One line for all
the caravans of the internet—
its wavy shadow.
Looking at bird tracks,
I feel a certain anxiety
of influence.
I chew on a piece
of congealed black cherry sap
from a head-sized burl.
January noon
In the owl’s flight
as in the conifers it left:
that silence.
It’s enormous,
the frozen carcass of a cow
eaten by chickadees.
O trees like forks,
the sky too is a dish
best served cold.
The Canela tweets
I use Twitter for a bit more than just Morning Porch updates these days. Three weeks of dog-sitting — and especially dog-walking — yielded a few insights, which I shared on Twitter because they weren’t really long enough for blog posts. Canela is an eight- or nine-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever with a very easy-going disposition, boundless energy and an insatiable curiosity. We walked three to four miles every day. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s what I’ve been writing. (The first and last of these also appeared on The Morning Porch.)
Jan. 2
Dozens of juncos flit through the bushes. The old brown retriever that I’m dog-sitting watches from the porch, her nose quivering.
Jan. 12
Trying to teach sarcasm to the dog.
Before I can stop her, the dog wolfs down a frozen coyote turd.
Just back from a three-mile walk full of fascinating scats and urine samples, the dog falls asleep on her Dora the Explorer blanket.
Before I started dog-sitting, I had no idea how much I talk to myself.
The dog’s sleep is punctuated with sighs and episodes of labored breathing. She snores. She smacks her lips.
She rumbles like an appliance with a bad motor.
Her jaws move as if around recalcitrant syllables of human speech. Then she dry-retches and falls silent.
Jan. 13
I just complimented a dog for taking a dump. This pet thing is insidious.
Jan. 14
The dog appears to have two modes: full-on excitement and sleep. I of course am an Eeyore and an insomniac. What a disappointment I must be.
On a walk in the thawing woods, the dog smells everything. All I smell is dog.
Going out to pee in the moonlight, the dog stands gazing into the shadows.
Jan. 15
Having just circled the field, more than anything the dog want to circle the field.
You can’t circle the same field twice, as Heraclitus might’ve said.
Like a suburban kid getting a “tribal” tattoo, the dog wants desperately to roll in coyote scent.
Straining against the leash that won’t let her catch up to a porcupine, the dog whines and whimpers like a creature in pain.
Jan. 16
Ten minutes after telling our neighbor that the dog never barks, I hear her bark, left alone in the house.
So the dog doesn’t bark at people, other dogs, deer, ruffed grouse, rabbits or porcupines. She barks at the absence of all those things.
Jan. 18
Last night, I gave the dog back to her family. In the morning, two inches of wind-blown snow, and the yard unmarred by a single track.
Cold snap
Yes, it’s cold. Continue reading “Cold snap”
Retriever
Photo of Canela by Rachel Rawlins
A dog’s very presence constitutes a reproach.
Why are you just sitting there, when the whole rest of the world is right outside?
Another cup of coffee, really?
Why can’t you anticipate my needs better? Or does it amuse you to wait until I am literally dancing with discomfort to take me out for a goddamn piss?
Why aren’t you rubbing my belly right now?
When I was a kid, dogs were still largely kept in dog houses. Even Snoopy, the most anthropomorphic dog before the debut of Family Guy, lived in a dog house. They got scratched behind the ears now and then if they were lucky. “You want to go for a walk? Knock yourself out.” Now they are members of the family, like five-year-old children who never grow up, until one day they die and leave a gaping hole in your life. It seems down-right anachronistic that their day-to-day behavior is still driven by centuries of breeding for utilitarian tasks: to herd, to guard, to catch rats, to retrieve the still-warm bodies of dead ducks from shallow water.
Canela, the dog I’m currently sitting for my brother’s family, struggles with the last of these inborn inclinations. I watch her sniffing and straining against the leash on her twice-daily walks, whining out of her deep need to locate and retrieve, to mouth, to bring back. Because the rest of her pack disappeared while she was out on a walk, she looks for them up at the other house as often as I’ll let her, tugging me up the hill, and appears to believe they might be hiding anywhere on the mountain. We make great circles around the ground zero of their disappearance. In search of clues, she wants to follow every fluttering wing.
Company
I have had some company on the morning porch this Christmas season,
and together we have bathed in the long, long sunrises of midwinter.
(Photo by Rachel — click to see larger.)
Sledding day
The forecast was for temperatures well above freezing; we knew the lovely conditions wouldn’t last. So even though my British guests had been in Plummer’s Hollow less than 24 hours, with even warmer temperatures and rain on the way this weekend, we figured this might be our only chance to get some sledging sledding in.
Neither Rachel nor her son Alex had ever been on an old-fashioned runner sled before, but they picked up the fundamentals rather quickly: hold on tight, steer with the feet, brake like Fred Flintstone, and when in doubt, head for the nearest snow bank.
I sled sitting up because it’s much easier on the back than lying prone, but it does make rounding sharp corners a bit trickier. Too fast and you can tip over.
As the noon hour approached, the snow started to get pretty sticky. Rachel and I finally got the bright idea of trying to ride the sled together, and much to both our surprise, we just barely fit. After Alex shot the above video, we did one more run all the way from the garage, and actually managed to make the turn at the barn.
By mid-afternoon, the driveway had turned to slush and bare gravel, but it felt as if the holiday season had gotten off to a flying start.
Plummer’s Hollow hunting report
Our near-neighbor, the poet Todd Davis (whose work has appeared here in the past) included the following in an email on Saturday night. I thought it might be of general interest, especially for fans of meditation. —Dave
Still no deer. But another beautiful day in the woods. As you know, it snowed Friday night until about three in the morning. When I walked in at 5:45 a.m., the woods were striped in white and there was no need for a headlight: the snow on the ground was catching the light from the sliver of moon, making my path easy.
My blind was crushed to the ground by the weight of the snow. It’s a temporary blind, a tent essentially. I had to pull it back up, knock snow and ice from it, and make all kinds of ridiculous noise.
I had deer around me four different times today, but none afforded me a safe and merciful shot. Thus no deer. The ravens were quiet today, but the crows took up the chorus. I had a dead black cherry near and a pileated would knock on it every so often, asking me to open the door of my senses, stop me from day-dreaming or drowsing from lack of sleep.
I walked out at 5:30 p.m. The moon was back up and, without wind, all was silent, except for the railroad tracks in the valley. While my freezer and family may mourn no meat, it was still a day well spent.
Ice fog
An icy mist or fog drifted in just after supper last night, and by morning (if I may be so gauche as to quote myself) every twig was spiky with eldritch feathers. Continue reading “Ice fog”
Captured in ice
Our third day under ice was the sunniest so far. I took my camera up into the field to try and capture some of what I’d seen yesterday, much of it blurred as my niece and I hurtled past on my old runner sled. Continue reading “Captured in ice”