A Deep River Year - 2017

This summer's garden is bright with flaming zinnias and immense spiked dahlias. A lone sunflower has appeared in golden glory in the midst of the bean patch, thanks to songbirds gathering seeds and spilling their largesse among the vegetables. These volunteer sunflowers, and the pink phlox burgeoning at the edges of the yard, are reminders that not all of summer's beauty needs to be sown and planted by me. But this afternoon's special surprise was a lone blue Passion Flower crowning a tall vine, its base hidden among the peony bushes whose flowering is long past.

The Passion Flower is a peculiar blossom, blue and white petals and sepals enclosing a purple crown of tiny filaments, edged in black. The legend is that these flowers were used by the Spanish conquistadors to teach the natives of the Southwest and Mexico the story of Christ's passion (i.e. "suffering") on the cross. The 10 petals represent the faithful disciples (minus Judas the betrayer and Peter the denier). The central parts of the flower represent the three nails and the five wounds of Christ, positioned in the middle of the crown of thorns. There are other mystical meanings that are sometimes found as well. But today, this blossom takes me back to my grandmother's garden in front of her little house on Ripley Street in Davenport, Iowa. In her aproned housedress and practical black shoes, she bent her tiny frame to show me the jack-in-the pulpits hiding in the shade, and to hold a passion flower blossom tenderly in her hand as she shared the ancient story of her faith. Today she walks again in my back yard.

Passion Flower

Blue as heaven
this holy blossom
nods at summer sun,
warm with life.
I see the mystical signs,
the numbered petals
and the dainty crown of thorns,
but I remember mostly this:
the old hand, work worn,
of my dwindling grandmother,
cradling a passion flower
as if it were a miracle,
which it was.
As she bent close,
her small, wire-rimmed glasses
reflected blue and white petals,
so that her eyes, her being,
knew everything about passion
and joy.

--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

One of the unmistakable sounds of summer in this small town is the clanging of horseshoes on Thursday evenings. It's the regular gathering of the oldest horseshoe league n in the State of Connecticut. It may be that some of the fellows who were playing back n those earliest years of the league are still playing today. They come week after week for bragging rights to their skills at horseshoe throwing, but also for the pure pleasure of it. They tell stories, laugh, share a beverage or two, and enjoy the smell of sausages and hot dogs being grilled by a woman who appreciates these local men and women who have become friends over the years.

Horseshoes hasn't made it to being an Olympic sport quite yet. It's one of those specialties that probably originated in rural communities where the equipment was easy to find. My great uncle Emil, a German bachelor farmer in the fields of Iowa, was equally proficient at horseshoes and checkers, for which he claimed to have been the state champion in his early years. He taught us to fling his red or blue painted horseshoes with the old "flip" method, which he thought was easy for us to master.
The good players seem to pitch the horseshoes so that they turn sideways and open just as they get to the stake. The object, of course, is to get the horseshoes wrapped around the stake, a ringer. Maybe a double ringer on a perfect summer night is just about as good as it gets for most of us. And if, for this moment, it makes us glad to be here, then perhaps it is possible to take pleasure in the other small victories that make our lives, our world, a little better.

Ringer

Somewhere a dog barks,
and the breeze carries the distant sound
of a band concert on the green.
Bicycles whiz by down the street,
and a couple strolls along,
hand in hand, in love.
They pause to watch the horseshoes fly
smile at the art of it, the love.
The shoes thunk into the dirt,
clang against the iron stake
as a cheer goes up, or a curse.
In these parlous times
evil claws at fearful hearts,
and sickness and death lurk
in the shadows of innocent days.
This earth itself makes its circle
around the sun without guarantee,
waiting for an errant comet
to intercept our path, our peace.
But on this summer afternoon,
an old man in overalls steps up,
heaves a horseshoe into the soft air
where it makes a perfect arc
(for all that is good and joy and timeless)
and rings true,
like a bell.

--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

Independence Day in the United States is traditionally a time of picnics, family gatherings, maybe a ride to the beach. As the day slides into dusk, the night is filled with the sound of explosions: fireworks filling the sky with great bursts of golden chrysanthemums and silver rockets that you can feel in your bones with every "boom!" Some of us love these dramatic displays in the night. There's a place on a nearby beach where you can put up your folding chair or spread out a blanket and watch fireworks lighting up the skies up in neighboring communities all down the shoreline. It is glorious!

But not everybody loves these things. Veterans who have returned from military service in war zones around the world may find that they want to hide--fireworks sound too much like bombs and artillery to be fun. And a few years ago our sweet black lab, Luke, was terrified by those sounds, even the smaller rat-a-tat of cap guns or firecrackers down the block. His panic was so intense that he would crash through window screens or claw at the door to get out. Once, trapped in the front seat of our car, Luke managed to break through the car window when fireworks erupted somewhere nearby.

Of course, the reason we shoot those things off on July 4 is that we are celebrating freedom. That freedom was proclaimed in 1776 by a brave group of patriots who yearned for the opportunity to govern their own affairs, and to give their children and grandchildren the benefits of life, liberty, and the pursuit of their own happiness. That freedom has endured. And yet today we still worry that there are many who yearn to be free of fear itself.

Freely

Gathered together to laugh and feast
under a banner of stripes and stars,
we remember that we are free
to be fools or saints,
free to stay or leave,
free even to be slaves
to our hungers and passions,
to our own deepest desire
to be left alone.
But we may also remember
a beautiful dream
which haunts our waking hours,
or we may find our feet
stepping down a path
we did not expect,
where something will be given
of our own precious selves,
where we will leave behind
a better world, a kinder day,
that is most sacred, most costly
because it was offered at a price
of love and blood,
given freely.

--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

"You can't go home again," young Thomas Wolfe entitled his classic novel. He elaborated that we can never return "back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." I have found that to be true in so many ways. The last time back in my home town, I drove past the spot where our house once stood on a... lovely street lined with tall elm trees. The trees are gone, thanks to the blight of Dutch Elm Disease, and the house is too, due to the need of a nearby college to have a parking lot. 

Other things are gone, too, perhaps more ephemeral, but nonetheless sad for me. I can't for the life of me find one of those playground merry-go-rounds--the kind with bars to hold on to as some big kid races around the outside trying his best to spin somebody off into the dust. It was joy on a summer day to ride with friends, hair flying. Presumably insurance liability concerns have done away with those things. And try to find a pick-up neighborhood baseball game in the summer. The diamonds are empty once school lets out presumbaly because there are no adults to organize the games. Parents don't want their young kids riding their bicycles around town unsupervised, where mischief and delight can happen. I could add to the list nickel ice-cream cones, black Switzer's licorice, double-feature movie matinees--and don't forget drive-in theaters where you could get a whole carload of people in for a dollar on "buck night," and for free on other nights if you could fit them in the trunk.


Missing

We still let the milkweed stalks grow
at the edge of the yard,
and now they are full of great
purple clusters of flowers,
scenting the afternoon air
and waiting futilely
for just one monarch butterfly
to come and rest.
Those orange and black winged creatures
once filled our summer world,
but they are missing, now.
And where are the swooping bats
which once dived through the dusk
for green apples tossed upward
by laughing children?
I long for the buzz of honeybees
on fields of clover,
and the magical flashing of fireflies
as we raced to collect them in jars
so that they would flicker golden light
into our dark bedroom dreams.
They all seem to have gone, somewhere,
except in the museum of my heart,
where still children fly in circles
on spinning merry-go-rounds,
and butterflies rise on the breeze,
and nothing good is ever lost.

--Timothy Haut, 2017

A Deep River Year - 2017

Today is Midsummer Night, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It's the day when the sun reaches the northernmost point on the horizon before slowly moving southward again to its low place in the winter sky. I've always thought there should be another name for this day, since it is not really the middle of summer. That presumably would be in July, when this spot on our planet sometimes feels like a tropical place.


But this day in June has had an almost mystical place in the world's calendar for centuries. Around the cultures of the North, this day of the Solstice has been celebrated with bonfires and the blessing of waters, with customs and rituals that hoped to ensure that the sun would continue its life-giving presence for another cycle. Some of those customs still are observed. One Norwegian custom is for girls to put flowers under their pillows tonight with the promise that they will dream of their future husbands. In one Latvian town, the practice on Midsummer Night is to run naked through town at three in the morning, with beer for everyone at the end.


My celebration will be simpler, but perhaps no less joyful. I will go out in the back yard, or maybe in the field across the street, and wait for the stars to come out. I will hope to see a few bats flutter across the peach-colored dusk, and then the lightning bugs will begin to flicker in the treetops. It would be nice to catch a scent of the sweet peas in my garden as the world stills and the wind chimes ring softly in the evening breeze to celebrate the Solstice light. So what if this midpoint in the year means that we are moving toward the lean days of winter again! This is a day to savor, to feel, to hold close to the heart. Maybe to run naked at three in the morning.


Midsummer Night


We ride the Great Wheel of Time,
 spiralling through seasons and years
 around a golden star.
 And here, again, on the longest day
 when light lingers against the shadows
 we will fill ourselves with its flame,
 set a lantern glowing
 with sweet memories of celandine and clover,
 fireflies in the dusk
 and crickets singing love songs
 to the moon.
 On this shortest night
 it would be good to stand
 in a broad and grassy field,
 looking up at the glittering sky
 as we begin again the great journey
 toward our little winter.
 And this will be the benediction,
 that through every cold, dark passage--
 even to the edge of doom
 when this bright star is stilled
 and summers are no more--
 this memory, this hope, this fire
 of one summer night
 will endure
 as the bright and blessed glory
 of our moment
 in the vastness of all that was,
 and is, and ever will be.
--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

Father's Day is a yawn in the middle of the Hallmark year. Someone must have figured that dads needed equal time with mothers, but there is little zeal in most of our celebrations. When my son asks me what I want for Father's Day, he knows I will answer "world peace" and free him of the responsibility of buying me a tie or a mug to mark the day. What I truly desire is time: time to hang out with my children and grandchildren, to listen to them reminisce or dream or laugh or solve the problems of the world together.


I don't think my father had much of a chance to do those things with his father, who spent most of his waking hours in an overstuffed chair in his living room, its upholstery blistered by cigar ashes and stains from spilled beer. My father never had stories to tell of playing catch in the back yard, riding on his father's shoulders, fishing together from the levee of the river, or working on projects in a basement workshop. He does remember his mother sending him down to the tavern on the corner to collect the old man before he spent all of the weekly paycheck. So why did my own father turn out to be such a good man?


e e cummings said of his own father that "joy was his song and joy so pure/ a heart of star by him could steer." My father's gift was his joy at caring for people, holding them in his heart, making them better than they were because he loved them. He worked at it, this love. My father lingers on the edges of my remembering, with his tongue clenched in his teeth and sweat on his face. He sucked lemons and thought them sweet. He and I would pick tomatoes on hot summer days in our enormous garden so my mother could cook them up in quart jars for the winter. Standing in the sun, we would bite into tomatoes together so that the juice would soak into our shirts, and we would be son and father forever. He loved his roses, growing them so he could give them away to strangers who needed something beautiful. He forgave the roses their thorns, just as I imagine he forgave his father's.


My Father's Rose

Every June it appears,
 one blossom,
 one rose,
 my father's gift.
 Some morning
 It will be there
 when summer slips in:
 a perfect blossom,
 rising like a flame
 amid the garden's green
 pink as a perfect sunrise.
 I will look for his footprints
 in the wet grass,
 listen for the rustle of movement
 in the forsythia
 at the edge of the yard,
 his certain presence.
 It will be goodness I feel,
 his gift,
 the thing as true and fleeting
 as a blossom.
 He saw the awful, stained world,
 the one that breaks our hearts,
 but he made it give back roses.
 They are still blooming
 this sweet June,
 and today I find
 an autograph of joy
 to celebrate my
 father's day.
--Timothy Haut

A Deep River Year - 2017

Yesterday I mowed the grass under a warm June sky, feeling the golden sun overhead for the first time in days. The long, wet Spring has made for a lush green world, and the grass was nearly knee-deep in places. So out came the gas mower, which chugged to a roar on the second pull of the starter rope. It was satisfying to make long parallel mower tracks up and down the back yard, and to whack into submission the miscellaneous weeds that pass for a lawn out by the front fence.


I have cut grass almost all my life. As a boy, I mowed our yard, as a duty. But a pair of sweet, white-haired ladies who lived in the big house next door offered to pay me to do their lawn. They couldn’t always pay with cash. Sometimes their reward was cookies, and once they paid me with a crank-operated phonograph console that had a drawer full of ¼” thick records, that crackled with ancient song. But cutting grass was almost its own reward.


Long ago we had a push reel mower, whose clickety-clickety sound seemed a more fitting companion to the summer sounds of birds and insects and wind in the trees. However, when it hit a hidden stick in the lawn, that old mower came to a lurching halt, as the blades bound and sent the metal handles of the contraption into my ribs. But always the finished product gave a happy sense that I had, for a moment, brought a little more order into the chaos of the world. And, ah, the smell of cut grass!


June


O, June,
 warm, full of golden light,
 rich and dripping,
 wet after rain,
 fulfillment of winter's promises
 and sweet as a strawberry moon:
 I would rest in your soft arms
 and fall asleep
 as fireflies dance at dusk
 and roses on the fence
 breathe a soft sigh,
 and all around is the scent
 of honeysuckle and clover.
 Or just this would be enough:
 to offer one small prayer,
 a gloria of gratitude,
 as the incense of new- mown grass
 rises like a blessing
 through the window
 of my dreams.


--Timothy Haut