Indian Cucumbers and Other Delicacies

Dug up and snapped off, washed

in a cold stream and crunched--at once earthy, refreshing--

so crisp that one immediately goes

and roots up another.

Higher Notes

Tonight as I walked my horse the half-mile home from his pasture, two Veeries, one perched on each side of the dirt road, warbled back and forth to each other, making the whole evening air swim with burbling streams of notes that seemed to dribble down even into my shoes...

It is Spring. I am surrounded by extravagance. Indeed--

"How Can I Keep From Singing?"

My life goes on in endless song
Above earth's lamentations,
I hear the real though distant hymn
Which hails a new creation.
Above the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing--
It sounds an echo in my soul--
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest 'round me roars
I know the truth, it liveth,
What though the darkness 'round me close,
Songs in the night, it giveth.
What storm can shake my in-most calm
When to this rock I'm clinging?
Since Love's the lord of Heaven and earth--
How can I keep from singing?

I lift my eyes, the clouds grow thin,
I see the blue above it,
And ever on this pathway smooths
Since first I learned to love it.
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart
A fountain ever springing--
All things are mine since I am His--
How can I keep from singing?

Probably neither Veery has the words of this old hymn consciously running about in a less-than-pea-size brain--but the same force calls them to trickle their little brooks of laughter down onto my head, as that which pulls the hoarse notes out of my earth-bound being, placing them up on green branches and giving a new perspective to the pot-holes in the dirt road. A higher one.

I See Things

The last camel has just dropped its broad feet deep into the burning grains and crept past the only landmark in miles and miles of desert: a boulder the height of one camel and the width of several more. It is still hot. The sun has been a ball of burning glare all morning, and now, being mid-day, the heated light glints off of the otherwise expressionless sand. Even the camels begin to tire, their tall backs looking less like mountains than like small humps fuzzed all over with dried brown grass. As the drivers grow hungry and spread peanut butter thickly on pieces of dried and crumbling bread, the camels relax their placid forms, becoming one with the yellowed expanse.

Minty Ground

She thought that mint would be a sweet addition to her garden and so she transplanted it from the edges of the pond into the little plot beside the house. It smelled so good when she knelt barefoot in the dirt to weed out her thyme and basil, or bent over at the other end of the tilled ground to inspect her blossoming peas. Sometimes she could even find the minty flavor springing into her kitchen window while she washed dishes.
The velvety, fragrant little community became a literal multitude of happy greens, all spreading their roots throughout the entire area of herb beds as if it was theirs to keep. She was concerned as she thought of the carefully mothered tomatoe seedlings sunning in front of the house. It was time for the mint to go before they wove their lacy strings around every beet sprout and chive stem and suffocated the whole garden of her manure-enriched loam.
As she began cutting into the mass of mint with her spade, the fragrance almost changed her mind and for a moment she paused, pointing her nose up into the air to smell the apple blossoms from the orchard next door. She resumed her task with new energy, hauling pounds of mint down to the weed and brush pile near the pond. She hummed as she opened the up the soil to new life and stopped to study a toad she unearthed from its burrow.
Straighting up--finished and breathing freely--she noted the depression in the soil caused by the drastic surgery. And she knew that the scent of mint would linger on her hands for hours.

Of Goats and Deer

This morning's run
thumped me through mists
and rain-run mud,
past farmer Brud's farm
where filing up the bank
of the road came goat
after goat, a flock of floppy-eared
cloven-toed creatures, a herd
of sweet-clover-mouths
out for early jaunt unfenced
and free as the frogs out on such
a moist morning. One fellow
bleated at me and pranced on his
neat toes to my fingers,
a bottle baby seeking esteem
and wither-scratches.

Tonight's drive sighted
me in evening fog with rainy drops
against my wipers, night just
placing its wrappers wetly around
my town in a way that makes
me fear mildew. A shapely blob
on twiggy legs morphed from pavement
dank as my foot clutched the brake
tightly, shifting all sights to
the deer frozen in the lights
and clearly undecided until
I was too close for breathing,
diving in front of me before
I was fully stopped--
metal and hide finding
their acquaintance hindered
by ten cloven feet.

Twenty and Tending Sheep

I am in-between college and a summer of ministry, and in a worldly sense, doing nothing. Coming from a hard-working family, I have felt a slight bit odd volunteering my time to some church folks in need and helping my mother garden, clean-out, and work around the house as I wait for June 8 to arrive, especially knowing that I could have been employed with a well-paying job for these few weeks. This morning found me miserable, feeling useless, and basing my self-esteem on productivity. And not for the first time.

As I sat praying, nearly in tears, I somehow knocked my daily devotion book, My Life Today by Ellen White, and it turned of its own accord from May 19 to June 5. Curious, I began to read, and to tremble: "The Bible Shows the Way to True Happiness." I read of satisfaction found in a life of doing God's will, whether it seem small or great, of the importance of soaking up God's Word in order to impart His light to those around me. I read of true happiness, of self-esteem found in God, of doing everything for the glory of God instead of for the pride of accomplishment, of making God "first and last and best" in everything. Flipping back a page or two to June 3, I read "The reason why some are restless is that they do not go to the only true source of happiness. They are ever trying to find out of Christ that enjoyment which is found alone in Him" (158). That would be me.

I thought I had been compassionately chided enough, but God wasn't done with me. I proceeded to read of David and how God sent him back to tend sheep, even after telling him that he was to be the king of Israel and showing him that his destiny lay shining before him. David was placed in solitude, in a quiet, unglamorous, and humble occupation to grow his character into that of a true leader. Most importantly, David was content and joyful and totally trusting of his Heavenly father. His joy came from doing his Father's will and in patiently waiting for the time when God would call him to his next position. Ellen White says of David's experience: "But with new inspiration he composed his melodies and played upon his harp. Before him spread a landscape of rich and varied beauty" (159).

I thought back on the week I have been home, and was reminded again that God has placed me here. I thought of my parents and was reminded of the time God has given me with them before I begin my job away from home and my third year of college--this time out in Michigan. I thought of my eighty-year-old grandmother, who I was on the way to see, my grandmother who suffers from dimentia and who did not remember me when I gave her a hug three hours later, and was reminded that a day with family is precious to someone living in lonliness. I thought of my mother who supports my father in his teaching position and who has been running evangelistic programs for our church, and was reminded that she will begin full-time care of my grandmother for no worldly recognition in a little more than a month. Finally, I was reminded and shown that Christ took a time of forty days and nights of fasting and prayer after His baptism to seek out His Father, in the world's eyes a waste of time--"For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18)--and that it was during this time that the devil tempted Christ in an attempt to sever His connection with God, fill Him with discouragement and fear, and draw Him away from His Divine mission.

So, with a sprout of joy and a tadpole of humility, I am tending sheep, and singing.

Oh, and Lord-- thank You for the birthday present.

P.S. We Are All Related

I can still say that Andy Ward is not my uncle, but to say that we are un-related would be stretching it about as much as to say that we are: he is my third cousin's uncle.

Andrea's paternal grandfather and my maternal grandfather were first cousins. Andy is Andrea's maternal uncle.

Now it is my turn to scratch my head as today I was given a replacement check by my great-grandmother's brother's great-grand-daughter's uncle, Andy.

To Find a Spring Chuckle

"Did you lose something this last winter?" I smile to hear Uncle Andy's Vermont accent once again, but I must admit that for the moment I am clueless--what have I lost and how does he even know that I am home? Is he calling to tell me that his mother has died?

Andy Ward is not really my uncle. I moved to St. Johnsbury, VT almost four years ago, a despairing sixteen-year-old leaving behind many riding friends in Langdon, NH and having troubles believing that God would provide others. Within a week I discovered that the dirt roads and trails around my house were extensive and that there were many fields containing horses about three miles away from me, but also learned that Grayson was the only horse in my immediate neighborhood.

Barb Machell was the first horse-lady I met on one of my exploration rides into the horse-inhabited areas, but she didn't seem like an immediate connection. And then several weeks later I was coming home from a hike with my family when we passed two thick morgans pulling little carts about 3/4 of a mile above my house--by the time they reached the edges of our property, I was bareback on Grayson, standing at the end of the driveway.

And that was how I met Andrea Turner. "Yeah, my mom told me about you," were her first words. Her mom? Had I met her mom? Apparently so: hadn't I met Barb Machell?

That first summer was a glorious one and among other newfound Vermont delicacies, I spent hours riding with Andrea and her Morgans--Misty, Magic, and Major. The trails around Andrea's house, I learned, were truly endless and kept winding you around corners and hopping you over logs, and coaxing you through just one more muddy puddle or over just another hill from which you could then see the trail, and the countryside, stretching on into the distance, forever. And I learned too that the little schoolhouse sitting at the bottom of Andrea's hill, where my grandmother went to school as a child, belonged to her grandparents, and that the farm below her's was her parents', and that her uncle Wes lived only a half-mile or so away if you took a shortcut through a field, and that just up the other side of the hill from her Grandparents, lived Andy Ward, her uncle.

One evening as Andrea and I were riding past her grandparents' house, her Grandpa Ken came out and took our picture, one which I would have loved to see: A slender grey Arab and a stalwart black Morgan, a sun-browned woman and a blond girl both in braided pigtails. Andy was there too, leaning quietly against his truck and smoking a cigarette.

After I knew that Andy was Andrea's uncle, it seemed that I saw him everywhere--sometimes he was outside his house when I rode by, sometimes he passed me in his white truck. And then I learned that he sold hay, and that he would be glad to supply hay for the girl with the "neat little white horse who looks like he's just floating along." Standing there and chatting in the hayfield as we settled up after a hundred bales, I learned that Grayson was the nicest moving horse that Uncle Andy had ever seen.

***

When I came home from college for my Christmas break this winter, one of my projects was to get a few musty bales out of my barn. $2.00 a bale in Vermont had seemed more economical than paying $6.75 a bale in Massachusetts, but by the time it had been transported four hours and then discovered to be full of dust, and by the time it had caused a visit from the vet for a hint of heaves, it wasn't that much cheaper. I figured that I might as well pay the higher price for better hay, and when I talked to Uncle Andy from whom I had never bought bad hay in the past, he quickly agreed to take the offensive bales back and reimburse me.

***

Grayson and I are back in Vermont now, he finished with Thayer Stables and I with my sophomore year of college. Two days ago while traveling with my mum, I mentioned that I wanted to call Andrea so that we could make the most of my few weeks home. But when Mum checked the messages upon our arrival home, Andrea had beat me to it--"Just wondering if Emily and Grayson are home."

We were going to ride yesterday, but she called me several hours before our meeting time and informed me that her Grandma Florence had passed away early in the morning and that riding would not be an option for a couple of days. No, there was nothing I could help out with as yet, but she would call me of things changed.

***

I honestly cannot remember losing anything this last winter. Now, if Uncle Andy had asked if I had lost anything recently, that would have been a different matter--but January? Has he found one of Grayson's freedom-craving easy boots, even though I am certain that both are sitting in my barn loft?

***

Tom Barrett has a sugar house on Frank Lawrence's land and runs his sap lines throughout Frank's woods at the top of, "Lawrence Hill," the road that runs parallel to our own. Such an arrangement is perplexing and only begins to make sense when you combine the bartering nature of many old-timer Vermonters, and Frank Lawrence's generosity, and the love for the woods that often brings Tom Barrett up Lawrence Hill from his place down in the center of St. Johnsbury to run his dogs. As fellow frequenters of the sugar maple lot, my family bumps into Tom Barrett once in a while, the rest of the time deriving that he has been there by the snow shoe trails along the sap lines, or by the extra attention that our dog, Oscar, might give to a particular patch of tall weeds.

A few days ago, even long past sugaring season for the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, Tom was poking around in the maples when he happened to look down and notice what looked to be a check folded in half and lying in the grass. As it had Andy Ward clearly printed on it, and as he knew Andy, he brought it over to Andy's place and they chatted for a while, briefly wondering how it might have arrived three miles away, through a field, and up in a sugaring lot. Tom eventually left, leaving Uncle Andy with the check to scratch his head over.

***

Uncle Andy tells me that he laughed after he looked up the check for $37.50 in his ledger, laughing some more that it was still intact--except for the ink being smudged in one place--and thinking to himself: "I bet I know how it got there."

Now that he knows for sure, Uncle Andy thinks that he'll tell Tom Barrett about it, too. But to me he simply says--"That reimbursement check must have jiggled out of your pocket somehow while you were riding that neat little horse of yours."

Goodbye

room 115 is empty and no nameplate

hugs the stall where shavings rest

unstirred for once

and the trail through thayer woods may

be green, but the pine-needles

laugh alone

and george hill's pavement might still be

black but no creaking bike buzzes it

with blowing hair

i guess nothing can ever quite replace

roots so recently upset, and those

holes will yet be visited by ants

for a good many years