, and the sound of children's laughter filled the air at his birthday gatherings. For many years I organized a treasure hunt, in which I hid a treasure--perhaps a stash of comic books, or whistles, or candy bars--somewhere for them to find. Elaborate clues were also hidden around the yard; and they gleefully raced from place to place, sure that they would be first to find the treasure, which might have been buried in the ground under a canopy of forsythia, or tucked away in the stone ledges back in the ravine behind the house, or hung from a high branch of a willow tree. The joyful shouting carried on the breeze, and for the few minutes that the treasure hunt usually took, I would stand under that old apple tree as white petals flew through the air, like confetti, celebrating this good life.


That tree is long gone now, and a garden of peonies grows in its place. My son Adam is gone as well, leaving this world too early with a failed heart that was always so full of joy and love. And still, on May 2, I go out into the yard and listen for echoes of that rowdy, youthful laughter, and remember how sweet it all can be. I walk across the field, through the May grass, and smile at the hundreds of golden dandelions springing up to life. These are for me sunny souvenirs of Springtime which, like the apple blossoms that once floated through a May afternoon, remind me that the treasure hunt still goes on. And the treasure is all around us, and in us, too.


Dandelions


Bright they are,
 and golden, everywhere,
 as if a mad god
 had gone crazy,
 flinging them in wild profusion
 at the sheer joy
 of having such a world
 to decorate.
 They are weeds, of course,
 only because they are never sown
 by human hand.
 Instead they grow where a spirit wind
 once carried their white winged seeds
 to a cranny in the earth,
 a hidden place to settle and root.
 So the gifts of life and love
 are flung around us,
 random as seeds,
 and sometimes, after cold and dark
 leaves us empty, barren,
 there comes a sweet May day
 when those gifts will burst like blossoms,
 surprising us with a memory
 and a gladness
 that we thought was gone,
 still glittering like gold.


 --Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

Saturday was the opening day of Little League, one of those annual events that mark time in a small town. A couple of hundred kids showed up at the park, along with assorted coaches, parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, neighbors and relatives. Dressed in team jerseys and ball caps, the kids came in all ages and shapes. Some of the littlest ones, assigned to team that play a beginner's game called T-ball, seemed to be having a hard time lifting their ample leather baseball gloves off the ground. Others were more interested in the snack shack where hot dogs were being grilled at 10 in the morning.


But baseball is a big deal. It's our national game, still, and lots of those kids nurse a dream of hitting a home run or making an over-the-shoulder catch against the outfield fence that wins the game. I played myself, long ago--second base, as I recall. I wasn't very good, but I still remember hitting a ball that rolled through the legs of an outfielder and allowed me to make third base before I stumbled and fell. The next time I came to bat all the fielders backed up. It was my most satisfying moment.
I coached a kids' team one summer decades ago. My goal was to help my kids have fun, and they did. They turned out to be pretty good, too. So good, in fact, that in one game I had our players stealing first base after they had already made it to second. It sure confused the umpire. That same game my team got so far ahead that in the last inning, while they were out in the field, they intentionally threw the ball wildly all over the place so that the smallest player on the other team could make a home run. We all cheered when it happened. It was my happiest game of all time.


Play Ball


Out there in right field,
 the outer limits
 of the baseball solar system,
 he stands ankle deep
 in the green grass of Spring.
 Far away, the pitcher flings
 the ball toward home,
 and a batter squints,
 heart racing wildly,
 and swings.
 The coach is yelling,
 the crowd is on their feet
 screaming encouragement,
 and dust flies as young dreamers
 race toward home.
 But out there
 in the far field
 is another joy--
 the smell of leather
 as a small fist
 pounds a perfect pocket,
 waves at his father
 who, under an arching maple,
 waves back and smiles
 as a hawk circles
 in the sweet blue sky,
 and for a moment,
 the world is perfect.


--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

Joe had an idea of something beautiful. It was his town, the place he had grown up, a place of hills and hollows and a magnificent river. Mostly, it was a place of people, and his family contributed their share of them. Joe was the ninth of thirteen brothers and sisters, and he and his wife counted on thirteen grandchildren to love this small town as much as they did. Joe came back here after serving his country in the Army Air Force, and later became First Selectman, the highest elected office in a small New England town. As mayor, he tried to give back something to the place that he had always called home. He got the town to buy land for a park and swimming hole, helped get senior housing started, and spurred the renovation of a lovely theater and auditorium on the top floor of the old three-sided town hall.


But it is his trees that keep Joe in my heart. The beautiful flowering pear trees that line Main Street were Joe's special gift to us. Joe was a tree man, and he grew them on his farm. He could walk through town and tell you something about every tree he encountered. He found a few "grandfather trees" that he claimed were the only specimens of their variety in the State. In retirement, he filled his farm with balsams and spruces and sold cut-them-yourself Christmas trees. Weekends in December you could find him sitting by a bonfire just down the hill from his house, watching the kids run through the fields looking for just the right tree for their holiday living room, their fathers plodding after them, out of breath, with a handsaw on the ready. He would watch with a sparkle in his eye as those kids ate charred hot dogs and made marshmallows into torches in the fire, then offered him one in thanks.


His life was his thanks for a good, good life. This Sunday afternoon we will say good-bye to Joe for the last time, and we'll remember how a town is a tree, too, where we are all connected branches, roots deep in common soil. And that afternoon, while the old veterans fire their salute and the sound of Taps carries through the center of our town, those pear trees along Main Street will be paying their tribute, too, as glorious white petals flutter down on Joe's place.


Easter Green


Some say
 that the color of life
 is red, like blood
 coursing through our veins--
 or even blue,
 for the water that
 makes our little rock of a planet
 into such a miracle.
 But on an April day
 it is green,
 burgeoning, quickening,
 beckoning the world awake.
 This Easter green
 rises from the ripe earth as grass,
 quivers on the branches
 of ancient wood,
 sprouts in the mud
 where winter has lingered too long.
 It is that green which we are, too,
 could our spirits show themselves,
 hungry with hope:
 all of us, a million fingers of life
 laughing, singing,
 devouring sunlight
 in a wild banquet
 of joy,
 and making flowers as our gift.


--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

At last it is warm, and early in the morning it is good to walk with a slower step. I breathe deep of the soft air. By the pond behind the Library, green buds swell and the grass rises in clumps where, not too long ago, the earth was scraped into ridges by big orange snow plows that couldn't see where the asphalt ended and the lawn began. The dogs are delighted to smell that upturned earth, perhaps discovering ancient scents long buried beneath ...our winters. 
  

This daybreak is not silent. It is alive with birdsong, for the creatures who live above us know that it is Spring, too. Redwings sway on the dessicated stalks of cattails and trill for all they're worth. The crows line up on the telephone lines and honk noisily at the dogs. I hear the sweet punctuation of a cardinal and the bright carolling of robins in pursuit of worms. This loveliness is not lost on me. Today is shadowed by children dying in a war-torn land, their pictures splayed on television and downloaded into my heart. I will have a funeral to attend in the afternoon, and a mother's tender hand will no longer touch her daughter's face. A friend prepares for a doctor's scalpel to cut through flesh to find the hiding place of an alien tumor. I miss my son.


These, things, too, come with me into my morning. And then I am startled, at the edge of the pond, when a great blue heron spreads its wings and flies up, almost close enough to touch. I gasp, then laugh, as the dogs leap in surprise. I watch it soar away, beyond the rim of trees, and feel the ripples of life circling out into the world.


Morning Heron


I walk on clotted earth,
my feet heavy on the world.
It is wet with morning,
turning death into something green.
I am quiet,
though the day is not.
Songs fall from the air,
like rain
upon the heavy silence
I carry on my back.
And then
from the edge of sight,
rising, rising
a winged god awakens.
A rush of air
a touch of feathers
bends the bright day
upwards,
and for a moment
carries the whole creation
into the light.


--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

I could smell the restlessness of the soil on the day the sun came out. Bending down and squeezing a ball of dirt in my fist, I crumbled it in the overgrown bed. It was no longer a clump of mud, so I could see that it was time to get out there and rake out last season's remnants: the tangled tomato vines arching over the fence, the sunflower stalks standing like barren trees, the Sweet Annie, swaying in the breeze and fragrant as if it were still green. The blue jays squawked in the top of the pussy willow, eyeing the parcel of ground where they may have suspected I will hide my peas. Or maybe they were scolding the young hawk circling overhead, riding the loveliness of the Spring morning.
The tomato stakes needed to be moved to another spot for this year's garden, but I failed to notice that the large wooden crow adorning one of the stakes had come loose. Suddenly the thing clobbered me on the head. I automatically reached to touch the place where pain had erupted, and felt the blood matting my hair. I could see the crow lying in the dirt, and I wondered whether it was the beak or the wing or the tail that has assaulted me, or whether it just might have been the rusty screw protruding from its belly. Unable to see the wound, I headed into the house to have my nurse/wife look it over. "What did you do?" she asked, seeing the blood on my hand. "A crow hit me," I answered, as if that were no strange thing.


After a tetanus shot at the doctor's office, I headed back to the garden. The crow still lay on the ground, with some of my blood on it. A good way, I guess, to consecrate another garden, another Spring.


Crow Attack


There is rain,
 and there is sun to follow.
 And the wet earth
 readies for the seed
 where wild things already grow.
 I pull the vagrant weed,
 yank at the long dead vines
 claiming the border fence,
 listen to the red-shouldered hawk
 making raucous in the blue sky,
 wondering at me.
 I smile and yank again,
 and an ornamental crow,
 once the guardian of our patch
 from high atop a tomato stake,
 tumbles onto my head.
 There is blood now
 to mingle with the April soil,
 and I have hallowed this place
 where scarlet dahlias will bloom.
 This is a kind of offering,
 a sacrifice we always make
 for what we love.
 I feel the wound,
 the stickiness of my hair,
 and know that I will carry
 a hidden scar of Spring.


--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

April is here at last, after a long and gloomy March,which came in with snow and left with heavy rain. The whole month was cold and raw. Its days teased us with an occasional glimpse of Spring and then turned on us again. The difficult challenges of life--illness, disappointment, bad news--always seem to weigh on us more heavily when there is no respite in the way of sunshine and growing things.

And now, there is another death among us--one of those who gives our small town a special character. John was the man behind the counter at our local pizza takeout place. He was jovial and kind, the sort of person who always served you a gooey, steaming slice of pizza seasoned with a smile. The folks who worked at town hall loved his meatball grinders and the special pie he invented just for them, and so did my son, who never went into the storefront shop with any money but always came out with something to eat. If the girl scouts had a function, or the kids in the Christmas pageant at the church, he'd always throw in an extra pizza or two. He believed that what you gave away came back to you.


At the end of this miserly month of March, the pizza shop window is decked with flowers and messages of gratitude for a guy who made us feel like Spring might be coming after all.


Pizza Man


A bald Hungarian in a
 take-out pizza place
 with Greek decorations
 on the sign out front
 is what we love in this
 small New England town.
 And when he dies
 suddenly,
 when his heart stops,
 it stops beating
 for him, and for his children,
 and for the young man
 with a brain injury
 who has no money
 but leaves the steamy storefront
 with an Italian grinder,
 warm, with oil and vinegar,
 and a smile wrapped around him
 like wax paper around a sandwich.
 And that benediction,
 not offered on the menu,
 was the most delicious thing
 that was given as a blessing ,
 like extra cheese or sausage,
 in this sometimes surprising world.


--Timothy Haut, 2017