Beach

Off Season



Wet Feet


Wet Boots

HIdden Deer

HANDS

Have you seen a huge tree ride the wind in a storm?
Flinging all its green branches like wings to the skies,
Yet its breast in the fight with the wind holding firm,
Like a bird soaring over the puddles it flies...

It withstands all the lightning and soaks up the rain...
Then the moisture like sweat trickles down to the soil
From its rough rugged branches subdued by the strain
Like a man's drooping hands when exhausted from toil.

Soon those gnarled weary branches regain their old
strength,
And the tree starts to rustle again,
by and by,
Look, it rises and spreads its green arms at full length,
For it knows while it's working its sap will not dry.

Though it had to withstand the wind's rages and rain,
Now dispersing the clouds like black ravens it clings
To the sky,
to the sun the huge tree soars again
On its own leafy branches like feathery wings...

Have you seen such a tree
in its challenging flight?
Do its boughs not remind you
of these hands, my own,
When they rise against storm blast and thunder to fight?
It's a hardworking, free pair of hands that I own...

My two hands worship freedom.
They crave for its balm
When long furrows they turn and sow seed in the loam.
They enjoy being free to hold bread in their palm
And to bear every day a fresh loaf of it home.

My own hands,
like those branches and fluttering sprays,
Shield a bird from deep snowdrifts and piercing winds...
My own hands greet the sun when at dawn with its rays
Like a girl to a man's well-knit body it clings...

My own hands, I am saying...
But are they just mine?
Can I claim they belong but, to me?
They are dust of a mountain,
no matter how fine,
Or two drops
in the infinite sea...

Nonetheless, tiny drops
make the sum of an ocean,
And a mountain is simply
a heap of fine sand...
So to keep this magnificent world in motion
There must be a call for my working hands...

My two hands may belong
to the plough in the field,
To the scythe mowing grass
and the saw cutting lumber,
To the loom weaving cloth
and the hammer I wield,
To the far-ranging rocket, an atom-age wonder...

My two hands
may be fitted
for kneading crisp dough
Or for saving a tree from hard frost,
They can carry the flag in a clash with a foe
And sustain my own friend who is lost.

My two hands
are needed
to water a flower
And to save its fine blooms from becoming dry,
To let free a caged bird is within their power
Ant to lift you, my son, to the sun in the sky!

Now and then hands are needed
for brushing a tear
From my own and a stranger's cheek...
They are needed to give kindly warning, good cheer
To a baby whose own hands are weak...
Hands are needed
for stroking your loved one's soft hair
And for striking the foe who comes trampling your land...
They enfold a good man for whose friendship you care,
And in greeting you offer your hand...

Just two hands I possess...
Though I had seven score
I should still feel myself to be nought.
I despise metal gold,
but like gold I adore
Human hands and the things they have wrought.

Just two hands I posses...
Take them, Earth, in return
For your harvests, the fruit of your lands...
Take these hands –
they are muscular hands, broad and firm –
They belong to you. Come, take my hands...

Eduardas Mieželaitis

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis

Snow That's not Funny

The Mid Atlantic area where I spent my childhood is getting a second blizzard in a week. My sister was out of power for two days-unheard of for that area-which meant no heat in her condos. They had nearly three feet of snow and another 18 inches today.

That would be a lot of snow for us here in Maine. Maine is designed to deal with snow. Parking bans go into effect in the cities-no street parking so road crews can come in and load the snow in trucks and haul it away. Our rural roads are maintained year round so that special plows with an extra plow on the side can wing the banks back out of the way to allow for the next snow bank. I have seen it in bad years where they just knock the tops off the snowbanks so the next storm can be thrown on top of the old snowbank.

They don't have this type of equipment down in the mid Atlantic states. They don't need it. 7 or 8 inches of snow is a big storm that you might not even see in a winter.

I remember the blizzard of 1978 we had about three feet of snow. The records I looked up disagree and said a foot and a half, but I remember waking up the next morning and not being able to see a car in the parking lot. They were white humps. Maybe that is because they were in a parking lot, but I remember wading to the local seven-eleven through snow up to my mid-thigh.

The radio was putting out a call for anyone with a four wheel drive and a plow to get out and help clear the streets. Of course, it all melted in a week, but things were at a standstill for a few days.

Now two monster storms back to back-it is unheard of. Both storms went out to sea south of us here in Maine. We are seeing temps above normal for February; 43F yesterday and I wanted to open the back door it was so hot in the house! LOL! I get used to working outside in zero degree temps and I was ready to jump in an ice fishing hole in the pond yesterday to cool off!

I hope everyone is safe through the storms south of here. Personally I would like to see a little rain in Maine as the water table is running a little low, but the folks along the Kennebec would rather some of that ice melt this week before we get any rain. We have a lot of winter left here-snow is not unusual for April but it usually doesn't last long.

I just hope D.C. doesn't have snow on the cherry blossoms this year.

Snow

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GLIB SCARCELYEST AMONGS FLOWERING

E. E. Cummings

We are the time. We are the famous

We are the time. We are the famous
metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure.

We are the water, not the hard diamond,
the one that is lost, not the one that stands still.

We are the river and we are that greek
that looks himself into the river. His reflection
changes into the waters of the changing mirror,
into the crystal that changes like the fire.

We are the vain predetermined river,
in his travel to his sea.

The shadows have surrounded him.
Everything said goodbye to us, everything goes away.

Memory does not stamp his own coin.

However, there is something that stays
however, there is something that bemoans.

Jorge Luis Borges

Dawn

Shrimp Season

This is a common roadside sight this time of year in Maine. I couldn't resist and went back and bought 5 pounds. I will pick the meat-first by twisting off the head, then peeling the carapace from the legs around over the body, and then with a pinch of the tail, the meat will be free. I think I will bread them in cracker crumbs and flour, fry them up, and eat them with tartar sauce. Yum. These are small shrimp-not your jumbo prawns. They can be poached and served with cocktail sauce, hmmm...that sounds good, if only I could get at my horseradish root...;)

Kennebec River Under Ice

Saturday I was relieved to find my favorite Chinese restaurant open. It sits on the banks of the Kennebec River in Hallowell, and the Kennebec had two days of severe flooding due to an ice jam downriver below Gardiner.

The Kennebec is a tidal river, fresh and saltwater. It rises and ebbs with the tides. We had a LOT of rain and warm temps last week that melted a lot of the snowpack and broke up some of that river ice, which then flowed downstream and jammed up against a bridge.

Now when the tide wants to go out, it meets an ice dam nearly twenty feet thick, so the water backs up upstream, depositing ice floes in riverfront basements.

This weekend we had an arctic blast, and the coast guard, four icebreakers, gave up and decided to come back when the weather warms up. Folks along the river are praying for a gradual warm up that will rot the ice pack, and not anymore heavy rains. Time will tell.

I was in such a hurry to get home with the Chinese food, plus I was blocking in about six cars in the parking lot, that I didn't snap this pick until I was on the bridge in Augusta looking south downriver.

Poems of Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor