Soiled Memorials

Monday

Rhododendrons in full bloom, delicacy challenging downpours to do their worst.

• Tree canopies have filled out, casting darker shadows where they fall, still all sharp edges.  Later this week, adolescent bands will march like manic birds, all exotic plumage and harsh sound.  Town beaches will reopen (for the extremely hardy) and state parks begin to charge fees for the privilege of trying to get away from the busy lives we hold so dear.
• Already pompous speeches about future hopes for young generations have been spoken at colleges.  Tests have been mostly taken at the high schools, and students anticipate routines without instruction for a while.  We once more pretend to follow an agricultural cycle from our ancient heritage that no longer really has any place in how we actually live.

Tuesday

Considering population density around here, just one discarded beer can on a beach is almost acceptable.

• Remember those who fought for freedom.  Salute the honored flag.  Rejoice in our exceptional form of government.  Buy something to make consumer capitalism stronger.  All that and more will blare from televisions, internet, paid event speakers, and various reading materials.  All fervently believed, perhaps, at the moment spoken.  All focused on the honored dead, being remembered with the solemn frivolity of barbeques and proclamations and holiday for the fortunate few.
• Lately those sentiments float on darker seas of manufactured worry.  Politics has become a zero sum game of apocalyptic predictions _ do this or else.  Once-educated and flexible minds have frozen into puerile mush spouting plastic bag slogans.  Morality lingers in day to day activities, but has been cast aside by those with any grander ambition.
• We have been offered a grace period in a world of calamity and warfare.  We have the tools to make things right.  We have the knowledge to try to avoid the tragedies of history.  But we do not have the simplest means to encourage sense in the minds of the stupidly rigid, nor agreement on common good nor control of insecure and amoral mongers of fear, who like jackals feed on other’s problems.
• Memorials can be soiled and tarnished and used for evil ends.  Slogans may cheapen belief.  And sometimes I am no longer thrilled by the tinsel pageantry of my contemporary culture.  

Wednesday

Magnificent ancient bushes grace the ancient yacht club _ all but the sight reserved for members

• Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not …
• Time to stamp out those cheating, free-loading lilies once and for all.

A May Zing

Monday

Boats begin to fill waters, bushes start to obscure views,  unblocked sun begins to burn.

• Spring is aging more rapidly than me.  Crocus, daffodils, forsythia are ancient memories, tulips more recent ones.  Dandelions are here to stay, azaleas and dogwoods take center stage.  Everything is fresh green and gleaming under bright _ but still cool _ skies.  Soon heat arrives, then the long happy sloth of summer.
• But in the meantime, it is easy to feel rejuvenation in outlook and joints.  A zip in my step as I wander woodland paths listening to nesting birds, watching ferns uncoil, noticing that tree shadows have returned.  Once again heeding breathless warnings about ticks.  It’s a wonderful time. I think I am just as I was when once I was five.  Unfortunately, some quick pain or breathlessness suddenly reminds me I am not.

Tuesday

Ragweed glistens framing whitecaps on a blustery afternoon.

• Ragweed covers disturbed soil like a blanket, another start to its attempted conquest of all Huntington.  Still kind of pretty and cute, a dusty grey-green low cover that is a nice step up from the mud.  It hides trash, and convincingly shows that nature has a few tricks left to overcome human stupidity.
• I know that shortly it will be waist-high, choking out what I consider more desirable plants.  I know that naturalists despise it as an invasive intruder, a blight on the landscape.  I will sneeze with everyone else when it releases pollen in a few months.  But it is hard not to feel a secret admiration for its toughness and tenacity.

Wednesday

Wisteria overcrowds supporting trees along back roadsides everywhere.

• “Ring around the rosie” is a cheerful children’s ditty about the Black Death.
• Kids today flock to horror movies in much the same spirit.

Thursday

Marinas also have sap running and boats blooming.

• In Northern temperate climates, May traditionally causes hormones to surge and love to dominate passions. It’s hard not to smile at young couples holding hands, entranced in a world that is only partly shared with others, with all cares and worries reduced to interacting with one another.
• Even grumpy and disillusioned old folks can usually remember happy times of youth. Now we are shriveled, but once we were just like them.  A few of us, I admit, are cynical and bitter and remember only that young love finally failed, as it often does.  But all in all, we share that bond of existence, and it adds a particular zing to match fresh (although pollen-laden) air.
• The frequent consequences of couples bonding also scream and howl and laugh around playgrounds.  Children of all ages are finally released from indoor gloom and feel free as the birds singing continuously around them.  Of course, the old folks smile for a while, then wish that the noise would die down and leave them in contemplative peace.
• May in a Huntington park is a wonder of joyful madness, shared community happiness, and even a random shaft of hope for the future _ to offset the electronic drone of doom emanating from our self-proclaimed more important media.

Friday

May contains no “R” but shellfish collection continues under much better conditions than in February.

• Azaleas are ubiquitously native to the northern hemisphere, but more than that they have been selectively bred by many cultures over thousands of years.  Lately, there seems to be a frenzy of introducing new and more fantastic varieties each year.  Why not?  They are hardy, evergreen, grow in shady spots, and are spectacular in spring, handsome most of the year.  Minimal care, but rarely found in the wild, unlike their cousin rhododendrons.
• Why bother looking this up?  Should I not be content to merely gaze and wonder and enjoy the show?  Probably yes.  And yet _ as with almost everything _ a deeper detailed and accurate knowledge encourages more profound meditation.  True mystery is never destroyed by knowledge.  

Saturday

Low tide exposes algae which demonstrate just how quickly foliage has matured to darker greens.

“Lovely Leda, isn’t this just perfection,” Paul majestically paddles through the calm green waters of Hecksher pond.  “Why, people have even fenced off our nest to keep away curious children.  I’m glad we come back here every year.”

“I guess,” sighs his mate, “but I do miss having some privacy once in a while.”

“Maybe so,” replies the other swan, “but it also means we miss most of the raccoons, cats, and rats we used to have to deal with.”

“I know, there’s always tradeoffs.  This is a beautiful and relatively safe spot.”

“As long as we remember to warn the kids about old Arnie the snapping turtle.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t really been too aggressive now that there are lots of fish around.”

“Besides, Leda, the hawks hate to fly around this congested traffic area.  I tell you, it’s just about perfect.”

A few more pedestrians stop nearby to snap pictures, all chattering away. “Fame, fame, fame.  We might even go viral.”

“And what good would that do any of us, Paul?  A Nike sponsorship for down jackets?  Or ending up on a thanksgiving dinner table to advertise some kind of gravy?”

“No,” Paul says, nibbling an itch under his wing, “I’m pretty sure that is turkeys.  Or geese.  Not us.”

Leda sniffs.  “Low life geese, that’s the only thing I don’t like here, the neighborhood has been going downhill for some time.  We’re going to have to get the cygnets into some good water with the right sort of birds later on.”

Paul nods in resignation as he glides off.  Such is the way of a lifelong marital commitment.
Sunday

A few days of high heat have shoved honeysuckle into blossom,  despite a chill drifting across waves.

When I was younger, the world fine and free

I mostly ignored what was not about me

Now that I’m aged with vast changes gone by

Sometimes I summon my strength for a sigh

Each era was marked with its hopes and its fears

Fortunate we who encountered those years

No matter what, ‘twas a marvelous show

What will come next, I scarce wish to know.

Blissful Apathy

Monday

Bleeding hearts march along playfully although too easily overlooked.

• A week in which I will pay no attention to newspapers, talking TV heads, nor worried contemporaries.  A retreat into meditation, self-imposed, visible only to myself.  Seven days of staring at skies simply as skies, flowers only as nature, food only as a gift gratefully received.
• Fashion demands that I attend the fall of sparrows eight thousand miles away, gasp at troubles of endless places I shall never visit, care about tangents and projections of various experts.  Fashion may be correct, but I have rarely allowed myself to be constricted by it.
• Perhaps one form of reality is correctly described by such fashion.  Religion, politics, future visons may all be right, may all be desperate, may all be horrible.  I wonder if such be true, if it may not then be wise to retreat into a lonely monastery somewhere away from the world, and contemplate happily all that has been and especially all that I have known, as the empire crumbles around me.

Tuesday

A young ailanthus frantically bursts forth to join leafing madness everywhere.

• Surprisingly, for rapid-growing, beautiful, and useful trees, dogwoods have an average lifespan of around eighty years, which makes them about the same as modern American males.   At this time of year they are massively lovely (the trees, not the males.)  It always seems that their petals float in the sky, and in my mind they are always white or pink clouds hovering above.
• For too long, I took them for granted, as springs went by.  I had other more important tasks to attend.  Then, when I began to notice the world as more than something I must shape, I was more astonished by unusual sights than by the steady companionship of the familiar.  Even now, our old pink dogwood out back _ almost generational, there since my wife grew up here when young _ and unfortunately slowly dying year by year _ is just a part of the everyday landscape.
• As am I.

Wednesday

Our old pink dogwood not what it once was, still vital and beautiful, some lesson there for me.

• “Apres moi, le deluge,” said Louis XV on the eve of the French Revolution, which indeed carried off his son and most of the royalty and aristocrats.
• I’m afraid we boomers are beginning to feel the same way.

Thursday

Every inch of ground space crowded with impossible struggles for sun and water.

• One enduring cultural fantasy has been that of the ancient familial homestead.  Sunny pictures of well-off farmers on ancestral grounds, gathering beneath an ancient oak tree on a hot reddening evening to pass wine with the wonderfully cooked dinner filled with home-grown produce.  Generations gathered around laughing, no doubt joined by a few convivial neighbors from the farms next door.
• In that scenario, we usually see ourselves as somehow masters of the land.  Without too much hard work, shaping the very hills, taming the vineyards, plucking the fruit, gathering milk (rather mysteriously, for we are really city dwellers) and somehow creating wonderful artisanal cheese.
• Dreams are fine things.  But historic reality is that many fled existences that were never like this to become urbanized or suburbanized or even to begin farming in a modern style.  And although they shaped much of their lives in better, newer ways, there were always constraints.  Few manage to go through life never encountering a barrier.
• Amazing things can happen in a lifetime.  But the fact is most of us do not actually change our entire culture with a single vote, nor our lives with a single action, nor the world with a well-spoken point of view.  We are constantly told we can make a difference, but the difference we make is usually extremely limited.
• Our true ambition should be not to seek literal Tuscan fantasies, but to embody in our actual existences the calm, peace and joy we believe existed there.

Friday

Surprising hillside horse hollow at Caumsett looks more like spring in Kentucky.

• Heat in mid-spring New York is grudgingly granted.  Not so cold as Maine nor Canada, but often the world looks a lot warmer than it actually feels outside.  Winds sweeping over the chill waters of the harbor continue to bite, mists can cause involuntary shivers.  Occasional hot days only make the cold ones more annoying.
• We take our Cinderella planet for granted.  A few days _ a week _ of too much heat, sun, rain, cold, dry, wind, anything _ can cause us to wonder what went wrong.  Are gods or nature angry with us?  Humans are so perfectly adapted to “normal” conditions that incredibly trivial variations seem important.  On occasion, I try to take a deep breath, stand still, and appreciate whatever heat, whatever precipitation, whatever light there may be in the sheer ineffable joy of existence.

Saturday

Clouds condensing in a cool oceanic breeze defy promises of warm sun.

“Sarah, Sarah,” whispers Simon, without trying too hard.

“Almost here, almost,” drifts back from whiteness coalescing in the clear azure sky.  “Ahh, that feels good.  Good morning, everyone.”

Nearby clouds nod politely, with an occasional grunted “g’morning.”  Quite a crowd of puffs today, Sarah notices.  Spots of shadow dotting the waters below.  “Anything exciting while I was away?”

“Nah,” says Simon, “All the excitement due tomorrow when Harry blows in.  Hard cold rain, whipping wind, nothing fit for the likes of us.  Low class, like all his stormy friends.”

“Thunder too?”

“Nah, Thor claims he won’t come by until later _ not warm enough yet, he says.  Likes to stay south as long as possible.  Did you have a nice nap?”

“Yes, lovely, thank you.  Immaterialization is such a relaxing joy, you’d expect more of us to do it more often.”

“I like seeing things and being seen,” answers Simon.

“You like seeing Daphne,” giggles Sarah.  “Little Miss Diaphanous,  you can see right through her half the time, just a constant tease.”

“I love seeing you, Sarah.”

Sarah swells a little and lets her brightness shine.  Happy times, she thinks, under a brilliant sun.

Sunday

Mid-spring natural cathedrals can inspire more awe than any human construction

“Om” they say, just rest and be

Unburdened in eternity

Perfume, sunshine, sounds of bells

Hunger, fear, manmade hells

Ignore distractions, empty mind

In emptiness peace you will find

I sniff and think and hear and see

Happy, afraid, content, and free.  

May Be Local

Monday

Don’t want to get much closer than this to lovely, ubiquitous, nasty poison ivy.

• Now I speak as an old man, which few are willing to do in these age-obsessed times.  I never accepted the current cultural wisdom about life, which is that children must be grimly groomed for adulthood, adolescents must be grimly culled into the successful or lost, young adults must grimly save pennies for a grim future, the middle-aged must grimly and selfishly grasp everything around them, and elders must never admit that they have become grimly less competent than they once were.  This is an outlook that attends a magnificent feast and can only (grimly) count calories.
• Such despondent and hopeless attitudes are primarily formulated in response to remote events rather than local reality.  The paper says this and that, books say this and that, experts say this and that, media says this and that, strangers in the street say this and that.  We may never encounter this and that in our own lives, but obviously it is important because everyone else knows about it.
• Each day of life, even for many of those in intolerable positions, is a potential feast.  And this is where I also have some difficulty with what everyone says.  For I am not sure that my happiness in my local existence should be grimmed down by far-away predicaments and events.  I have an infinite world of joy around me.
• I wonder _ given that I have power only over my local bubble _ if I am really spiritually cleansed by ceaseless whispers from distant places that all is not well everywhere, and that my current happiness is temporary and somehow sinful.  Or is that just an echo of American puritanism now decayed into a kind of self-righteous guilt.

Tuesday

Fluorescent green algae coat low tide rocks beneath a persistent, almost Irish, mist.

• Nothing is more global than air.  Smoke from a burning forest eight thousand miles away reaches us within weeks.  Radioactivity from any disaster does the same.  We are constantly amazed that weather on the other side of the continent sweeps eastward and affects us in days with showers or sun.  The atmosphere is a frothy mix of everything stirred constantly all the time and if anything is exactly the same anywhere on the planet it is the air we share.
• Yet as I walk around air varies tremendously.  It blows hard in one spot, but can be calm a few feet away.  It has no scent here, yet a hundred yards further on may be putrid enough to make me gag, or sweet enough to evoke ancient memories.  A whiff of poison gas can kill me instantly, floating puffs of microbes may be just as fatal if more lingering.  One day it is wet enough to almost drown, another so dry that breathing rasps the throat.  As for temperature …
• For all the local variations, it remains global.  But the local variations are what I notice, and sometimes I feel that local variations are all that matter _ even though I logically well know that is completely wrong.

Wednesday

Green is overwhelmingly resurgent, between silver sky and sea as rainfall departs.

• All politics is local
• Unfortunately, everything else is global

Thursday

Lilac is beautiful, but its glory is scent, which I can neither capture nor share.

• Our biosphere is a master of recycling.  I am composed partly of atoms which were also used by tyrannosaurus rex, a blue pansy, Julius Caesar,  a giant pine, Lucretia Borgia, a nasty shark and _ well _ everything.  DNA has also exposed our family relationships.  There is only one kind of life on Earth, and given the rules of evolutionary engagement, that would probably be true anywhere _ although not necessarily the same kind of life as we enjoy.
• In some ways, there is eternal serenity in that.  Whatever happens after I die, at some point part of me will be part of it.  Possibly a wonderful utopian civilization.  More likely a turgid sea of restless radioactive bacteria.  But atoms I have used will be swirling around in that mix.
• Our minds have not become what they are by being humble.  Each of us contains a deep cosmos, a complete certainty of importance, an automatic filter on what is relevant.  Truly each of us considers ourselves meaningful in some way or other, even if it is only to help others be more meaningful.  That is hubris, but hubris is the core claim of humans, and we ought not write it off too casually.
• On the other hand _ there are those recycled atoms telling a very different story …

Friday

Nearly infinite green hues may have names assigned by decorators, but naming doesn’t enhance reality.

• Once upon a time, long ago, all North America was “public property.”  Then the Europeans arrived with their new-fangled sense of entitlement to common heritage and began carving the land into private enclaves, based on papers which granted ownership in perpetuity to the original speculator.  It was a time of grand fantasies by philosophers like Locke and Hume and other partisans of individual rights.  One of these was that death is irrelevant to ownership. As it turned out in the American judicial interpretation of the constitution, even being a human person is irrelevant to ownership. 
• I’m pretty sick of conservatives singing the hosannas of three-century-old philosophers and two-century-old merchant princes and landed squires.  Someone should look at the idiocy embedded in assumed sacred rights to private property.  Right now, the issue is a convenient legal fiction which has gone cancerous and is likely to destroy civilization.
• If there is one certainty, it is that no matter how long we live _ even if people live for thousands of years in the future _ we all just borrow things while we exist.  Dreaming of control after death is insanity.  All property should pass back to the common wealth upon death, and all land should merely be rented from some political entity representing everyone.  Corporations should not be allowed to “own” anything at all.
• This is a new era. People do not light homes with whale oil,  disease does not come from bad air, this world and its knowledge is vastly different from that several hundred years back.  Ditch the stupid reverence for “ideals” which are insanely out of date and didn’t even work well at their inception.  

Saturday

Between rains and seasons, new growth begins to overwhelm leftover stubble.

Tommy slowly climbs the grassy bank,  bumping his way among other turtles who have already staked out prime sunning spots.  Finally he locates an open space and begins to bask. 

Desmond’s foot has been disturbed.  He raises himself enough from a pleasant torpor to complain “Tommy, have some respect for your elders, eh?  You need to learn to be polite.”

“Sorry, sorry.  I came out of hibernation late, that’s all.  Why do we all have to use this one place, anyway?”

“Only one with sun, son.  You’re welcome to circle around the freezing water trying to find a better branch, but I’ve been around long enough to know what’s best.”  Desmond is a lot larger than Tommy.

“Well, why don’t we leave here and find somewhere with more islands instead of on this cramped little space.”

“Tommy, an adventurous little turtle is a dead little turtle.  Believe me, I’ve known a few.  Stick to what we all do.”

“But there must be lots of wonderful places …”

“Maybe so.  Maybe so.  But maybe no better.  Hecksher park is turtle paradise, and smart little turtles understand that or they never become smart older turtles.”

“Oh.”

“So leave me alone to soak up some rays and warmth.  I suggest you do the same.  Quietly.”

Tommy thinks a moment, and then as is the way of all his friends, does not think at all.

Sunday

Impossibly overflowing azaleas light landscapes everywhere.

Spring hormones surge, their net effect

Seems nowhere rage.

Peaceful beauty bathes the land

Vast harmonious gentle shared.

Underneath lush loveliness

Survival struggles

Tooth and claw

Bud leaf and seedling

Vicious calm.