Poetry

Tiny Blue Isle 2022

/ J. Eric Smith / 4 Comments

We all live on a tiny blue isle
in a ravening crimson sea
that scours our shore
as storm gales roar
from windward side to lee.

We all live on a tiny blue isle
that shudders against the waves
of scarlet brine
and turpentine
leached from sunk slavers’ graves.

We all live on a tiny blue isle,
that’s smaller, day by day,
as marshland sinks
into that pink
foam sloshing ’round the bay.

We all live on a tiny blue isle,
like a berry in currant crème,
a healthy mote
that stays afloat
in a sticky blood-red stream.

We all live on a tiny blue isle
and work one job, with glee:
we fling blue sand
with spade and hand
to fight that damned red sea . . .

I wrote this poem in a depressed rage on November 10, 2016, after seeing a then-current version of the Presidential electoral results map, which looked something like this:

I don’t often get political here on any partisan basis (though I presume my allegiances are clear), since nobody needs yet another voice howling into the Twitiotsphere about that which each of us feels is obvious, creating ever more repetitive echoes in our respective chambers of cognizant isolation. But as I’ve been (mostly) happily following the 2022 midterm election results, I re-read “Tiny Blue Isle” and remain pleased with it as an original take on a tiresome topic, so I am sharing it again today. Take it as you will.

The last time I posted an update of the poem here, Marcia and I had just participated in the dumpster fire that was the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus, which was appalling in the moment, and even more so in hindsight. Never again, America, please?  This time around, from our new home in Arizona, Marcia worked actively on behalf of the Democrats of the Red Rocks in their get-out-the-vote efforts, a much better organized affair with much better results. We have been pleased in recent months that, by the yard sign count metric, our little isolated neighborhood is indeed a Tiny Blue Isle tucked away in the corner of a deep red county. We picked good when selecting this home, for that and so many other reasons.

Yes, we did lose our good incumbent Democratic Congressman to a MAGA candidate, due entirely to 2020 redistricting that shoved large swaths of the old district’s Democrats into other buckets. But that disappointment aside, at the moment, it looks as if five of the six Statewide electoral positions are going to go blue, and the sixth will be filled by a competent and lucid Republican. That’s a pleasing outcome from this little blue mote rising from a blood red sea. And as I assess the national electoral results, I’m pleased to see some new blue peaks emerging from other crimson backwaters, and the blue breakwaters holding against the raging red waves in others.

And with that bit of politics on the table today, we will return to our regular piffle and tripe here on Ye Olde Blog with my next post, whenever that may be. But keep on shoveling, fellow tiny blue islanders. It makes a difference.

Twenty Years

/ J. Eric Smith / 3 Comments

My father died twenty years ago today, shortly after he was critically injured by an elderly driver who blacked out behind the wheel of his car, leading to a head-on auto accident. Dad died in the same hospital in Beaufort, South Carolina, where I had been born some four decades earlier. He was not conscious when I arrived at the hospital, and he never regained consciousness, though my mother and sister and I (plus a close family friend) were there with him when he left the troubles of this world behind and flew away.

In the brief period after the accident while he was still able to communicate with us, Dad watched from his hospital bed while his beloved North Carolina State Wolfpack stomped my own alma mater Navy’s football team by a score of 65 to 19. The last time that we spoke, by phone, we talked about that game, despite his morphine fog. I’m glad he got to see it. The last words he heard from me on that phone call were “I love you.” We’re one of those families that ends pretty much every phone conversation or written communication with those words, because you never know what tomorrow might bring. In this case, tomorrow brought something awful, so having said that was important to me.

We ran this memorial on the 10th anniversary of my Dad’s death. Time flies, and it doesn’t ever move backward.

The day after my father’s death, we were all engaged in the sad business associated with funeral arrangements and announcements and such, precisely as the one-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks were being marked around the country, adding a surreal extra layer of national grief and loss to our own personal mourning experiences. I delivered the eulogy at my Dad’s funeral a couple of days later, having crafted it quickly on his old computer in his old office, reading from a printed hard copy that, alas, I did not save after the service. But I believe I’ve recreated and summarized the gist of my remarks a few times over the years, and they went something like this . . .

Colonel Charles R. Smith, Jr., (July 29, 1939 – September 10, 2002) was born and raised in the small Piedmont mill town of Albemarle, North Carolina. He attended and graduated from North Carolina State University before being commissioned in the United States Marine Corps in 1961. He served on active duty for 28 years, retiring as Chief of Staff at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina, then going on to career in ministry as the station manager and on-air personality for the largest Christian radio station in South Carolina’s Low Country.

My father was a combat veteran of both Vietnam and Lebanon, and was handsomely decorated for his service over the years, earning The Legion of Merit, The Bronze Star (with combat V), The Meritorious Service Medal (three awards), The Navy Commendation Medal (with Silver Star), The Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal (two awards), The National Defense Service Medal, The Vietnam Service Medal (with four stars), The Humanitarian Service Medal, The Vietnam Cross of Gallantry (two awards, with Silver Star and Palm and Frame), The Presidential Unit Commendation (one star), The Combat Action Ribbon (one star), The Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, and The Lebanese Order of the Cedar. He’s one of a very small number of non-Lebanese citizens to receive that last honor, granted to him for his peace-making work as Marine liaison to Ambassador Philip Habib, a crucial and meaningful side duty while he was serving as Executive Officer of the 32nd Marine Amphibious Unit in Beirut in 1982-83.

While the biography that can be gleaned from my father’s list of medals and ribbons was an important part of who and what he was, there was obviously more to his life than the details of his military accomplishments. Dad was well educated with a pair of Masters Degrees, and he spent much of his life as an educator, either directly (as a school teacher, later in his life) or indirectly (as a mentor, storyteller, sage, and church elder). He was a man of great, deep faith, who touched countless lives through his ministries. He was also a “foodie” without pretense, who could just as easily appreciate a good chili dog as he could a fine meal at one of the world’s great restaurants. He was a loving husband to my mom, a great dad to my sister and I, and a doting grandfather to my daughter, niece and nephew.

But I think what I miss the most, when all’s said and done, is the fact that he was really quite the goofball much of the time, and was a lot of fun to spend time with. He had an infectious laugh, and loved to tell tall tales and stories; the truth was malleable for him, and did not necessarily have to correspond to reality. (The excellent Tim Burton movie, Big Fish, could have been his biography). He also found humor in all sorts of places where most folks didn’t look for it. I remember one time when my sister and I were young and our Mom was away for some reason, so Dad was left with the responsibility of making dinner for us. He spent a long time in the kitchen that night making a very special dinner for us: A Spam Lamb (for my sister) and a Spam Ram (for me). Both of them were anatomically correct, ahem.

We laughed and laughed and laughed through our dinner, and meat from a can never tasted as good as it did that night. Later, I watched him make his grandchildren laugh just as hard as he did his children, which was lovely, and powerful, and memorable. I will miss that, a lot. I know I’m not alone in that regard.

Groovy Early ’70s Summertime Family Photo, taken in my grandparents’ backyard in Albemarle, North Carolina.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been twenty years since I first wrote and delivered some version of those words. Some days, it seems like a lifetime ago, since so much has changed since then — but other times, it feels like yesterday, since I remember it all so vividly, down to the tiniest details that usually fade with time. A couple of years after my father died, I was asked to contribute an article for a “summer special” edition of the alternative newsweekly for which I wrote, describing unique or lasting memories of the year’s balmiest season. I think that was the first time that I formally put pen to paper (proverbially speaking) after the funeral to try to capture the experience of time spent with my Dad, and then the experience of the days after, without him. Here’s a link to that article, if you’d like to read it.

We were in Santa Barbara this summer on what would have been my Dad’s 83rd birthday. I got a good beach hot dog in his honor, though my Mom correctly pointed out that it should have had greasy chili sauce and mustard and way too many onions on it to properly replicate his preferences. Urp.

I miss my Dad, at bottom line, all these years on, and I rue the fact that he was not with us in the flesh to share in so many amazing experiences over the past two decades. And, thus, I must make the public service announcement that I offer pretty much anytime I mention my father online: if you know an elderly or infirm driver who is no longer capable of safely operating a motor vehicle, you really need to graciously, yet firmly, facilitate and support that person’s transition to a non-driving state. The man who killed my father walked away with a sprained wrist, while our lives were irrevocably changed, forever, for the worse. You don’t want your own loved ones to be responsible for doing that to somebody else’s family. So take the keys when it’s time to do so, please and thanks.

One final closing memory: I think I inherited a strong penchant for taking dubious shortcuts when driving or hiking or biking from my Dad, as part of both of our penchants for wanting to see how things connect, even if the shortest path between Points A and B is a dirty and dangerous and stupid one. I remember one time when I was a kid, probably of the age shown in that family photo above, and my Dad and I hiked up Morrow Mountain in the Uwharries of Central North Carolina. You could drive to the top of the mountain by car, or walk up along the road, taking advantage of the many switchbacks. Or you could just clamber straight up the steep faces between the switchbacks, although the park rangers probably wouldn’t have much cared for the third choice. So, of course, that was the one we chose. We made it to the top, so all’s well that ends well, but it wasn’t one of our brighter father-son outings together. Oh well . . . I guess if we’d just walked up the road or driven to the top, I wouldn’t have written this sonnet about that day, some 30 years after it happened:

The serpent switchbacks cut the mountain’s side,
each hairpin turn just higher than the last.
Straight up, between the curves, a gravel slide,
where trees were felled by avalanches past.
Both slide and road went to the mountain’s peak,
one paved and winding, one more steep, but straight.
We stood there at the bottom, by the creek,
and chose the rock slide without much debate.
We scrambled up the loose slate, crossed the road,
and climbed the next pile, careful of sharp shale,
bypassing slippery spots where moisture showed,
ignoring man-made paths for nature’s trail.
Exhausted when we finally reached the top,
amazed, on looking back, how steep the drop.

 

A Year or a Day

/ J. Eric Smith / 4 Comments

1. September? It’s September already? Only three weeks until the equinox? Yeesh. That snuck up on me. We’re greeting the month here in Northern Arizona (and most of the American Southwest) with some extremely hot temperatures again, and they feel even hotter than usual after a month of good monsoon, as discussed (with photo and video support) in my last post.  Hopefully everybody’s 2022 is going better than most of our 2021’s and 2020’s went, but if not, take heart: September 1 marks the “twice as far behind as yet to go” point for the year. Which reminds me of a poem I wrote a decade and a half ago, during a year when I was publicly committed to writing a poem a day for a year:

I’m very tired of pushing words like snow,
then slipping on the forms that lie below.
I think I might just stop here now, although
I’ve twice as far behind as yet to go.
The words that used to pour out, now don’t come,
I often feel as though I’m stricken dumb.
But looking back, I see how far I’ve come:
there’s twice as far behind as yet to come.
Off in the distance, maybe, I can see
an ending to my self-imposed decree.
I guess I can be proud, to some degree
with twice as much behind as yet to be.
So here I sit, and write, at this plateau
with twice as far behind as yet to go.

2. Through a series of fortuitous connections, I’ve fallen in with a group of serious hikers who go out every Monday morning on the types of treks that I really like, typically involving beautiful (but obscure) destinations, frequent bushwhacking in the back country, and fairly strenuous climbs and descents. The group also has a great appreciation for the proliferation of Native American rock art and ruins scattered throughout this region, most of them left behind by the people dubbed The Sinagua by Europeans and Americans who later settled the region. The Sinagua left this area en masse around 1425 AD, so whenever you find their remains, you know you’re looking at something that’s at least 600 years old. I’ve posted a variety of images in my various photo series over the past two years sharing some of the public and obscure sites that I’ve visited, but on this past Monday’s hike, our group went to one of the most amazing Sinagua art sites that I’ve yet seen. I posted some shots from that hike over at my Flickr site, and you can click on the image below to see the remainder of them.

3. You may note that I do not disclose the location of the site in that photo album, and that’s generally been the case for any native sites that I find or visit hereabouts, excluding the ones that are readily open to the public under Forest or Park Service administration. I have increasingly come to believe that over-sharing on the Internet is destroying the experience of visiting sites like these, or high-profile natural locations, and I’m routinely annoyed at finding sites online with detailed descriptions making it relatively easy to find things that would be better-to-best experienced by having a knowledgeable and respectful local help you to see. (This applies to lots of things, actually. I’m equally bemused/appalled to see long lines at restaurants in towns where I have lived that locals consider marginal at best, but which for some reason have incorrectly convinced Tripadvisor or Yelp or whoever of their supposed excellence). That sense of annoyance about disrespectful visitors is even more exacerbated when I encounter people near or at these sites who are fundamentally unprepared to get there and be there, stereotypical case in point the time when I met a female “hiker” wearing yoga clothes and ballet slippers, dragging an out-of-shape photographer behind her carrying a massive equipment bag, but not much water. It was clear that her top priority was getting a fabulous Instagram-type influencer photo with professional assistance, and while I was going the other way and did not see the actual photo shoot, I can easily imagine her standing on or laying hands on things that should not be climbed nor touched. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love taking pictures (duh) pretty much everywhere I go, but the focus of the pictures is not on me looking fabulous, nor is it to provide a roadmap for strangers to follow, only a documentation of what I’ve done, because I’m a list-making, documentarian kind of guy. Be clear: I would be thrilled to take any friends or anybody who reads this site regularly up to these sorts of Native sites to see (but not touch) them, just as I was thrilled when others took me there for the first time. But I’m not going to use my website to make it possible for strangers with questionable intentions (to my views, anyway) to get there.

4. You might have noticed the owl in that photo album, if you visited it. I was leading the way in trying to find a path up to mesa we wanted to summit, and dropped down into a mostly dry wash to get some easier walking space. I came upon a small pool of water, and as I was looking for a way around it, what I thought was a rock turned its head and stared at me. Ye Gods! I figured I’d be lucky to get a single photo of this handsome fellow before he flew off, but he (using that gender neutrally, as I can’t bring myself to refer to sentient animals as “it”) was oddly calm and let me and my group (once they caught up to me) admire him. We were a bit worried that he might be bit under the weather given that odd behavior, and had we found him somewhere less remote with phone service, we might have called Animal Control to see if he needed rescue and rehab. But I’m cautiously hopeful that he was, perhaps, just a juvenile who had not yet encountered humans and so did not know to be frightened of us, if we made no threatening moves toward him. We walked on after a while, and I’m telling myself that Mr Owl had a nice rest, got a good sip of water, and then has continued on with his business, living his best possible owl life. As for us, the remainder of our hike got strenuous even by our standards, as we ended up in a blind wash and had to climb our way out through a dense half-mile, filled with cat’s claw acacia, agave, prickly pears, and other pokey, bitey, spiny flora. I looked like something out of a serial killer movie by the time I got home, every bit of exposed skin scratched to pieces. And I didn’t get the worst of it among our crew. Here’s hoping we find a cleaner path next week.

5. On the topic of hiking destinations filled with obnoxious “hikers” around here, the worst is absolutely Devil’s Bridge, a natural arch that’s relatively accessible, and is extremely highly documented on the web. I generally avoid it at all costs, because I’m averse to having to park a mile away from a trailhead, walk along the side of a busy road, and then embark upon a hike that culminates in a point on a trail where there’s a long line and a half-hour wait as people take turns walking the arch and posing for the “perfect” photo, that looks exactly like every other “perfect” photo taken there. That’s just not my idea of a good commune with nature. But a couple of weeks back, my hiking group was in the general vicinity of Devil’s Bridge, and our planned hike turned out to be a little shorter and easier than is our norm, so we decided to take a back route up to Devil’s Bridge just to add some steps to our schlep. We got up to the point where you can walk across the formation, and there was the usual throng of posing folks there. Meh. I had no desire to have the stereotypical Devil’s Bridge photo of me taken, but I did have a desire to document my explorations, so I elected to get what I think is a better shot of the formation anyway, climbing down to snap it from the underside:

Pretty cool, huh? From that vantage point, it was impossible to see the assholery going on up top, and that was a nice win from my perspective.

Odes to Labor

/ J. Eric Smith / Leave a comment

Ten little poems for you (all copyright JES, 2004) in honor of Labor Day, and the workers of the world who the holiday honors, hopefully with a day of rest.

#1. Where the Oysters Are

Push off in the bateau
and through the marsh we go,
way on out there where the oysters are.
Toss out the dredge and tong
drag and pull all day long.
It’s our job to stock the oyster bar
at the brand new resort
where the rich folk cavort,
arriving in their expensive cars,
to eat oysters and drink,
all wrapped up in the stink
of imported fine hand-wrapped cigars,
never thinking of us
who work from dawn to dusk,
way on out there where the oysters are.

#2. Midlevel

The buck? You know it’s stopping someplace higher,
The shit? I see it as it’s flowing lower.
I’m working here, behind the line of fire:
I fix, but I don’t aim, the fire throwers.
The chairmen without faces drop the orders,
I drop them quickly on the faceless clerks.
Don’t venture past my job description’s borders,
that’s terra incognita in my work.
Anonymously, that’s the way we’re quoted,
defined by work and never by our names.
On graphs, our productivity is noted,
red ink for losses, black lines plot our gains.
Midlevel: where I live and where I’ll die,
the limbo of the average working guy.

#3. Beryl

Beryl shared her name with a versatile gem, a fact missed by her mother (now dead).
Her name, Beryl knew, had been taken instead from a romance book mother had read.

Beryl (the stone) was usually nondescript until key trace elements were introduced.
If, for instance, you added chromium, then a precious green emerald was produced.

You could infuse beryl’s matrix with a trace of iron and end up with blue aquamarine.
Beryl had read of such pretty rocks, with rhinestones the sole gems she’d seen.

Beryl was plain, too, in her natural state, before painting herself with henna and kohl,
and hiding behind green and blue eye powder so nobody could look into her soul.

Wrapped in color and swirling in feathers, Beryl danced on the stage every night,
for the seedy old men with their one dollar bills who were desperate, but always polite.

At the end of the evening her color came off; nondescript, she went home to her son,
and counted her tips and read romance books, just the way that that her mother had done.

#4. Bogmen

we dig the peat moss ‘neath the hoarfrost sign the old cross
gather stones
wash wild lettuce let grit upset us pitch a fit fuss
spit out bones
there’s no pretending nor comprehending we’re just wending
through the bogs
wet trousers saggin’ as we’re draggin’ simple wagons
made of logs
in the night we drink and fight
kill the light to make it right
on and on until the dawn
when we’re strewn out on the lawn
wild insane consumed by pain
whipped and chained we work again
to dig the peat moss ponder our loss curse the old boss
gather bones
pitch a fit fuss kick up old dust whimper and cuss
spit out stones
cinch the straps down turn the cart ’round drag what we found
hate the bogs
nuts to soup we fly the coop thrown for a loop
and crushed by logs
whipped and chained we work again
wild insane consumed by pain
’til we’re strewn out on the lawn
on and on until the dawn
kill the light and make it right
let us drink and fight all night
let us drink and fight all night
let us drink and fight all night

#5. The Boots of Sleep II

Leap out of the boots of sleep,
rip open the sash,
assault the innocent morn
with bayonets of caffeine,
bullets of bacon,
and fried chickens (yet unborn).

Feint and thrust decisively
in your turbo Saab,
liberate the passing lane,
evade capture, play Wagner,
survey the bunker,
seize your cubicle again.

Review plans and strategies,
goals and objectives,
rally yon weary minions,
Patton at the water tank:
damn Montgomery
and his weak-chinned opinions!

Carpe diem, warrior,
office commando,
Sherman of the morning shift,
strike while the world is sleepy,
but save Savannah
as a presidential gift.

Burn brightly, flash, flare and die
by second smoke break
outside of your fortress keep,
anesthetized by donuts,
collapse on your shield,
slip into the boots of sleep.

#6. Delmas, Master of Tractors

These big ol’ caterpillars here, I’ll tell y’,
they’re like the lions in a circus cage:
doin’ what y’ tell ’em while y’r watchin’
then bitin’ your ass off when y’ turn away.
Y’ gotta crack the whip with’ese ol’ fellas,
let ’em know that y’r the big, bad boss,
but at the same time y’ gotta love ’em, too,
gotta keep ’em good n’ healthy, at any cost.
They’re more’n just big piles o’ glass n’ metal
and I b’lieve they can smell fear on a man,
but I walk confidently through their garages,
maskin’ m’ scent with th’ grease on m’ hands.
I respect these tractors, n’ that respect’s mutual,
they know it’s me what keeps ’em fit an’ clean.
I’m not no fancy doctor or lawyer or nothin’,
but I’m King o’ the World to these here machines.

#7. The Cedars of Chalybeate Hollow

Just look at them there cedars,
man, they’re gorgeous and they’re fragrant,
above the springs
with the red iron water,
they’ve got to be quite ancient.

We sit beneath them resting,
soon the half of us are snoring,
but we’ll wake up
real quick, just as soon as
the chainsaws start their roaring.

We’ll cut the trees to pieces
and then sell them in the city,
where fancy folks
put chips in their closets
to make their clothes smell pretty.

#8. Cow Catcher

The engineer stands way back in the dusty cab
of the 2-6-2 engine rolling southwest from Canadys,
bound first for Hampton and then for Savannah,
heavy with a load of southern yellow pine trees.
The sun’s setting there directly out in front of him,
so he squints and blinks beneath his stained denim cap,
ringing his bell periodically, in good force of habit,
just to alert anything caught unawares in his path.
He turns to checks his steam pressure; there’s a thump
and he sees some broken thing as it flies into the field.
He keeps on steaming, thankful for the welded black iron wedge
that kept whatever it was from derailing his engine’s wheels.

#9. Labor, Organized

They cut the timber, we make it into pulp
They bring us pine trees, we grind ’em into pulp
Our machines eat up their logs in one big scary gulp

They work the west seam, we burn their coal for heat
They bring us black coke, we burn it up for heat
Watch ’em coughing up their lungs while drinking in the street

They grow the soy beans, we feed ’em to our pigs
Feed corns and soy beans, we give ’em to our pigs
Come the holidays we’ll have some bacon with our figs

They’re in the garden, with pitchforks in their hands
Pitchforks and torches, and long ropes in their hands
We sit here in darkened rooms and wait for their demands

#10. Fishing Vessel Ophelia Rae

The sun’s rising on the horizon
as our boat motors into the east,
with nets hanging low on her winches
like wings on some cumbersome beast.
She’s a mote in that vast living ocean,
a speck catching yet smaller specks,
which we haul up in great writhing masses
and then dump in her tank, below decks.
With a full metal belly, she shudders
as we turn her back ’round t’wards the shore,
and then ease her back into her harbor,
where she vomits up shrimp by the score.
And the townsfolk, they scoop up her purging,
which they take home to shell and de-vein,
and then eat with their families at dinner,
while our boat, she gets hungry again.

They didn’t appear on your plate by magic, you know . . .

Modern Talk

/ J. Eric Smith / 5 Comments

Chuck Miller is a writer friend from Albany, and a fellow maltreated survivor of the Times Union Blog Farm. While I consider myself to be a reasonably prolific keyboard wrangler, Chuck is one of a small number of people (Roger Green being another) who can put me to shame with both the volume and quality of the content offered at their websites. Both of those gents have blogged daily for well over a dozen years, never missing a post, ever. There are few constants in life, but I always appreciate the fact that I can go to their websites any day, every day, and get fresh content, constantly, all of which I enjoy.

Chuck has also always been a great champion of the community-building aspects of online communication, and for years he’s devoted his Saturday posts to highlighting other writers’ work from the preceding week. During the Anno Virum, he added a new feature to his weekly round-up, offering a video interview each Saturday with a selected writer from his blogroll. As it turns out, while I was up in Boise this past weekend, Chuck ran a video of a conversation that he and I had taped a couple of weeks earlier. It was fun to chat with him “work from home” style, having not seen him in person since I left Albany in 2011, though we’ve stayed in touch through our websites since then.

I appreciate being included in Chuck’s roster of interesting community-building talks. If you’d like to hear how it went (or hear what I sound like, if you only know me from virtual spaces), click on the screen cap below for a link to the full video at Chuck’s website. A fine idea on his part, well executed. As are most things that he sets his mind to, as will become amply evident if you forage about at his site for any amount of time!

Me and Sweetman’s Christmas

/ J. Eric Smith / 1 Comment

Me and my friend Sweetman, we was deep in dismal thought,
late at night over whiskey (straight) down at Grumpy’s Drinkin’ Spot.
It was Christmas Eve, yes sir, and our wives, they had done and left,
(though that had been many years ago, we was still a bit bereft).

We was chewin’ on pig feets, the kind you pull out of the jar
that sits next to the pickled eggs and the calves brains behind the bar.
Sweetman burped as we finished, then mumbled “Man, this just ain’t right,
we oughta get us some better grub, for to eat tomorrow night.”

Right then, at that moment, we heard some sleigh bells overhead,
so we stumbled out, looked up, and saw a bright red flyin’ sled,
it was headin’ off southward, behind a dozen head of deer,
so I grabbed me my gun real quick before that meat could disappear.

Like an ace, well, I drew a bead upon the twelve point buck up front,
while my good partner Sweetman, he shut up, like when we hunt.
Then I pulled me the trigger, and saw that buck come tumbling down,
me and Sweetman we walked a bit, and found our dinner on the ground.

Man, I tell you, that Christmas night, we had the best damned supper yet
’cause that deer made a lot of steaks, plus some sausage I can’t forget.
So me and Sweetman we sat there, feelin’ bloated and pleased as swine,
gettin’ drunk on the black-tar hooch, that we’d made from turpentine.

Note: Copyright 2004, JES. It’s the reason for the season . . .

It’s Not the Turkey . . .

/ J. Eric Smith / 5 Comments

It is a strange and unsettling Thanksgiving season this year, made even more so here by us being in transition between homes, with our furniture being delivered to the new house on Friday. This morning, we left our AirBnB home of the past month (and its resident javalinas) and are in a hotel for two nights, so really a betwixt situation, on all fronts.

While many or most of us may not experience the traditional big dinner tomorrow, as an offer of  small comfort, I republish an old poem below to remind us all that the turkey is not the most important comestible of Thanksgiving anyway. Not by a longshot.

Here’s wishing everyone health and safety and happiness wherever and however you are able to mark the day. And a big serving of cheese, fat, salt and carbs, readily made in the microwave, easily devoured anywhere, fresh out of the tray . . .

Alma rose at dawn to make the biscuits,
kneading lard into the baker’s flour,
rolling sheets and cutting discs for baking;
it took her just a bit more than an hour.

At that point, Alma turned to make the stuffing:
sausage, cornbread, broth and butter, nuts.
She pulled the neck and gizzard from the turkey,
(which, with the heart, she thought the sweetest cuts).

She filled the bird and stitched it tight for roasting,
then with a jar of cloves, she dressed the ham,
and pressed the honey from the comb she’d purchased,
to sweeten up her famous candied yams.

While collards stewed in bacon fat and bullion,
Alma snapped the beans and okra too,
then shucked the corn, (the Silver Queen she favored),
which, paired with shrimp, went in her Frogmore Stew.

By sunset, Alma’s work had been completed,
the family blessed their meal on bended knees.
An awkward silence followed, ‘til her son said
“How come there ain’t no Stouffer’s Mac an’ Cheese?”

Autumnal

/ J. Eric Smith / Leave a comment

Yeah, I know that the astronomical autumnal equinox happened the week before last, but from a “boots on the ground” standpoint, we’ve been just a bit behind the curve here. (As is often the case in Iowa. Zing!) But that’s changing now, and quickly. Our daily walks over the past few days have involved more clothing layers than usual, and occasional hats, and tonight we’ve got our first frost warning posted. I’m planning to do a long bike ride tomorrow (for this), and it looks like the temperature will be ~36º F when I get rolling. More layers!

But that should be a short-term situation, as  today marks the three-week point before we load up the jalopy and move to Sedona, Arizona. Which means that unless global weirding queues up some particularly extreme and abnormal scenarios over the years ahead, 2020 should the last year that I spend dreading cold season, while trying to enjoy the pleasant elements of autumn. Not complaining. After 35+ years living in the frozen, damp, windy climes of Iowa, Chicago, Upstate New York and Idaho, I’m more than ready for a bit of year-round dry heat.

That said, I do note that I have raw, primal reactions to two common stimuli experienced in Northern autumns: hearing the sound of geese migrating southward and seeing Orion hunting in the Zodiacal plane on crisp, clear nights. I think these sights and sounds must resonate in our collective unconscious from centuries when shorter days and falling temperatures didn’t just mean higher fuel oil bills or extra lap blankets, but instead meant that the most perilous time of the year was nigh, and many of a community’s weaker members wouldn’t live to see the return of sunlight and warmth. Any time I hear the geese fly over, I involuntarily stop in my tracks and look up. Any time my eyes are drawn to the night sky and light upon Orion’s belt, they stay there, taking an active effort of will to look away. Those sounds and sights evoke awe, which I think of as wonder leavened with fear.

Autumn is a bittersweet season, at bottom line. I love the color, I love the weather . . . but winter is coming soon. For inside workers, it doesn’t really change the day to day pattern of our lives. But for those who spend warm months on the land, I imagine winter is a much different experience. I wrote a poem about these sorts of feelings back in the early 2000s called “Harvest.” It doesn’t explicitly mention geese or Orion, but it does try to evoke the sense of awe the season inspires in me. When I wrote it, I kept feeling like I should end it, then kept tacking on extra triplets (it has an odd structure), much in the way that we cling to the last leaves on the trees, the last warm days, the last pleasant evenings, lingering before the darkness falls and the snow is upon us.

While I was looking for that poem today in my old writing files, I stumbled over a few other pieces that also seem to evoke that autumnal spirit for me, some directly, some obliquely. They’re all posted below, for your consideration. Perhaps they’ll read well with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate?

HARVEST

Let’s take a long deep breath
and ponder the pasture
and our place in it:
we’ve got the harvest in,
the orchards are pruned and
all our wood’s been split;
the leaves have long since gone,
the frost’s on the pumpkins
and it’s cold at night.
In less than four short weeks
we’ll stand here again and
see a sea of white.
We’ve stored the grain inside,
stacked hay in the stalls and
put our tools away.
The growing season’s done,
the colors have faded
into brown and grey.
It doesn’t seem that long
since last we all stood here
at this time of year.
We’ll hunker down inside
for five months or so and
try to fight the fear
that winter brings to us:
the cold and the darkness
and the sickness too.
We’ll count the days for months
and pray for the spring, that’s
all that we can do.
These bittersweet fall months
are fraught with emotion
in these farming fields:
we’re glad the harvest’s done,
we’re proud of our work and
happy with our yields,
but now we hibernate
like beasts in the forest
(less the gift of sleep).
We take one last long look
and walk from the fields, and
many of us weep.

FREEZE

Outside, we can tell the air itself is thickening,
while we ponder cold weather wear we’re ordering
from fall catalogs, the rate of cooling quickening
with the first frost freezing hard the backyard bordering,
the once green growth succumbing to nature’s savaging,
organic ice orchards wilting first then splintering.
By night, we hear the winds all whistling and ravaging,
and know that before we’re ready, we’ll all be wintering.

MIGRATION

Gotta go the long way, fly along the highway,
high above the flyways, flat upon our backs.
Order over-rated, over-saturated,
rate the ones we hated, stop them in their tracks.

Wing as sharp as knife edge cuts into the first hedge,
watching from the high ledge, just above the stacks.
Flightless in the liner, lines from here to China,
over Asia Minor, chin up, Uncle Max.

Gotta go the long way, drive below the flyway,
park it in the driveway, fill and seal the cracks.
Watching the migration on a TV station,
where’s the destination? I’m so bad with facts.

GEMINI SNAKE

Gemini Snake coming out of the forest,
as the leaves fall, he rolls on, he rolls on,
I had a dream he was headed this way, and
I’m thinkin’ he’ll get here tomorrow, ’round dawn.

Gemini Snake at the edge of the farmlands,
he never stops, he rolls on, he rolls on,
went to the church to tell Preacher he’s coming,
and bone up a bit on those visions of John’s.

Gemini Snake in the next village over,
spinning off sparks, he rolls on, he rolls on,
on the horizon, we see smoke arising,
and harvest our crops, and chew bitter pecans.

Gemini Snake coming faster and faster,
right into town, he rolls on, he rolls on,
passes the town square and court house on Main Street,
damned if he doesn’t roll right to my lawn.

Gemini Snake passes straight through my property,
he doesn’t stop, he rolls on, he rolls on,
where he is headed now, I can’t imagine,
but I’m quite relieved by the fact that he’s gone.

HAPPINESS

There’s a lantern in the window
and a wild boar in the wood
as I’m standin’ in the plantin’ field
and feelin’ pretty good
’bout my farmin’ situation
an’ my plans for wintertime,
’bout that woman from Winooski,
‘an how glad I am she’s mine.
Got a bottle in the bureau,
and a smokin’ ham out back,
as I look about my holdin’s,
there ain’t nothin’ that I lack,
‘cept that boar . . . he keeps escapin’
every time we hunt him down:
like a ghost he disappears and leaves
us shootin’ at the ground.
I got ‘coons and I got turkey,
I got squirrels and I got deer,
shoot ’em, skin ’em, cook ’em, eat ’em,
that’s the way we do it here.
But that boar, he keeps eludin’ us,
he’s smart as twenty men.
I b’lieve I’ll know true happiness
when I make a ham of him.

Gemini Snake is a particular loathsome specimen of the hoopsnake genera, clearly.