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Mar 22, 2001
Strolling into Spring
Mar 20, 2001
Spring arrives at 8:31 this morning, and I’m heading to the Park to meet it. I’ll let you know what I find. Heard on the financial news that the stock market in Japan is closed for the Vernal Equinox holiday: you’d think we could do as much. Well, I’m going to do my part. Happy Spring to all!
Mar 17, 2001
For Saint Patrick’s Day, Something Green
A stone in the stream, grown green with moss, heralding Spring at Winter's end.Not rolling, but no stone goes forever unturned, undisturbed. The Park is a work of art, inflicted on the native landscape over a century ago, but a nostalgia even then. Stones were turned, and trees were planted, to turn the clock back to a more bucolic era. By the mid nineteenth century an increasingly urbanized Manhattan was in need of relief, and found it, in the form of an idealized vision of the countryside of its youth.
Remembering our youth brings us closer to our ancestors, just as dying will. In between, we are the keepers of their Tradition. We imitate what was, but our rehearsal is tinged by our own times, and if something of the stone is eroded, something is carried downstream.
If we measure ourselves against the creatures and the trees, let alone the stones, we seem to change quickly, holding but in memory what they hold in form. Yet theirs are Traditions too, and they have changed, if only over a time span exceeding our whole history. We flicker while they glow, but all alike join in consumption of the time allotted to Creation. When that Time is consummated; when all Traditions run their course, then we shall meet on equal terms, and find no difference between us.
Nor any between us and God.
Meantime, we take this day to face upstream.
Where it comes from is where it goes.
We may learn by looking either way, two-faced as we are, but holding heritage dear will help us to attract more of the precious particles washing over us: the settling gold of our origin. If we can take a form to which it will accrue, we will become a veritable boulder of gold, beyond value, and incorrupt.
Even so, we should be honored to support a mantling of Spring moss.
As precious in its way as gold, and in the time it takes to grow, holding our history in one green view,
before we roll downstream.
Mar 08, 2001
Litter
Another storm come and gone; Winter continues as before,With persistence more than force
The snow retreats, revealing layers underneath
Leaves that fell the Fall before blanket forest floors in brown
Assume the attitude of death, congruent with the soil
Here is a world unlooked at, but with the diversity of a rain forest.
It's the slain forest; the front line of decay.
Its denizens too small for us to see, we know them by their actions, or rather their results.
The more they do, the less there is.
What was gets broken down: macro-form lost as constituent particles rescind allegiance to larger outlines, following a finer course.
Things disappear.
Yet the litter remains.
Even in Summer it can be found, in hollows at the roots of trees, blown beneath the underbrush, strewn along the banks of streams.
Tons of it fall yearly, and the material cycles through the ecosystem, no doubt. We are assured that nothing's ever truly lost, at least as far as particles go, but last year, and the year before, are gone, and which year's leaves now lie here is hard to say. Sometimes it seems those of the Red Oak are indestructible, but there are never so many lying as ever have fallen.
Surely, they have built the soil here, in concert with the microbes, arthropods, worms, fungi, and other things, some of them nameless, engaged in processes we usually ignore, though they go on all the time...
Even so, we are losing ground. Literally.
On the steep slopes, and the well trod ways, pummeled under force of foot or flood, torn by wheel and claw, the soil continues to erode.
All the mulching that the maintenance crews can do is not enough to match the abrasion that this place endures. Its roots are loose in thinning soil that threatens to slip off the Manhattan bedrock, the last living plot draining away into the city that consumes it. The lovers and the users of the Park destroy it, even as they build it up.
A hundred Summers full of leaves have lain, and Winter hugs the ground as close as ever.
A thin sheet on a cold bed.
Feb 28, 2001
Ash Wednesday
As February ends, and Lent arrives, one wish has been fulfilled: I’ve finally seen a Woodcock. This surreptitious shorebird shuns the sea, favoring forest floors, where it may be found, probing in the thawing soil with its long bill, in search of earthworms, as early as February. That’s assuming you can see it. The bird sports what’s referred to as a “cryptic” pattern, which provides remarkably effective camouflage amid the leaf litter it typically frequents.The Woodcock needs any advantage it can get. It isn’t big, but it’s plump, and not exactly threatening. It’s an attractive prey species, with human hunters among its major predators. The bird cuts a queer figure, tottering on short legs, with no neck to speak of, but with big bulging eyes, set so far back in its head, that when you look at it from behind, you can see both eyes at once. This gives it stereoscopic vision backwards, which comes in handy if you spend a lot of your time sticking your face in the mud, and you’re vulnerable to attacks from above. Its odd appearance and behavior have inspired many folk names, including Timberdoodle, Bog-sucker, and, in honor of its aerial courtship display, Labrador Twister.
You will not see Woodcocks courting in the Park: they’re just passing through. In fact, the Woodcock is the year’s first migrant. We’ve enjoyed a fair assortment of wintering birds: Towhees and Thrashers; Kinglets and Carolina Wrens, but Winter wears on, and the Woodcock, making a pit stop on its journey back to the breeding grounds, is the first avian assurance that Spring too will return.
Still, Winter wears worse than the other seasons. The more so this year, as a cold December had us shivering well before the Solstice. It seems like it’s always been Winter, but there are still weeks to go, despite the Woodcock and its hint of Spring. The bird’s a tease, arriving for Fat Tuesday’s feast, then leaving us to suffer through Lent. It deserves to be eaten.
But that’s what Lent is all about, I’ve come to realize. It’s that point in the year when you feel (with some indignation!) that you’ve had enough Winter. There are hopeful signs about, not just Woodcocks, but buds forming, catkins and days lengthening, and maybe a mild spell has you thinking we’ll cruise on in from here, but no, it’s still Winter.
That’s Lent.
The long last third of the season, prone to violent mood swings. The winds of March may give way to a balmy day here and there, but there’s no mistaking it for anything but Winter. The Goddess makes Her ascetic gesture, and somewhere in the north country, an uneaten Woodcock is laughing at us.