The Green in June

    We wait all winter for this green. Its soft surrounding murmur, it the pre thunder wind. It fills all the space below the sky. The wind shows the storms intention by blowing back to where the clouds are coming from. This green sings warm to me. 
    The balsams celebrate their new growth by letting the tips of branches shout a light bright green. Almost yellow. I saw a hawk swoop from one tree to another, a copper brown trail from green to green across a darker green behind. An oriole, orange, a cardinal red. Evidently there is no natural advantage in the temperate forest for a bird of green that matches the trees. Because there are none that do. 
    The songs and wind on leaves are all I need to hear to feel the warm. Like home, no matter where . The fuzz between earth and sky is a busy place. All the flavors, deciduous and coniferous , so many different hardwood leaves. All of them are thirsty for the sun. And sing like subtle angels breathing praise to the silent earth and sky. Green angels whisper praise. 
    This green sings warm to me. 
    Hawk swings his copper trail
    From tree to tree to tree. 
    This breath sings green to me. 

    The angels sing softly
    Inside the green lovely
    Blind hearts dance silent
    And move the leaves to sound. 

    Not too far off a chainsaw warns away all. Its not a sound that attracts a crowd. Summer days make sweaty work in that business. Something that dangerous needs that sound. Subtlety is not safety . I would just hope he tires quickly, and can stop before he takes too many, too much. 
    The temptation with chain saw work is to go at it non stop until all is done.  The roar seems to encourage action to match it .  But it is an authentically dangerous tool and you must always pay attention. When it stops , bird, animal and tree sounds come flooding back in. I think that will happen when humans make their total exit too. The sounds will be softer, filtered by the millions of new freed trees. Mosquitos and black flies will miss us. 

Late Spring , Green .

The seed starts in the dark. A season in the dark. The weight of every sunless spot of soil, made of things that made you. Laying quiet with its gravity drawing through you, passing particles from ground to seed, and from seed away.  Bits and particles rearrange their sense until they read like new head lines and tell a different story. 

What makes the soil release its separate virtues, I don't  know . I never studied that far.  Water kindly  carries molecules to bring sleeping cells to motion like a neighbor might take you to the doctors. Sun warms rain and turf in turn.  All the tiny  buds get chubby. Things get louder in the sunlight. You can leave that blanket now. 

Eat breakfast, drink coffee. The birds aren't always here but they are now. Any small song is that light that warms the dark. The notes you hear that start your heart. You can steer your heart it where it goes because  to a certain extent there is no one to steer but you. Your hand on the tiller,  the paddle,  the wheel.  No matter how long or short the course . You will see the trip, at least as if ,  for the first time.  The seed knows where the light is . There is only one direction. That small green shoot curls up towards the day. 

The strength of grip of a  love enfolds you. The source is rumor. Never seen, testified in fancy. Drawn from dream sketches. There is no sworn up reserve, no proven source.  Just the finding of traces, tracks and an open course. The shoot grows through the weakest path, the strength that draws it needs no more than it needs.  Just a motion and a molecule at a time. There is a gravity and attraction, bonding  force as the soft green breaks into sunlight.  No matter how faint, the feeding is there. 

 Motion is subtle and in a very small place, but the movement is there. Once upon a time, there was the motion, that went in the direction, where now roots would not be needed. Where the curve of growth became the steps of travel. To drop the roots and drift and  not to starve and die.  To see and hear and feel and taste but have no tether to anchor and feed you. To find your sun given sustenance without the anchor of that network of tiny holding fibers. 

There was a game produced when I was young. I only saw it on TV. A shallow frame, like a picture, long as your arm, narrow as your hand, loaded with a spring on one end. Inside this frame were discs, about the size of a quarter. The spring pressed a bar that pressed this mass of discs in the picture frame. If you pulled one out poorly the whole thing would snap and explode. Even then I saw my life. Every step hurts a bit . Every motion bears on every object , which channels every motion. The course you lay may or may not be available. 

When I did white water the river was the constant power. The rocks in the river channel, the force. The task is to ride the power between the standing rocks and strainers. The river doesn't stop here and the sound will tell you so. Sometimes you have to carry. I think our hearts are born with love, at least most of us. The god shaped hole they say exists, the name we give the force of gravity between us. Sometimes the river carries you too fast.  I'd like to warm the folks who warmed me. 

At a microscopic level , cell walls will keep some stuff out and let some stuff in . Sometimes thats good , sometimes not. That wall keeps the inside one thing and the outside another .  We keep on building these walls , letting some stuff in and keeping other stuff out.  At LeMans I touched these walls that the Romans built. I don't know who did the actual building. Labor relations were pretty sketchy back then. But I bet when they were done, and while they were working they had songs. We have music we call ancient. Did the songs out last the walls? Will mine ?

Checking the wood grain .

    There are many mature trees along the edge of the pond where I live. Not long ago , in tree time, most of the pond was a meadow.  With the latest dam (1905) , the meadow turned to pond.  The edge of a pond can be a healthy place for a tree, lots of sun and water. The wind will be steadier though, and the direction varies.

    The trees bend in the wind and take on a growth habit, leaning with the direction of the prevailing wind. The sunnier side gets more foliage too, adding another stress . In a place where the wind changes a lot the tree will develop a twist. You can see it sometimes in the bark .

    It can make for wood with some very beautiful and complex grain. The milling and working of it can be tricky .   Some parts of the tree will grow under different pressure than others, setting up tensions that can be released as surrounding wood, that had braced it steady , is cut away , usually in an uneven fashion. Running through a saw, the plank can bend toward or away from blade and fence .  A straight looking plank can take on a bow or twist. If is strong enough it can stop a saw with its friction or spring apart halfway through a cut. It's hard to predict. Surprises are not welcome on table saws . 

   Milling logs into planks is the first step, it's always exciting to see what you might have.  Sometimes you will find evidence of one time trauma, limbs pruned or storm broken. There are viruses and diseases that will affect the wood as well. I've sawn through joints in timber, angled knees and Y- shaped crotches that have an outer substance of strong , bright healthy wood that totally encloses an open , scarred over hollow.  They have  interesting possible uses. 

   The grain follows small wounds and creates patterns that echo out, not so much like pond ripples as the way sound follows paths through crowded rooms. Some things are clearly heard, others are mumbles . The grain will thicken and tighten where growth is slow. When I see these potentially interesting pieces, in a downed tree or possible firewood, it's been my habit to try and save them . At some point I will mill them down , often first with a chain saw.

   Every cut reveals a new plank , a new pattern. Every plank will have a similar color but the grain and growth rings will be different. Sometimes it's subtle and sometimes not. They don't have to be flashy , brilliant or beautiful to be interesting . As you go through the tree you see it's history. You see when things changed in the habitat and accidents and injuries and the reactions of growth . They aren't temporary, you may not see from the bark but every day of sun or storm or sickness is drawn in the substance of the tree . You carry this into the shop. 

   The rough milling shows the outline, the large motion of the grain and growth and scars. The planer and joiner are next. These take  the rough cut to smooth and what was suggested or implied becomes more apparent. The details of how one year works on the basis of the year before, and sets up the next growth season show in more explicit detail . The grain lines show the effect of sun and wind , the growth rings show the health and severity of seasons. The smaller aberrations appear, that before , in rough cut , could only be seen as part of the larger echo, the ripples fading out over time , sometimes leaving islands of obscuranta . 

   Some grace you see right off, even at a distance . Sometimes that grace breaks down on tighter inspection . What flowed as pattern shows as repetition of break and re growth . The healing yields both bright glow and depth in shadows . The most dense woven strength can enclose faults and crumbling hollows . Long fair lines stand resilient , firm flex, while tightened swirls resist any other than frighteningly sharp steel edges.

   Oil on the finish makes this all jump out at you. All the suggestions are now declared. All the contrasts in shade and color and the distinction of lines . It takes time . I've never been able to make it pay . But of course I won't let it go . All sawdust looks the same . 

   

Armature, Sculpture , Winter Dream .

   February now brings this white wall of winter.  Our sphere of vision contracts to a pale ball. Every attack of the bright blank can push that wall tight around you. Breath comes short and shallow. There is no break of earth above the blanket of snowy , deep , cold silence. Sunlight just tells you where every small ice crystal shines its narrow blade. All the small protected places have been enclosed in the frozen phase of earths long story. It kills the things that cannot move or that can't remain strongly still and sleeping . 

    I try to sleep like my trees. They stand quiet and bend gently to winds. What possible dreams move in oak or maple ? The silently threatened ash trees have lived here since the ice gave way to green forests. Before human axes. Their dreams would be large , bright, wordless. Deepest roots below the freeze, tips moving in every shade of light.

    Our dreams expand with the long nights . Living amongst these trees their dreams will creep into yours . Showing stars and clouds and rain , soil drinking water to fill the quiet slow heart. Don't bring these dreams to your counselor . They aren't yours. Let them give you what they offer. But keep it in the dark soil . At least for now . Just see these things . For instance...

    At the foot of these dreaming trees are the saplings that will be covered under summer canopy . In the white snowy winds they move. In a harmony held by the thickness and diminishing of thickness as they reach and wave and wait. A curve of small fingerling strands that grow and blend to show the outline of a human form. A woody armature of arms  and shoulders , head and legs and twiggy chest. Lungs and the outlined route of bones and blood. It awaits flesh to fill the basketry there. 

    Looking down you find a bowl of clay . Warm substance in your hands to lay on the armature sculpture to give it flesh . It moves gently under your hands and the breeze. Smooth on the clay to make the waking human form .  Face and skin of shoulders , arms , breasts and belly . You apply the stiffening clay to the blossoming form in front of you . The twigs now twining warmly feel of flesh . Beneath your hands the armature still moves, becomes its own living force that moves the clay you've laid there. It moves beneath your hands its own way now. Its own path and plan . It never was yours . She stands now in front of you . Her feet buried in earth and hair waving in the winter wind. 

    These are the kinds of dreams that living with trees will give you. They dream you too. When you wake in the morning you see them just where you left them . All the small twigs and saplings show themselves as daylight creatures , static and benign . 

1.     But in the hushed invisible betweens , what you don't need to see out loud , the heart of the woman who lived under your dream lit hands , still subtly beats as the light grows and moves. From east to tree shaded west . 

Off white , white gray .

It's a lockdown snowfall . It closes the house in. A gray that goes deeper and turns to flakes. They sweep in usually from the southwest here. This storm comes from the southwest while the wind will come from the east. But you can see it all move in from the southwest. It closes you for a day or two into a white gray flannel cold wet cover. Every living thing has gone to shelter. 

   Then the day comes blue with a change of wind. We have blue, white, gray and green. It's hard to recognize this place as the one I've slept in and woke to. The stage goes still. The brush of dust of snow that carries with it all this sun and breeze. It doesn't seem to want any other way to be. This is cold and sleeping. 

   Warm beneath is the ground somewhere. I know the bulbs lay dormant around  the big oak and by the granite boulder . The buds of trees are wrapped tight . I know the white mound of stone and snow by the pines. My Abrahamic Alter and BBQ pit. So this is still my home. This is where my heart will build its fire. If I rise at all , my roots will warm from here. 

   Before the pond freezes sometimes a fog will rise over the early snow. It hangs about the height of a person. I guess that's all it needs. Just enough to cloud the gaze from here to what you might usually see. It's a blindfold curtain on the world beyond the close trees. So the fog rises to hide my dreams and leave them for a different morning. 

   In the warm season that fog announces the rise of insects too. When spring turns deeper and the eggs hatch all around. Some of these bugs will live on my blood , breed with it. My DNA in the life track of families of Mosquitos and black flies . My children's blood too . All so those small bugs can make kids of their own . We are pretty close around here. I hope they appreciate our contribution. And of course the birds eat the bugs . Up the chain we go .

   So the birds ... It had been my habit for quite some time to practice my ney flute in the mornings in my shop while the sun got stronger. I would hear the birds and play the ney. I know they hear every note and know I'm not a creature they need to worry about. Every detail of this ground they see better than I . They know details I will miss. They food they find, the whir of insect wings , the cats approach and the shadows of Hawks and Eagles . They watch the crows , who of course know me. All the crayon box of songbirds who hear me find my songs , give back in music every small change , pace and small beat of this small place. The snow fall quiets that.

   Their tunes in the dark and in the wind and the small clicks and brushes of the wind itself. These tunes are etched slow and strong on the hidden , blank wax cylinders deep in my silent places . They rise with me and I with them . Every cold and warm zone too of sun and shade and avenue of strongest breeze. 

   Every spot on the surface of the earth has its own view of the track of the sun. It would seem so standard. We walk through the scenes of a million ways to be on our short runs . All the soft clouds that cool the place, that keep you from the embrace or shield you from the strike . They move as soon as mentioned . Even the huge blanket of thick gray silence the winter clouds show up with. Still between the nodding pines and bare oak and ash branches , the sun finds its way to your face just so. 

   The power it invests in this patch of ground is tiny in its spin and scope of earth. But every root of grass relates . All the green blossoms of shady moss. A small strength there moves gently over to where I stand.