A Deep River Year
March 19, 2014

Today is St. Joseph’s Day,  most notably the time when the swallows return to the old mission in San Juan Capistrano, California.   But I remember this day every year for another reason.     It is Irene’s birthday.   For many years she and her husband operated the little bakery on Main Street, getting up in the dark of the night to make the breads, cakes and rolls that would fill the glass cases and welcome morning visitors.   The cinnamon buns were my favorite, and maybe the dark, sweet squaw bread for which they were famous.   But the real joy was Irene’s welcome, in her strong German accent, as she offered a “Good morning, sweetheart!” or “How are you, darling?” as I walked through the door, then slipped an extra roll into the bag.  March 19 was Irene’s birthday, and every year I would bring her a bouquet of daffodils to thank her for being a gracious part of my life.

The bakery has been gone for many years.   But March 19 still pops up in my mental calendar:  Irene’s birthday.    The year unravels that way.  Not just a succession of numerical dates, but a tapestry of memories that mark the important moments of our lives.    For me, this week not only significant for Irene’s birthday.  Monday, St. Patrick’s Day, was the anniversary of the day that our son suffered a severe brain injury that left him hospitalized and recovering for over a year.   Thursday is the Spring Equinox, when I look forward to having flats of seeds sprouting in anticipation of this summer’s garden.      Friday is the annual Volunteer Fire Department banquet, on a night which sometimes ends with the joyful nighttime song of the spring peepers.

These occasions will not be marked in newspapers or history books, but they are every bit as important to me as the headline events of our time.  They mark the people and experiences that have shaped me, the simple gifts which have given me joy, the challenges that have stretched me and helped me grow.   They make me stop in time, to remember, and to be grateful for all the holy days I celebrate.   Today I will get a bunch of daffodils, and give thanks for Irene.

St. Joseph’s Day

Today the swallows return
To the old California mission,
And  Spring will be here again.
One curious legend claims
That the birds fly thousands of miles--
All the way from Jerusalem--
Carrying twigs which can float,
So that they can perch on them
And rest during their long journey.
Perhaps we are sojourners, too,
And the twigs we carry
Are the memories
Of those who have peopled our lives,
And the dark and sweet passages
That have sustained us on the way.
I gather a bunch of bright daffodils
To remember this day,
To honor one good and shining face
Who smiles in my gallery of grace
As spring comes again.

--Timothy Haut, March 19, 2014

A Deep River Year
March 12, 2014

 Walking through the center of town early this morning, I barely noticed them at first. There were blackbirds high up in the trees, flapping their wings and moving from branch to branch in the gathering daylight. Ten minutes later and a few blocks away, they were still up above me. I once knew a man who believed that a flock of crows followed him around, even as he moved from place to place, city to city. There is either a certain aura of paranoia about the suspicion that we are being followed--or an overdeveloped sense of our importance in the cosmic order that makes us think that even the birds are interested in what we are doing.

 When I got home, I was settled in to reading the morning paper and having my coffee when my wife, Phyllis, called me to the back door. She smiled as we stepped outside, and pointed to the tall maple in the side yard, where a large cloud of male red-wing blackbirds had taken roost, their spring song filling the morning. They were back! The red-wings’ arrival is one of the surest signs of the changing season, their unmistakable trill and distinctive “conk-a-reeeee” proclaiming, “It’s Spring!” Soon the females will arrive, too, and the marshes will be busy with nesting.

 The hills and yards are still a mess of gritty snow, but for now, I have my oracle. Today or tomorrow I will take a walk through the mushy snow that fills the woods, and I will hunt for the first striped points of skunk cabbage rising from the mud. I may find, along the way, a few snowdrops taking the sun in a sheltered place, or see an early bee hungry for a crocus. I even will be glad if a few blackbirds are interested enough to follow me.

Signs

 You have to know
 What to look for.
 Spring is not first announced
 By waves of daffodils
 Or the eruption of blossoms
 On the wild forsythia.
 Go among the sodden leaves,
 And look for a stretch of mud
 Where a skunk cabbage peeks out,
 Oblivious of cold,
 Or watch for a haze of red
 On the face of a distant hill,
 Or notice a sealed willow bud
 Split into a silver smile,
 Or listen for a song in the morning
 As a dark visitor flashes its wings
 In flight,
 A crimson badge of joy.

 --Timothy Haut, March 12, 2014

A Deep River Year
March 5, 2014

There was shrimp etoufee to eat and lots of New Orleans style music at the Mardi Gras party last night at our town’s senior center.    It was probably a little different from what took place on Bourbon Street.   There were feathers and beads and masks, even a palm reader in the corner.   A few folks, trying to converse at their tables, asked that the music be turned down a little.   After the meal, some of the seniors got up, drawn by the lively music, and dodged the metal walkers as they danced.   The party ended early.

Mardi Gras is the celebration of carnival, which means “farewell to the flesh.”   It is a reminder of the ancient Lenten tradition of fasting from meat, but it could just as well be a warning of our own earthly limits.   Perhaps the wild exuberance of Rio or New Orleans pales a bit as we get older, and that’s why last night’s partiers went to bed early.   As we age, we get closer to our own “farewell to the flesh.”   It is not a bad thing, of course, to be reminded of our mortality.   The hope is that we savor the days that are given to us.    We should live them all as gifts.

This morning I went outside early to fill the bird feeders.   I found our little pond had been desecrated during the night, the pump knocked over, the water murky,  the goldfish gone.   A trail of blood and scales led off across the crust of snow, and we guessed that a hungry raccoon had made a nocturnal visit.   It was just a few fish, I told myself, even though I have fed those fish for several summers and winters.  I knew their markings, sometimes called them by name.    And so I am sad for the loss of my scaled brothers and sisters.  And I am stung by the reminder that all of us are just dust and ashes, who are facing the party’s end.    Carpe diem.

Ash Wednesday

The brown earth begins to show,
Taking sun,
So that life can happen again.
We are drawn to this ancient awakening,
drawn to some pulse in dirt and stone
that is our own.
So we come to a moment
of dust and ashes
to remember what is in us.
We step away from our days of dancing,
the wild carnival of pretending
that we are young, that laughter is forever,
and that singing hearts may drown out
the wails of grief, or the silent desolations
of our waiting loneliness.
We come from the wishful feast
still hungry for love’s banquet,
still waiting for a better season,
for something simple in us,
like loam or humus,
which is ready to take sun.

--Timothy Haut, March 5, 2014

A Deep River Year
February 26, 2014

When I woke up yesterday morning, the dream was still fresh.  I carried it with me into the day, and even now the memory of it lingers.   Perhaps it is the color of the irises, blue as a late spring morning, that filled my waking vision.    They were everywhere, in bunches and mounds, surrounding a friend who was suffering a grave illness.   The illness was there, too, in my dream, perhaps an illness unto death.   But those glorious blue flowers seem to be a sign of some hopefulness, some beatific presence in the midst of the doom.

Something like this happens every year, in late winter.   These frigid, colorless days, end on end, create a kind of sensory deprivation.   I begin dreaming in technicolor.  Even awake, I imagine the world in hues of May:   great clusters of purple lilacs filling the air with their heady scent;  huge peonies unfolding, glowing pink in morning light; golden sundrops waving in the breeze;  and the unmatchable blue of those Siberian irises.    I could swim in it.    Perhaps the thing I feel is the allure of life itself, poised and prepared to erupt someday, but for the moment invisible beneath the layers of granular ice and grit that still cover our landscape.

At the end of the day yesterday, I came home and smiled at the oil painting hanging in our front hall, an image of an old Midwestern farmer standing in a bed of irises, his house a faint dream of a thing behind him.   It was painted by a west coast artist, Marilyn Lowe, and entitled "Another Spring."  There is a sadness in the farmer's face,  and I wonder if it is because he is alone amid such beauty.   Or perhaps the house in the background is his dream--a yearning for home, for a place of belonging, an assurance that love is just as real as those blue irises. 

Blue Irises

Hungry for warmth, for life,
I dream color
into this barren season
which is bereft of it.
Here and there
the snow pulls back
from the edges of roads,
and something resembling green
hints at life.
I look hard, wait for a brave
green tip or bud to appear.
I lean toward Spring.
And at the edges of sorrow,
amid the dull weariness of pain
or regret,
I try to remember
a day of irises,
a glorious tapestry in blue,
bright as heaven,
and hope a little.

-Timothy Haut, February 26, 2014

A Deep River Year
February 19, 2014

February is the shortest month in days, but it feels so long.   Everywhere the piles of frozen slush and snow have grown higher and higher, and people are weary of winter.   Perhaps it is because the days are  both cold and colorless, and because--if there are portents of Spring around us--they cannot yet be seen.   It will take a good melt, but then the little snowdrops will rise from the detritus of winter, and soon after the purple crocus will push into view, and it will be time to cut the pussy willows.

For now, we remember that this is winter's last hurrah.    And what a hurrah it has been.   Snowfall after snowfall, and icicles hanging from the eaves, and deep paths out to the birdfeeders, and treacherous walks where the snow has melted and frozen and melted and frozen again.  After last Saturday's snow, I grabbed a shovel and headed out to the driveway to clear the car.   I have warned Phyllis many times about the step near the corner of the barn which catches the drips from the corner of the roof--the "widow maker," I call it.   This time, I forgot.   My feet when flying out in front of me and as I saw the pattern of branches directly over my head, I felt the ensuing  crash happen in almost slow motion.   I remember thinking to myself, "This is not good.   This will not end well." 

It did not end well, though not as badly as it might have.   There were no broken bones, no blood.   In my fall, I landed on the back pocket of my jeans, right where I carry my cell phone.   As I lay on the ice, I fished out the cracked phone which was of no use to call for help, if I had needed to.    Only later, in the house, could I admire the large purple bruise spreading over my backside.    Yesterday it started snowing again.   I wait for pussy willows.

Ice

This crystal, bright-shining thing

diamond-hard, alive,
builds its beautiful prison
on stem and leaf,
glares hard from earth
that waits to soften , breathe,
wear some greener garment.
Long shards dangle from the edges
of our sheltered world,
say, "Beware,
you who step
into this bitter loveliness."
We are tempted by things
that sparkle, shimmer,
flash with radiant light.
But who would choose glitter over grace?
So we should be wary
of all cold and callous glory,
seek instead a tender way to be:
easily bruised, or broken,
yet alive,
a leaf in waiting,
a sign of Spring.

--Timothy Haut, February 19, 2014

A Deep River Year
February 12, 2014

It is two days until Valentine’s Day, and we will be braving the winter weather to go to a party at a lovely old house on the Connecticut shoreline.    I will be wearing the tuxedo we found at a consignment shop several years ago.   It happened to be just my size, but even at that I was reluctant to purchase it.   “When will I ever need to wear a tuxedo?” I asked.   Well, as it turns out, on Valentine’s Day of 2014, and any number of other occasions where it is just fun to get all dressed up and remember how lovely life can be.      I even learned how to tie a bow tie (no clip-ons for me any more) and I ordered a beautiful, big red patterned crimson tie for this occasion.   

We need such graciousness in our lives from time to time.   It seems especially fitting that Valentine’s Day falls in the middle of February, when it feels like this season of cold and snow will never end.   We are imprisoned in gray and dirty white, stone and cold, and, at the same time, by the awareness of how cold and lonely our world can be.    So the legend of the original Saint Valentine emerges from a prison, too.   Nobody is sure who the real Saint Valentine was.   Some say he was an early Christian martyr who died in prison for his faith, but not before he cured the jailer’s blind daughter and left her a loving note signed, “Your Valentine.”     Relics of his body are all over the world.  His bones are claimed by churches in Poland and Italy, France and the Czech Republic, in Dublin, Ireland, and even somewhere in Missouri.    But the truth is that all these centuries later, he belongs to all of us.

We nod to him with gratitude this Friday, send cards and flowers and chocolate, and wear tuxedos and red bow ties to parties.   We write our notes from the prison of this continuing winter because if it all ended right here, right now, the only thing we’d want to leave behind as a token for people to remember  us is our love.

Love

Sometimes love is light
As a leaf carried by a breath of wind
To dance across the snow,
A remnant from the heart
Of tree, of earth, of sun—
This lovely sigh of a thing,
That makes everything more lovely.
Sometimes love is heavy
As stone
Enough to break the heart
Of tree, of earth, of sun,
A borne burden, an ache,
A song that keens at death, or loss,
A lever to move a mountain.
We shall find this love,
We shall.
It is what makes life,
And breaks it,
The thing we must find or die.
We would do anything for it.
We carry it into the darkness,
Into the fire, the flood,
Into death to nothingness,
Or perhaps, to the dancing place.
Mostly, it carries us.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 11, 2014

A Deep River Year
February 5, 2014

Sunday was Groundhog Day, and here it was overcast for a while before the sun broke out.   Traditionalists interpreted that to mean that winter will endure a while longer.  But I don’t need a groundhog to know that.   Winter hangs on in New England, with fits and starts, through February and March until some soft and unexpected day when the skunk cabbage push up through the mud and the peepers start their night song.   But we are a long way from that.

We awoke to another winter storm this morning—the second this week.    There is a certain resignation that seems to take over at this point.    The school district didn’t even decide to wait and see how this one might turn out.  They called off today’s school sessions yesterday while the sun was bright and warm.  And this morning the streets were completely quiet.   Not even the usual snowplows had begun the task of clearing the roads.

So my morning routine of walking the dogs at dawn became a surreal adventure into the mystery of winter.   Slogging through the deepening snow, we had to make our own path through an unbroken expanse of white, which seemed to be under, around, and over us all at once.    And then I became aware of the silence, and the fact that there was no wind at all.   This gift will not last.   But, for the moment, the stillness settled softly, like snow gathering on shoulders.

February, Stillness

The wind chimes hang still
Unmoved by the breaking light
Or the cascade of snow
Filling the earth.
Winter often prowls like a beast
Slinking through stones and bushes
And  lurking around forbidding corners,
Its breath icy with the otherness
Of sea and stars.
I walk north, feel the sting and bite,
Then finally turn my face homeward,
My back to the wind,
Pushed on by its force
Hard against my legs and heart.
But then a morning comes
Still and silent, breathless,
And wonder comes, and gratitude,
That for a while this winter morning
Is pregnant, waiting for something--
A different breath, perhaps--
To stir again,
Like a song.

--Timothy Haut, February 5, 2014