For no reason but that I love it

This from Writer's Almanac this morning, a couple quotes by Philip Levine, our present Poet Laureate:

"It is the imagination that gives us poetry. When you sit down to write a poem, you really don't know where you're going. If you know where you're going, the poem stinks, you probably already wrote it, and you're imitating yourself."

"You have to follow where the poem leads. And it will surprise you. It will say things you didn't expect to say. And you look at the poem and you realize, 'That is truly what I felt.' That is truly what I saw."



Went up to give Shmuel and the girls their daily ration of lettuce. The moment I raise the garage and start gathering the bits of chinese cabbage and iceberg lettuce to take up to them, their jabber begins to crescendo, accentuated by abrupt calls. Shmuel gives off this breathy sort of squeeze box sound, rapid-fire. And as I near, they don't seem to know what to do with themselves, they're so excited. They bounce back and forth around their pen, flap their wings, and Shmuel finally presses himself up against the fence. He lifts his foot up and down attempting to climb up it, wanting it gone, now. There's a definite pecking order to how the lettuce is received: Shmuel in front, the 2 girls in back. He always gets the first chomp, always; they are adherents to the "trickle down" theory. They may complain "Hey, more for us! What about us in the back here! C'mon, stingy!!" (I'm very adept at goose translation), but if I reach over Shmuel to try and feed them directly, they become instantly skittish "No, no! What are you doing?! Get away!! Unclean! (They probably wouldn't go as far as yelling "Unclean!" I just tossed that in for dramatic affect) And Shmuel rarely let's me reach over him. He's very dextrous with his lettuce chomps, though. He makes a point not to bite me, even when it's the tiniest bits of lettuce. It's impressive. They're out now, taking turns roaming about the hill, rooting through the sleeping grass and then hunkering down by the chicken pen.

The garden is sound asleep up on the hill. Hard to imagine how green and fecund it was during the growing season. To everything there is a season. It's all tucked in bed underneath a comforter of straw and a little snow. I waited a little too long to yank out our last kale plants and now they're pretty solidly frozen into the soil. Ah well. The soil will forgive my missteps. In the smallest of the beds my first bed of garlic is resting, forming. Looking forward to all of its stages next year. One of the next few days I'll begin planning next years placement of plants and order seeds from High Mowing organics. Maybe this year an asparagus patch. And a straw bale cold frame.

Richard and I are cleansing for 9 days, (this is day 2), so the days are a bit shapeless without meals or the planning of meals or the shopping for meals to form a kind of structure to the day. It all feels very new, which is kind of perfect for the beginning of the year. When I give into it, it allows me to see things from a different perspective. Fresh. There isn't much planned activity right now, no job, my schedule is up to me. So I just thought how can to apply that Philip Levine quote to my present situation. How do I allow myself to not be clear what my priorities or goals or activities, aims and directions are before I sit or walk, and allow my imagination to take the reins. Hmmm? Sounds good to me.


It does amaze me how I can find such beauty in this barren landscape, but I do. The multitude of grey barked, leafless trees couched in among the silent, dark greens of fir and spruce. They don't want to make too much fuss. They're willing to stay in the background, even when the maples and oaks and elms show off their color display in autumn, their dying act, going out with a bang, even then the firs and spruce are content to keep quiet and still and steady. They embolden me. And the winter light. Yesterday the white birch bark in the woods was blasting the reflection of sunlight back at me. Like a huge white woody smile. And the silence, the silence. Noise will come, but for now, be grateful for the silence. And then when sounds come, every sound is singular, it's own world. A rooster calls "I'm here! I'm alive!" from our neighbors and is answered in chorus from ours. Hound dogs moan and yelp off in the woods, woods on a far hill. A gunshot, another. The crunch of my boots on the dirt road. The clanky stretch of the metal in our wood stove. The ticking of clocks, like wooden puppets tip-toeing somewhere. My imagination flowing free. What sound does that make? A brook? The wind in the trees? The owl deep in the forest?