September light...

Location: W074 11, N40 48

Daylight March 12: 11 hours, 47 minutes
Daylight September 30: 11 hours, 48 minutes.

St. Francis and the Sow


The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of the earth on the sow,

and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Galway Kinnell

Almost September light again. Close enough.

Mucking season. Life everywhere, everywhere. Spring breezes warm up tidal flats and fields of mud, and souls rise up again where clay meets breath.

Not generic souls. Not metaphorical souls. Nefesh--living souls, some human, most not. The sun's energy feeds us again as we repay our debts in our lust and ecstasy, as we chase what even words cannot betray.

I am a teacher, a civil servant in a public institution. I cannot, of course, start spinning in a maniacal dance during class, spewing on about souls and life and mystery. We have more serious things to attend to--NCLB, NAEP, HSPA's and SRA's.

I can do this, though. I can ask a student to watch a tree. And I have. I call it The Perennial Project. (The word "project" covers a lot of ground in edumacation circles.)

Some of the children have become attached to their trees. It's been a rough winter, and the trees have been acting pretty dead. A few students are worried that their trees will remain dead.

Now the buds are forming--thickening, succulent, ready to burst. Last year's sap rises again, from the ground towards the sky, botanical resurrection.

If you pay too much attention, you may become useless, intoxicated by life, staring with an idiot smile at a bud about to burst. Life's addictive that way.

Beats staring at a Smart Board.

I do not have formal permission for Galway Kinnell's poem, but I do have a story.

Way back in the late 70's, a few of us studying in Ann Arbor got together and formed the High Spark of Low-Heeled Boys,
and "sponsored" a poetry reading by Galway. Despite a decent crowd, we came up a bit short,
but Mr. Kinnell was gracious throughout--I probably still owe him money.
Go buy a book or two. You will not be disappointed.

The daylight hours provided by the U.S. Naval Observatory.