In the Goat Cart

My mother said that one day when she was little she was playing outside and a man came by with a goat cart and a camera.

Lillian Jacobsen in the goat cart, ca. 1917

The man asked her if she wanted to sit in the cart, and she naturally said “yes”. My grandmother didn’t find out about all this until the picture had been taken and the man presented her with his bill. She was angry, of course, but she paid, and so I have this picture of young Lillian, somewhat stoney-faced, firmly holding the goat in check, an intriguing revelation of my parent as a small child. And I’m free to speculate on the conversation between mother and daughter later that evening.

I think this picture was taken near the intersection of Avers Avenue and Lawrence Avenue in Chicago, about half a block north of my grandparents’ house.

Trout Lily

Trout lily (also known as Yellow dogtooth violet)

Trout lily

Trout lily (Erythronium americanum), Pleasant Creek Wildlife Management Area, Barbour and Taylor Counties, West Virginia, 21 April 2013.

This Is the Way the World Ends …

A Poem for Today

The Hollow Men

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

– T.S. Eliot

Fire and Ice

A Poem for Tomorrow

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

– Robert Frost

Crossing Cheat Mountain

It was the week of Sandy, a week of heavy snowfall in the West Virginia mountains, a week of fallen trees and fallen power lines and dropping temperatures, a week of thousands of households without electricity. We had been fortunate in Clarksburg where the storm had little impact, but despite what we had heard of what had happened to the east we intended to spend that weekend in a cabin at Seneca State Forest, on the other side of the mountains. And thus it happened that we drove across Cheat Mountain on All Saints Day on our way to the Forest.

Cheat Mountain

Snow had fallen wet and sticky and heavy; it had stuck to the trees, their leaves, their branches, their trunks, adding weight that, combined with wind, had broken branches and dropped whole trees. And in falling the trees had pulled power lines down as well. Work crews dotted the highways, cutting the fallen wood and beginning to restore power as they were able. In much of the area we drove through the people would have no electricity for days to come.

At the top of Cheat Mountain

By the time we reached the mountains the snow had stopped and the roads were plowed clear but wet. But between the cloud-curtained sky and the snow-coated trees towering over the road there was nothing but white glare — the entire world seemed white and enclosing.

Cheat Mountain

I stopped at the top of the mountain to try to capture on “virtual film” at least a little of the effect, but is it really possible to capture in a flat image the feeling of being completely surrounded, all around and above as well, as if in a cocoon of whiteness?

First Snow, 2012/13

We have received a Halloween gift of sorts, a trick or a treat, depending on your point of view, a little ahead of the holiday. The Witch of the East, in the form of a hurricane named Sandy, and the Witch of the West, in the form of an unnamed storm that rushed across land last week to join her, combined to batter and torment our neighbors. But they were mild for us, and brought us a present.

Light snow on the lawn, 30 October 2012

We didn’t get the horrors that Sandy brought to some parts of the eastern coast. A wall of mountains stands between us and the ocean. Dramatic storms, heavy rain, and fierce winds were predicted for us, but none of that drama materialized here. Instead we started out with light, chilly rain.

Sunday evening rain began to fall. It continued to fall, usually not hard, but constantly. By Tuesday morning, today, we had about 3 1/2 inches (nearly 9 cm) of rain in the gauge, and snowflakes had begun to mix into the wet air. It seemed unlikely that this would amount to much; the air was too warm for the snow to continue long, and the ground was much too warm for any significant accumulation even if the snow didn’t stop. But grass and fallen leaves were soon decorated with white trim, and parked cars were flocked like Christmas trees. After a while the rain disappeared leaving only snow in the air, and snow kept falling all through the day.

Now it’s evening and the snow hasn’t fully stopped. Here at our house there’s still no real accumulation, but on the east side of town the snow is blowing and drifting. And farther east where the land is higher, the snow is still falling as well. There is fresh deep snow in the mountains. Someone said that the ski resorts will open early this year. Winter 2012/13 has begun.

Black Squirrel

Seen 25 October 2012 on the grounds of the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston.

Black Squirrel, West Virginia State Capitol

Apparently this is a common color variation of the eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), but I haven’t seen any of them around Clarksburg. If they’re here they must be shy. Or maybe our little red squirrels have scared them off.

This one was tame enough to let me come quite near, but usually bounced or scurried just as I pressed the shutter. As a result I have several pictures of unidentifiable furry black patches in the grass where the squirrel had been quite clearly visible less than a second before. The image above was the best I managed before I had to leave. Click on it to enlarge.