Harvest

"All still when summer is over
stand shocks in the field,
nothing left to whisper,
not even good-bye, to the wind.

After summer was over
we knew winter would come:
we knew silence would wait,
tall, patient calm."
- William Stafford, Tragic Song

 It is harvest time for ourselves and all creatures. The bumble and honey bee are busily harvesting the remaining pollen before the rainy season descends and bends the giant flowers... dropping to touch the ground as the pollen runs down in rivulets. The few remaining squash blossoms are the symbols of hopefulness and beauty though too late for fruitfulness. 

Delicious sweet corn fills our plate daily, blackberries ripen and sweeten our food and the apples are near ready for picking. A few weeks ago 100 pounds of potatoes were harvested and are stored in their darkened room. New starts are put into the beds for some autumn fresh veggies. The ants that climb over the corn just tell us that the sugars are ready for harvest and they too are storing foods for winter. 

Corn
April Selley
We guide the extension cord out the kitchen door,
through the garden, to the corn.
We plug in the single burner;
put on the pot to boil. Silent among
stalks, we wait for the
hiss on the pan's bottom.

Old farmers say that corn begins to lose
its sweetness as soon as it is shattered
from the stalk. We have practiced
and are down to five seconds from plant
to pot. We shuck the corn; drop it in.

After five minutes, the tongs.
The boiling water will seal
the flavor for awhile. We are
leisurely with salt and butter;
the corn is too hot to touch. It's like
waiting for a kiss.
But it's true: this is
the only way to appreciate corn,
though every meal after this
will taste of decay. 
 

Our daylight hours are shortening as we pass the equinox and all creatures are working to fill their larders with their spoils. It is past the time of growing and flowers and swiftly moving into the time for mushrooms, wet, and the rich and pungent smell of decay. I look forward to the rains and the sound on our metal roof. The cooler nights are refreshing and a warning of the winter coldness to come. One day soon the creek will rise again and the land will drink deep and turn green. The hard clay will soften and the worms will come to the top to escape the water.

This is my favorite time of year because of the smells that float densely in the air. For the warm days that warm the skin after a cool night and morning. It is the time of orange and the revelation of a tree's skeleton. It is the time of beautiful light.

 

Having Our Place

It is healthy for each person to have a place they go to for nourishment. I immerse myself in the sounds of the crickets tonight as the almost full moon rises and the heat of the day turns into a cooling salve for the heart. Sometimes it is a deep dive into the single note of a nuthatch or the melodic call of a hermit thrush. There are those who find their nourishment from a rift from Miles Davis or the strokes of Picasso, but for me it is in the gestalt of nature.


Wendell Berry wrote this poem and it struck me as fitting this theme:
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. 
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
or grief.  I come into the present of still water.
And feel above me the day blind stars
waiting with their lights. For a time 
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

I am of an age and culture that has wrapped me in the garment of the consumer and producer. It is often a challenge to slow down the pace so I truly feel the rhythm of this place... to feel the rise and fall of heat as a presence rather than as something that must be overcome. There is this deep seated craving to be removed from the world of consumption and activity in order that the lessons of nature blesses me with a new insight.

Thomas Merton (Contemplation in a World of Action) wrote this: ...the monk has a quiet, relatively isolated existence in which it is possible to concentrate more on the quality of life and its mystery, and thus to escape in some measure from the senseless tyranny of quantity.

...the senseless tyranny of quantity... a line to think about.