A Deep River Year - 2017

Today is such an ordinary day here. The early morning light was soft, golden. The air was still. Crows watched peacefully from the wires in above Main Street in the center of town as I walked the dogs and admired this sweet September day. Down in Florida the day was anything but ordinary, as the remnant of a fierce hurricane rumbled northward, leaving damaged homes and displaced people in its wake. Millions were in the dark, waiting perhaps for days or weeks for the electricity to return.

This day also marks the anniversary of another day that began in ordinary fashion. September 11 is still etched in our minds for the tragic destruction that took place when airplanes commandeered by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. Our world changed that day. The way we see everything is shaded by the reminder that it all can be snatched away from us in a second. It is not just the existence of a terrorist threat that does this, of course. Our everyday fragility as human beings haunts us, a cloud hanging at the edges of our sunny lives. We walk through a mine field of accidents, illness, pain, sorrow. We clutch the people we love against the day when they, or we, will be there no more.

This ordinary morning I noticed that every telephone pole has a number on it. I suppose there is someone whose job is keeping track of all those poles and numbers, in case one falls or needs to be replaced. The old Scriptures claim that every hair on our head is numbered, too. I think that may be something of a holy exaggeration, and I hope nobody has the job of keeping track of all those hairs. But I do like to think that every one of us is as least as important as a telephone pole. Of course most all of us carry a Social Security number through our lifetime. But I trust that each person hunkered down in a Florda shelter, each man or woman who lost their life on Sept. 11, each precious one of us has somebody who calls us by name, who remembers us with a tug of joy, and who celebrates our ordinary days that are precious beyond measure.

Number

They are numbered
and kept
in some great heart:
every leaf and blade of grass,
every feather, every song,
every sunrise and raindrop,
every peculiar and ordinary day,
every kindness an act of courage,
every heart waking to wonder
or drifting to dreams,
all of them, 
every one of us,
every blessed one of us,
loved.

--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

The old folk tale was that babies came from heaven. I remember childhood pictures of a Delivery Stork carrying a little baby in a soft cloth bundle hanging from its beak, off to a waiting home. The truth about where babies came from didn't reveal itself to me until my mother began to become enlarged with my little sister.

But once in a while the old stories prove to be true. This Sunday afternoon the rain had finally passed, and my wife Phyllis strolled out into the yard to breathe the sweet September air. She heard sharp squeals from the nearby maple treetop. As a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, she recognize the frantic cry of a baby squirrel. Having noticed the remains of an adult squirrel in the street in front of the house that morning, the victim of a passing car, it seemed possible that the dead mother had left unattended babies in her nest. And sure enough, almost on cue, a tiny gray bundle fell from the high branches and landed at Phyllis' feet. Of course she instantly scooped it up and cuddled it against her chest, examining it for injuries and offering it a dropper full of water to make sure it wasn't dehydrated.

Some day this little squirrel will open its eyes to a wonderful world of green and glorious freedom. It will be one of the pesky nuisances raiding somebody's bird feeder or chewing its way into a forbidden attic. To most people, it will be just another rodent with a big tail, one of the many inhabitants of this world that don't seem to have much usefulness to us, the human superintendents of the planet. But the opposite is true. We are richer for every creature who makes this remarkable planet its home. Squirrels, too, are priceless partners in creation. They help plant forests, and they provide food for many furred and winged predators in the ongoing natural drama of life and death. And they exhibit a pure joy in life, signaled in the flick of their tail and their tightrope act they perform high in the sky above us. They call us to see the magic in even the smallest and most ordinary of things. And, perhaps, too, they know something of love. At least this one does.

Squirrel

A little gray bundle
falls from the sky,
a tiny life.
Its eyes tightly closed
and its stomach hungry,
it cries for food,
its mother's milk,
and the warmth of her body
to be warmth and safety
against the wind and night.
But in this rainy world,
she does not come,
and the small one drops
to the hard earth,
where some great mercy
waits.
Cradled in human hands,
it knows no fear,
trusts in the tenderness
which has no name
that a helpless foundling understands,
but which is love.
And someday love will be
a tall branch on a spring day.
And it will be the tug of freedom
that surges in one small squirrel,
and in all of us
who share this wondrous world.
And love will be the gift
in every blessed one of us
who knows we are kin
to each beating, hopeful heart
that fall into our lives.

--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

Summer's end is celebrated all through New England with a host of country fairs. We head to the fairgrounds to walk through the animal barns, to eat grossly unhealthy fried food, and to listen to the honky-tonk sounds of midway games and carnival rides. Last weekend I won a big blue ribbon for my tiny Mexican cucumbers. One of my granddaughters took home a prize for her artwork, and the other won a ribbon for her horse collection. We felt like champions! Near the exhibit building, contestants vied in a frog jumping contest to see who could make a big bullfrog hop the farthest. The poor frog obviously had jumped its limit, and it wasn't happy to be out in the sun, either. One little girl bent down to plead with it to make at least a little effort, but whispering in that frog's ear wasn't sufficient motivation. The frog went back in its box, and we headed over to the commercial exhibits, where I found a booth selling marshmallow shooters made out of miscellaneous plumbing equipment. For five bucks, it was a steal.

While the fair-goers were enjoying the festivities in these most beautiful of days, a terrible hurricane was ravaging the Gulf Coast, blowing houses away, flooding one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, and devastating millions of lives. It is a hard truth that tragedy and joy take place side by side. Every day sorrow and grief break hearts while being encircled by lovers kissing, children blowing out birthday candles, and families gathering around tables to taste the goodness of life. Two years ago today our son Adam died unexpectedly, and our lovely August day was riven with the sword of terrible loss. We cope, somehow, then and now, by feeling the pain and letting ourselves love a little more. We hold on to the people around us a little tighter. We remember that it is up to us to help when others fall. And we live the good days: eat, laugh, breathe deep, smell the grass and marvel at the stars. We shoot marshmallows at death.

The Great Fair

Sunshine and blue sky,
and a soft stirring of wind
bears the sound of carnival music,
the aroma of cattle and horses,
and the whisper of autumn in the air.
So we walk in the light
across the beaten grass,
eat sausages and laugh
as onions and peppers drip
abundandly down our chins
and onto our shirts.
But then we suddenly find ourselves
in another place, another time,
where shadows enfold us,
and we are broken, broken again,
standing at the empty place
where one of our most beloved is gone.
Through years and lifetimes
there are so many griefs,
so many pains we must endure
together:
we hope that there may be
for all of us
one more bright summer day--
one great country fair
under sunshine and blue sky--
where we shall come unwearied
to walk in wonder,
to feast on sausages and peppers,
to collect blue ribbons
for our our bravest deeds,
to see our missing ones
riding the carousel,
waving at us with joy.

--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

There is much troubling news confronting us, but today it will be a celestial event that captures our attention. A solar eclipse will darken the sky over North America for a couple of hours, and many of us will go outside to experience this rare happening. The total eclipse will last only a couple of minutes, when the moon passes in front of the sun and blocks its light from reaching our planet. That moment of full darkness will be viewed in North America only by those in a narrow path stretching across the country, but the rest of us still may experience the darkening effect of a partial eclipse.

In earlier times, such an event would have been a portent of doom. In a pre-scientific world, the blackening of the sun was terrifying. Some saw it as an omen that an awful event was about to happen. The French king Louis XIV, the “sun king," who used a golden image of the sun as his symbol, died just after an eclipse, as did King Henry 1 of England. An ancient war ended in the midst of a battle when the sun suddenly darkened, and the combatants threw down their weapons and fled in terror. In some cultures, they believed that an eclipse meant that a great monster was rising up to devour the sun and destroy life on earth, so they would take pots and sticks and bang them together to scare the creature away. There are still monsters and evils in our world, of course. It would be nice if we could scare them away with a little noise-making, but it will take something more than that. Courage, wisdom, and love will help.

Eclipse

Sojourners together
under a darkened star,
we watch and feel a primal unease
as day turns to night.
There is a haunting silence,
the cry of owls,
the whisper of bad dreams
that will not go away.
And in our place of pilgrimage,
another great light is eclipsed
by a terrible moon:
the chaos of evil that circles around us,
always pulling at our tides,
rising in the old well of bone and blood,
occluding the artery that offers life
to all of us.
We are creatures, still,
kin to the eagles and the catfish,
yearning for the peace of oceans and prairies,
waiting for some tenderness to overtake
our wanton appetites
and something simple as love to rule
our fearsome passions.
We live short and shadowed lives,
pretend to goodness,
and find it now and then,
like a strain of music whose song
we can barely remember.
We keep searching,
and in our darkness,
we reach for each other's hands,
wait for some great spirit to move across
the roiled and forbidding waters.
So we gather together, silent partners
in this uneasy hour,
to watch for the rim of light
rippling at the edges of the darkness,
waiting, waiting,
for the great star to shine again.

--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

This weekend is the annual Flea Market on the big field in front of the Congregational Church on Main Street. It seems to get bigger each year, and I expect over eighty dealers hoping to entice someone to buy their wares. There will be antiques and artwork, home grown tomatoes and blimp-sized zucchinis, toys and tools, furniture and fancy hats, and every other imaginable kind of attic or basement treasure. And nearby will be a huge rummage sale--mismatched dishes, Christmas decorations, waffle irons, jewelry and linens, even old LPs that once were the wonderful background music to someone's beautiful life. I look forward to this adventure every year, though I cringe at the idea of trying to put a price tag on all that stuff. And I cringe even more to think about disposing of the mountains of unwanted and unpurchased stuff that will be left over.

But what possibilities there are! Over the years I have acquired true treasures. There is the old metal cowbell with a bullet hole in it, and the garden sculpture of a flying pig that I could not pass by. I cherish my hand scythe, rusted with a wooden handle, that I still use to chop down brush and weeds. And I was delighted and amazed to find a commemorative plate bearing the image of a hitch-hiking angel carrying a suitcase. Perhaps my favorite acquisition was a large painting of a skunk on black velvet, which has never appeared on any of the walls of our home. I admire it still, stacked in a corner with other prizes that have no place to be displayed. All of these things are the leftover remnants of someone's life. They remind me of the impermanence of our little journeys, which nonetheless are filled with joy, laughter, sweet labor, wondrous love, and black velvet skunks.

Rummage Sale Ring

In a pile of forgotten jewelry,
she reaches for a delicate ring,
its silver setting old and graceful--
but with only an empty space
where once a shining diamond
or a sparkling sapphire
may have graced a woman's hand.
It is a forgotten remnant
left buried amid the debris
of bygone years,
an object lost among the castaways
of used and useless souvenirs
that once compiled a thousand lives.
Perhaps this small ring
was given on a bended knee,
held out by a trembling hand
for love's sweet sake.
Or worn through age and absence,
kept for a grandchild
that never came.
Or passed from one to another,
through years and generations,
through joy and pain,
through hurt and tears,
until the stone fell out,
waiting, waiting to be worn again.
All of it, all of it,
once held and kept and treasured,
says life is so short,
and things are only things,
but still,
beloved things.

--Timothy Haut