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The Company You Keep

Common sayings fascinate, not only for their surface wisdom, but also for their substratum implications. What fun to excavate, especially when an adage is spoken as a dictum. Who of us was not advised by our parents, hoping to steer us from troublemakers, “You are known by the company you keep?” In my adolescence, the dictum rarely worked for me, as oftentimes the “troublemakers” displayed exciting lifestyles. My parents hoped to direct me to their notion of “us,” in other words, teenagers at our Congregational Church who gathered Sunday evenings for Pilgrim Youth Fellowship or students enrolled in the college bound curriculum at Newton High. Diversity widened there, but essentially kids on paths our family wanted for “us.” By spending my growing up days with them, my parents assumed those kids’ virtues might control my wanton wandering to the valley of troublemakers whose futures were destined for the state penitentiary or greasy spoon diners.

The “Company You Keep” dictum allies with another maxim: “Birds of a feather flock together.” You can learn a lot from birds. One of the blessings of forced isolation this past year is time taken to look outside, if only to your suet cage, to appreciate lives of the birds. The hummingbird hangs out at our red, sugar-water disc, just a pair or two over the winter. Come June we can count over twenty hovering, diving, pushing one aside to get a substantial sip of nectar. All are hummingbirds, but not the most congenial flock, rather a Me First aggression that defies their common species. Geese and ducks float by our Quilcene Bay cottage in rafts of sameness: Canadian geese, a raft of pintail, another raft of widgeon, each with a distinct quack or whistle.

Yet many birds migrate and roost as mixed species. Why? For protection and for sustenance. It has been shown experimentally that chickadees and titmice are used as sentinels by downy woodpeckers foraging in mixed-species flocks. Smaller birds often fly in great flocks of larger birds for protection from raptors that could easily spot and pick them off in single flight.

Foraging for food also pays off in mixed species with an increase in feeding efficiency. Migrating groups are able to feed in areas from which single individuals would be ejected by the “owner” of the territory. Having more individuals searching for food increases the likelihood that a rich feeding patch will be located. By moving together in a mixed-species flock, birds with the same sorts of diets can avoid areas that have already been searched for food. Individuals in mixed flocks learn about new food sources from other species; tits have been observed to visit the site where a woodpecker was pecking at bark and to begin pecking in the same place. Associating with birds of different species that have somewhat different food preferences and foraging techniques, each individual faces less competition than it would in a same species flock.

I can’t let my ornithology lessons go without getting back to parents selecting friends or searching for sameness. Having followed their encouragement, I did gather mostly with my WASPish community. In 1958, moving up to Newton High School, a school of 3,000 students, my buddy group didn’t diversify. That, in spite of Newton High’s proud advertisement that it was 1/3 Protestant, 1/3 Catholic, 1/3 Jewish. Looks good on paper, but does not reveal that each third rarely socialized in “mixed species” with the other two. In the college-prep Curriculum One I sat beside Jewish students who didn’t invite me to parties or to join their clubs. The Catholic kids might invite me to follow them to Mass, but were prohibited from attending my Pilgrim Fellowship. Competition for grades and college entrance, led to reinforcing stereotypes feeding anti-Semitism, as several Jewish kids surpassed my academic ability.

And speaking of friendships disallowed, when the Trump followers stormed our national Capitol, I responded in a stupid way, flying away from the flock. Searching to find a reason for such insurrection, hoping reason would explain why anyone would vote for Trump or deny the legitimacy of the election, I emailed two women who have been friends for 60 years. They were the first two girls at Lincoln High to welcome me when my folks moved us from Newton to Seattle in 1960. Ardent Republicans, they likely voted for Trump and may have denied election results, so I concluded that without an explanation I could accept — something to make them more like me — I could no longer communicate with them. Later, maybe too-late, I apologized. I am ashamed.

This week President-Elect Joe Biden ascended the stairs of a recently ravaged Capitol to call for the nation to unify – fly as one flock that includes multiple species. Looking up beyond our flying flag, he did not see only eagles. Perhaps he spotted a Steller’s Jay on a cherry tree below. Some people would rid the woods of those jays that are known to steal eggs, whose multi-lingual calls shatter backyard peace. But oh ! That ebony crown, those royal blue feathers, the brilliant brain of the bird!

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
 
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
 
Christina Rossetti

Lines my Victorian-loving father recited to me. Today, winds waft in from the Southwest forming greedy tongues on the surface of Quilcene Bay. High tide surges in as if pushed by an eager parent sending a child on a swing. Waves carry fallen logs snatched along shorelines, and those logs are cradles rocking recklessly on the incoming tide. If this January tide is high enough, logs will be battering rams to wipe out our driftwood fence, falling each picket like a domino collapsing its neighbor. Then the waters will laugh through the gaps and surge across the lawn, all the way to our front deck. In past years, we have looked over the deck’s railing at roiling salt water. We looked down and held our waiting breath for ebb tide to return.

In the surrounding woods, cedars and Douglas Firs dance as if the band won’t take a break. Ferns lean over, revealing under fronds like girls who toss their hair over their heads to dry in the sun. There is no sunshine today. January 2, 2021 blows in the New Year, and I am celebrating fresh air. Barring a brittle alder limb crashing over my head as I walk the trails, and ignoring the threat the power could go out in the cabin, I am having fun.

When my daughter was between three and six-years-old, together we took Windy Day Walks, usually on October afternoons, another gusty month in the Pacific Northwest. Holding hands and skip-walking among falling leaves and plopping acorn hats, we recited Winnie the Pooh’s winter poem titled, simply, “Pooh’s Poem” in which my little girl played Piglet to my Pooh:

The more it snows, Tiddely Pom
The more it goes, Tiddely Pom 
The more it goes, Tiddely Pom
On snowing.
And nobody knows, Tiddely Pom
How cold my toes, Tiddely Pom
How cold my toes, Tiddely Pom
                      Are growing.

My daughter was always on cue with her tiddely poms increasing with exuberance as if we were a pas de deux. I confess that I devised the game to encourage us to get exercise on a windy day. She might have enjoyed more to stay indoors with Sesame Street. Poetry, a line and refrain, kept one skipping foot ahead of another until we were around a half dozen blocks and back home sipping tea.

“Who can see the wind / neither you nor I. ” Yes, unseen forces inspire our imagination. Today’s wind is the brushwork of the creative God, reminding me on this second day of a New Year the immensity of forces surrounding me. I am never alone in the woods or on the waters. I might as well have fun and inhale all the fresh air of a New Year.

The Longest Night of the Year

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are 48 hours away from the longest night of the year. The Solstice has an intimacy on Quilcene Bay where at mid-day I look out of the casement window with its view of the gray water, the dark russet evergreens on the opposite shore with foothills beyond in a receding, rolling charcoal beneath a gray coverlet. Those clouds are now dripping rhythmic rain on our shake roof. In December, we can wrap ourselves in gray reminiscent of an army blanket, if less scratchy. So why should I take note of the longest night of the year when gray succumbs to black for fourteen hours?

This morning, before rain resumed, I rode my bike around the end of the bay to deliver the last Christmas cards to the village post office before the 10:00 AM deadline for outgoing mail. On the north side of the road, tidelands swelled with saltwater seeping under the road at high tide. On the south, the waters rose to lap the bottoms of purple martin boxes Allan secured on pilings there in the spring. Before me, the layered hills cradled creamy clouds like woodfire smoke between ridges. I relished the subtle softness of winter dormancy. I noticed red rose hips, the remaining color on Nootka rose bushes that surround the fields. My ears received plaintive moos from Joe’s steers who sauntered from grassy humps to feed lots spread at strategic locations across their pasture. No sunshine to cast my shadow as I pedaled across the bridge spanning the Little Quilcene River. Instead, I watched the river, clear and cold hurrying below the bridge, amber and gray stones gleaming below the cold, clear water.

The lack of light gives my eyes a rest. In welcomed summer, light would reflect off those stones, glare blinding my eyes, forcing me to squint and adjust my sunglasses. Perhaps outside light withdrawing, allows inside light to glow. Today I am glowing with gratitude for the seasons, for the understandings that the circle of life offers. As the title of my blog announces, time intrigues me. Well aware that fewer days are before me than behind me, I am gathering decades of memories as I ride forward to what life may still offer. Our Christmas card endeavor, a creative tradition of my husband’s art and my poetry, still takes over several days of addressing, writing accompanying notes, stuffing art and poetry into envelopes and hefting the box of them to the post office. Handling the address list is my job. More often now, I am pushing “Delete Row” after learning a friend or relative is no longer alive. But I am also adding in another column the name of a friend’s new grandchild. Life is not a timeline. It is a circle, a carousel from which one steps off as another is carried on to a shining horse. The Winter Solstice does not end a year, but rolls over on the planet’s turning toward Spring’s Equinox – equal day and night.

The Winter Solstice, so near New Year’s Day, acknowledges the passing of 2020. Everyone is ready to hand the hat to 2020 and show it to the door. Before it steps away from the circle, let’s walk out on a winter day, wrap the grayness around us and consider the dormant wisdom we’ve gleaned through the Longest Night of the Year.

Raking Leaves in the Wind

What is more ludicrous than raking leaves on a windy day? Yet when you feel like testing your power against the world, it is a perfect activity, therapeutic, in fact, especially for those of us who mistakenly think they should be in control of life. This morning, our usual pre-breakfast walk around the property takes us to a bench above the pond. There we sit to look down on the pond’s surface, last week covered with the slimy vestiges of duck weed that I skimmed off, but today littered with a confetti of yellow birch leaves as if all of the trees were celebrating the Biden victory and decided to shake themselves silly with joy. The pond accepts it all, summer or fall, duck weed or autumn leaves. I have a difficult time looking at Nature without seeing a metaphor in the whole experience. Could scooping duck weed or raking leaves around the pond teach me how better to live my life?

Today the wind has been bellowing down from the north, but the sky and bay are so crystal blue, no self-respecting Northwesterner would stay inside. After all, any day now the rain will return. So up the hill to the greenhouse I go in my rubber boots to fetch a metal rake and the wheelbarrow. I wedge the rusty wheelbarrow the best I can through the barn door while the wind slaps the door back in my face as if it knows two hours of raking leaves around the pond will be futile.

Do we ever do anything from pure reason? Every act has its collateral experiences. Raking leaves against a spirited wind allows me to feel my muscles, the pull on my left elbow, the stretch around my ribs as I bend to scoop up piles of crisp yellow and brown leaves. I will not have to go inside for physical therapy today. The cold wind fills my lungs with the freshest air. Leaning on my rake for a moment of gratitude, I realize that only a month back, standing on this same place, I choked on smoke from wildfires in Oregon. I will never take for granted the pure, cedar-laced air of the Pacific Northwest. And so, I draw a swath of leaves to me, turn to the right and repeat until I am circled with leafy dikes that shed their top leaves with each new gust of wind. Pull, pile, pause, and watch the top few flee as if back to the birches from which they came.

Acceptance is another virtue that needs restoring. See the leaves rise from my pile, lift into the air, settle down back in the middle of the pond where my rake will not reach them. Acceptance is much like resignation, unless you play with it. I pause to admire how lovely the one or two yellow leaves float in a little whirlpool in the middle of the pond. If keeping the pond clear was what motivated my raking, I lost on that leaf pile, but how easy to turn a loss into a win for aesthetics’ sake.

All the senses surround leaf raking. The sound of the soft scratching the rake makes across the mossy grass. Gratitude again. I could have asked my husband to bring out his heavy gas-powered leaf blower and roar clean all around the pond, even releasing those stubborn leaves strangled by heather plants. I didn’t ask him. I hate the arrogance of leaf blowers, the angriest of tools. That soft scratching of rake on yard, even on sidewalk, although a bit like nails on a chalkboard, evokes memories.

I have lived long enough to recall TBLF, Time Before Leaf Blowers, when you could judge the distance of your neighbor on a Saturday afternoon by how within earshot the soft scratch of rakes, a scratch that must feel good on the grass, for it perks up to an erect green until the next tree sheds. There is an airy, fluffy sound when the person raking swoops up a pile, one armful atop another.

When I was a child, I waited at the end of the drive until my father had a handsome edifice of leaves.

Then in the most self-sacrificing parental affection, he would let me take a hardy run down the driveway until I leapt full-body into the pile, scattering what must have been an hour’s work for him. No wind can destroy a pile of leaves as does an autumn-loving child. When we had completed raking and jumping enough times to exhaust me, I returned to the house, leafmeal sticking to my corduroys, the fragrance of leaf dust in my nose. Then Dad would take the well-used pile to the corner of the drive where it met the street, would stoop down with his cigar lighter and ignite the whole pile until it diminished to ash. The smell of burning leaves was intoxicating generations before I associated its kinship to the aroma of someone smoking marijuana. Yes, in the ‘40’s and 50’s composting succumbed to air pollution.

Today, four excursions of a full-brimmed wheelbarrowing to the compost pile left me ready to return to the cottage and the wood stove. Once inside, my wind-blushed face felt taut and young. I let Metaphor speak to me and here it is. As the presidential election approached, the weeks became increasingly tense. No, that is not true. Not the weeks, but I had been increasingly tense. Before this election, I felt as helpless as dry leaves tossed in the wind. I had done what I could, working on encouraging other Americans to vote and voting myself. Was I raking leaves against a wind? Many of us feel as if we have been doing so for many years. Perhaps that is why it feels so good literally to rake those leaves, relieving anxiety I have felt for myself, my family and for our nation. I accept the metaphor of the task. I accept the reality that I will never clear away all the fallen leaves from the pond’s perimeter.

OWNING

Raven pulls the sun down

after tribal boats

churn away from the shore

Nets descend with frantic fish

shivering in their interrupted search

for rivers from which they came

So close a destination

felt in fins and swim bladders

for remembered homes

Fishermen, father and son

from the Suquamish,

arch forward with heavy nets

Then fall back in strained pulling

upon shorelines feathered with eel

grass we chose not to mow.

When this property could not be owned,

any more than possessing the sun,

was this shore their home?

Raven repeats a shared song

lends its image to rattles

shaking in dances with drums

Gulls shriek tossing ragged wings

even after a white sun slips

behind purple hills

Everything here wants

its share of the salmon

like relics sacred as bones.

Mary Kollar

2020

The Truth of Consequence

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Truth or Consequences is not only a desert location in New Mexico, it was also a popular game show that bridged radio to television years from 1940 to the early 1980’s. The object of the game was to discern which guests told the truth about some life experience. Guess right and the consequences were a win. Guess wrong and you were a loser. Seems right in line with our polarized either/or world; however, I want to depart from those extremes and think about the truth OF consequences.

Here I am at our Quilcene cottage in late August harvest time . The romaine in my garden lines up like a green battalion of soldiers. In parallel lines — arugula, carrots and beets. All are ready to eat NOW, but we can’t consume it all, and neighbors graciously accept only enough for a salad or two. As you sow, so shall you reap. Did I over-sow? With minimal reading of seed packets, I should have planted sequentially, a few seeds each subsequent week, and prepared for a staged harvest (consequences). About a dozen years ago, I bought a small one-gallon size fig tree and planted it in the middle of our little orchard where a pear tree had failed. Yesterday we drove up and down East Quilcene Road with buckets of figs for neighbors we hoped would accept some. Luckily, Scott and Susan have a food drier and accepted the load. How could I ever have imagined that little potted fig would produce so many? Neighbor Raj calls figs “the fruit of the gods.” Funny that we live at the foot of Mt. Olympus, because our fig harvest this year could supply a bacchanalia for every god from wood nymph to Zeus. Some consequences we should/could have foreseen. Others resulted without possible foresight.

Similarly, What goes around comes around. That expression is a first cousin to the sowing maxim. It connotes consequences like just deserts. Parents admonish children that their actions, if ill considered, could ricochet, causing them harm. Punch the neighbor child, and that kid may grow up taller and stronger and seek revenge. We relish such consequences when we root for an underdog. There is always a dog in there somewhere, and it may grow up to bite back. These are the consequences of justice. Such ironic justice explains the popularity of mysteries. it is satisfying to see the criminal in irons, even more so if, as Hamlet plots revenge on Claudius, the miscreant is “hoisted by his own petard.”

Although not always anticipated, consequences can be as pleasant and circumstantial as tying a child’s shoe prevents stumbling. May I assume that you too want the consequences of your choices to be favorable? Last week I stood in line to check out groceries at the local Safeway. I chose the shortest line, only one customer ahead of me. You can see what comes next. Murphy’s Law: the adjacent check-out line with four customers moved faster than mine. Ahead of me was a man of my age (elderly) in a large, motorized wheelchair. His shopping cart brimmed with purchases he handed, as best he could, one-by-one to the clerk. As he sought his food coupons to pay for his purchases, I watched as one-by-one some of his items were set aside to be returned to shelves. My heart hurt. He could not afford to buy the chicken, the slices of ham, primarily the more expensive groceries. I could buy these for him, but I also didn’t want to insult the man with an offer that might look like charity. Nonetheless, I knew the consequences for me if I failed to speak. “Excuse me, sir. I see you don’t have enough money with you today to cover everything. Would you please let me pay?”

He smiled and accepted: “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for paying it forward.”

I hadn’t heard that phrase in a while, but his gracious acceptance drew me into community with him.

“I try to pay it forward too,” he continued. “I served in the military, and that was me paying it forward.” As I walked home laden with my own groceries, they felt lighter, the way happiness diminishes weight.

This past week the Democrats held their national convention. This coming week the Republicans will nominate their choices. There isn’t a voter in this country who should fail to think of the consequences of voting. Whether in local or national elections there will be consequences, and that is the TRUTH with which we will live.

Social Distance

All crises add to our common lexicon, and soon we use novel phrases with a shared understanding, even when those idioms are seemingly contradictory. Example? Social Distance. The very nature of sociability is closeness. In my years between the 1940’s and 1980’s, meeting a friend involved a warm handshake and smile. That evolved to hugging, polite kisses (as the French do), even between people I barely know. Attend a museum opening of a new exhibition and prepare to be kissed by men who probably no longer enjoy kissing me any more than I welcome their whiskered greeting. Being social demands intimacy

In this year of Coronavirus, the social thing to do is to stay away — one from another –and preferably six-feet apart while wearing a mask. This past Friday evening we made a reservation at Finnriver Cidery where we met friends to make up a fewer-that-five table. After washing our hands at the soap pump – local, home-brewed soap –our invitation was checked off at the entrance by a friendly masked host who ushered us to our sanitized table.

“Who was that masked man?” If you are my age, your mind recalls The Lone Ranger on his white stallion riding off into the sunset after rescuing some oppressed homesteader. Now that question is common as we try to recognize people by their squinting eyes peering over a face mask that hides any smile of familiarity. Our friends laugh their muffled chuckles in agreement about efforts to use our eyes more expressively. A wide-eyed greeting, through glasses and above the mask, or a squinty smirk of disapproval for a negative message? Hand dances may come back into fashion.

I agree that the six-foot and masked decrees are the best social expression after all. If we are social, we care about others. We seek what is common among us, and today that is a desire for a healthy community. Let’s forget that the phrase is an oxymoron, and instead value what it means to have a community embrace without touching.

The medium is the message. If the message comes from the governor’s office to mask up and stay apart that is an authoritative and respected message.Perhaps not so, if you don’t happen to like your governor, or the governor belongs to a political party with which you don’t identify. Sad, but true, communicating emergencies connotes urgency depending on who sends out the warning. Hard to think if we get the next big earthquake and warnings come from your unpopular government official so you stay exposed to falling structures. Perhaps the shaking ground will prompt people to safety.

Marketing is everything. The very humor of Finnriver’s sign exhorting us to stay a cow’s distance apart invites compliance. There I was enjoying my veggie pizza and Apple Oak Cider while envisioning a heifer between my friend Kathryn and me.

Humorous signage reminds me of a No Trespassing sign on the barbed wire fence that surrounds a nearby cow pasture in Quilcene: Warning: Don’t cross our Pasture Unless You Can Do it in 6.8 Seconds Our Bull Can Do it in Seven. IMG_0779[1] My imagination is engaged. I can feel a bull’s snorting breath on my derriere. Had I been inclined to take a shortcut through the rancher’s field, I dismiss the notion with a laugh.

Here’s another neologism: The New Normal. Perhaps you have used this one too. It suggests our acceptance of practices molded by the pandemic. It too is contradictory, as what we once considered “normal” is now abnormal. Someone threw in the word “normal” instead of the new “behavior,” because we are all longing for “normality,” a state of being to which we can’t return. With a resigned sigh, we embrace “the new normal,” indicating acceptance. Perhaps “embrace” is the wrong word here. Since March, the only embrace I have allowed myself is for my husband and my cat. I embraced my husband in March and four days later he showed Covid-19 symptoms, because I was unaware I had been exposed. Yep, we needed a cow between us.

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Frog Blog

I thought I had lost my hearing aid while scooting down the hill above the pond where I was weeding . Later, I returned, my eyes focused for little things among the dense ferns. There I noticed a spotted stone that seemed to breathe . A frog, motionless and likely aware of me long before I saw its pulsing, crouching disguise. Unlike the robins and swallows that flutter away when I raise my camera, the frog remained for six shots before I continued edging down the hill, when it leapt away to the still waters below us. Splash!

Six shots. I am back six decades. I am fourteen-years-old, spending a week with a friend on the beach at Onset, by Cape Cod. Marsha walks with boys in her wake, and I am eager for the overflow — one boy in particular, a ringer for James Dean. Summer nights we drive with the guys to cranberry bogs where the boys take.22 gage rifles from the car’s trunk and aim them out toward the bogs where frogs have stilled their songs. Then the guns fire, the shooters gleefully enjoying the sight of frog parts exploding among the cranberries. Easy, fear-frozen targets for reckless teenagers.

I have not met anyone my age who doesn’t carry remorse for acts committed in thoughtless youth. And although I didn’t fire a gun, I witnessed without reprimand. Of all scenes collected in my memory there are few more vivid – the humid, salt-laden air rising with a fragrance amidst violence. My eagerness to blend in where I sensed I did not belong.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, in March, Nature’s early promise of spring comes with frog song from the pond and surrounding woods. Weeks before robins, chickadees and violet-green swallows take up their warbling sopranos, the bass line is sung by frogs caroling for potential mates from misty dawn until dusk.

Is it a coincidence that fairy tales have frogs turning into princes – princes into frogs? Potential for love abounds.

This spring is a moment in history to reconsider our world view. We are sequestered in our close environments with an invitation and time to consider the smallest and largest of things. We can watch and listen to the way our world is singing our seasons along.

Who else is wearing “unnoticeable” camouflage, aware that to be seen can threaten their existence? How can we value those songs we take for granted, knowing they are not our own, but somewhere around us in the vernal woods and waters that we treasure?

By the way, I found the lost hearing aid when I was dusting behind the couch in the cottage. I don’t regret having searched outdoors. Looking for something small, I found within myself, something large.

SHADOWS

IMG_0423[1] Peter Pan met Wendy when he came to ask her to sew his shadow back in place, having lost it when escaping through a window that closed, separating himself from his other half. Unknown Detaching from our shadows is a fantastical fright, for what is more intimate and yet mysterious than our shadow, our companion from the first sunny days of our lives? We watch it grow with our own growth and with the rise or fall of sunlight behind us.

The lyrics of Me and My Shadow conclude, “Just me and my shadow / Strolling down the avenue /All alone and feeling blue.” It is a sad song, but Peter Pan and I know that shadows keep us from loneliness. What better friend than one who sticks with you all of your days, who goes with you where you want to grow and can be manipulated in a small gesture, simply by turning with the light?

As a child, did you play with your shadow? Chase it? Try hopelessly to escape it? My father taught me to play with shadows, casting bunny ears with his hands on the walls of our playroom. My brother and I competed, trying to stomp on the other’s shadow. IMG_0420[1] Most days, unmindful of my shadow, I am surprised when I notice it lengthening before me on a spring walk. I notice my aging stance. Did my knee always turn in at a funny angle, or is this something new? Communicating with our shadows is a self-indulgent pleasure .

Some sunny days, I look beyond my own shadow to those cast by what exists around me. Any artist values shadows for how they define the artist’s subject, providing depth and definition. Sometimes the shadows share importance with the object, as in some paintings by Norman Lundin. His many compositional brilliances that feature shadows cast across classroom blackboards are equally as important as the object or person who cast them. Our admiring eye finds pleasure in the angles of lines across a flat surface.

Similarly, going to snip a rose to bring inside, I found the shadow of the rose, the pattern of leaves flattened against the driftwood fence behind the roses, as appealing as the bright red rose itself. Not a chance of clipping the shadow for a vase on the dining table.

Spring and fall are tops for shadow appeal, especially mornings or late afternoons. Sun is not yet on top of us. Its angle splashes across streets, magnificent shadows of trees in their early leafing. You could be tempted to run out in the road and try to climb them. IMG_0419[1]

My good friend Jan, who has a scientific understanding, teases me that often I am going off poetically about natural things that have a rational raison d’être. I agree, and would be amiss if I ended without personifying shadows. “Only the Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men” were Introductory words to the broadcast radio episodes of The Shadow (1930’s and ‘40s). The Shadow was the hero of a whodunit that drips with ominous associations. So too the superstition around not standing in the shadow cast by a gravestone. I gave some thought to that on a recent walk through Lakeview Cemetery. How tantalizing to stand in the shadow of a massive monument to Seattle’s forefathers, to test whether my body temperature dropped in that shade. No icy fingers reached to pull me inside.

Meanwhile, taking my I-Phone from my pocket, I photograph myself leading with a shadow when riding my bicycle along the end of the bay on a Sunday morning. Can I photograph myself and the bike with our morning shadow preceding us? Who is that cyclist riding the bike? Only the Shadow knows.

Composition on Birch Bark

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Composition on Birch Bark

This lewd peeling away

of birch bark

this shedding of old skin

this rejection of whiteness

that warmed the trunk

throughout a gripping winter.

Flagrant peels roll

from upper limbs.

March wind flaps them

like skirts of Lautrec’s dancers

imperfect skirts striated with

lichen and spots where

sapsuckers plucked

their patterned design.

But where the child can reach

sitting on his father’s shoulders

the bark gives way to eager hands

tearing off wide parchment

like linen for writing

a poem on the copper

underside, a few rhymes

to welcome spring

with words that whip

winter on its way.

Mary Kollar