Cider Season

© Joan Z. Rough

Once upon a time when I was younger and my kids were very small, we’d spend sunny afternoons picking apples in our own ancient orchard.   I’d cut the good ones into big chunks and place them in the barrel of our cider press.  The result was a sweet and tangy quaff meant for the Gods.  I’d bottle it up in quart containers and with a sign in our driveway, invite those who were interested in buying this seasonal treat to our door.  It sold well.

Those were simpler days.  In today’s world, I long for those quieter times when I took great comfort in everyday gifts, like the making of cider.

Cider Season

The last of the crop dislodged                                                                                                            I gather windfalls firm and rimy                                                                                                       Rake the bruised into piles                                                                                                                 Where pincered earwigs crowd                                                                                                       Droning yellow jackets sample the brew

My children pretend not to hear                                                                                                When I ask for their help  prefer                                                                                                    The rustle of leaves  tumbling                                                                                                          And diving  scattering yesterday’s work

With sharpened knife I quarter                                                                                              Blushing rounds  pack the barrel                                                                                                      To overflowing  lower the plate                                                                                                        ‘Til it resists  pressing sweet amber liquid                                                                            Buckets of gold

I’m drunk on October apples                                                                                                      Swishing mare’s tails                                                                                                                      Against a blue field of sky                                                                                                                Wood smoke greeting the cold                                                                                                      A threat of snow by morning

jzr

Be Careful What You Wish For

Buddha, Photo by Sharon Martinelli

When I was preparing to move to Virginia from Vermont, back in 1979, a few of my friends said I really needed to be careful down here in the Bible Belt.  They were sure I’d be swarmed by Born Agains wanting to save me. My off the cuff remark to them went something like this: “Don’t worry, when they knock on the door to invite me to church, I’ll just tell them I’m a Buddhist.  They’ll never come back again.”   I mean no disrespect.  It is just that I’ve had my tangles with organized religion and don’t want to go through any of it again.

I planned to use those words the same way I often tell people that I’m a poet when asked what I do, mostly when I travel and don’t feel much like talking.  It’s generally a real turnoff and the questions end.  Thankfully, I’ve never had the person say, “Oh, I’m a poet too!” or “Where can I find your books?”  

It’s not that I’m don’t want to be kind or friendly.  I love talking to people I don’t know. It’s just that I am a bit of an introvert and when I’m belted into my window seat, hurtling through the sky at a gazillion miles an hour, I love watching the landscape unfold below me.  I find myself doing some of my deepest wonderings about the Universe and how I got here.  Perhaps that sounds strange or even crazy, but that’s how it is with me.

When I was moving, I was not a Buddhist and had no desire to become one.  Nor was I poet when I first started saying that I was. Virginia seems to have some strange, magical power, because it is here that I started studying Buddhism and also began writing poetry.  I’m still studying Buddhism and have a meditation practice. But I’m very much a hybrid when it comes to spiritual matters. Though I’m still writing, it isn’t poetry, at the moment anyway.

I’m extremely happy that some Entity saw fit to introduce me to Buddhism and to help me start writing.  But I’m even more happy that I never told anyone that I was running from the law, a prostitute or a banker.  I wonder where I’d be if I had?

Dreams And Horses

Beautiful granddaughter Zoe, during riding lessons when she was around seven years old.

I’ve been thinking about my dreams. Not the kind that come during sleep, the kind that come in my waking hours. Often my daydreams are about happy things; remembering someone I love or something that made me laugh. But they can also be remembrances of sad times.  Or they can be sheer fantasy, about what I want, or something that I want to accomplish, like writing a book.

I daydream a lot and I call those moments staring into space time.  It is often when my best ideas come and I jump into action to bring what I want into fruition. So it was many years ago, when I was a small, naive fourth grader.  I was in love with horses, begging and pleading with my father to please get me one.  Earlier, as a second grader, I believed I was a horse and would gallop across the potato fields near our home, snorting and pawing the ground when approached by some of my friends.

Precious grandson Noah, during his first riding lessons, about age 4.

Those were the days of early TV with shows like Howdy Doody, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and The Merry Mailman.  The sponsor of one of them, advertised a contest that I jumped at the chance to enter because I knew I would win. The trick was to send in the winning name for a small Shetland pony with silvery mane and tail and a golden coat, similar to Roy Roger’s horse, Trigger.  The only differences were that the pony was much smaller, and lacked the blaze down the middle of his face.  Instead he had a white patch, the shape of a star, on his forehead, right above his eyes.  If the name you sent in was the one chosen to be the winner, he’d be delivered to your home in a fancy pony trailer pulled by a pick-up truck that looked like my dad’s.

I knew I could build a stall in one corner of our two-car garage because mom never parked her car in there anyway.  I knew my dad would have a fit, because whenever I asked if we could get a pony or a horse, he said “no, we can’t afford it.”  I figured that because the pony didn’t cost anything and because I won it, he’d have no choice but to accept the fact that the pony was mine. I owned it!

I thought and thought about the perfect name. Staring out the window above my bed, when darkness came and the Milky Way glittered in the night sky with billions of pin-prick lights, I made a wish upon one of them. I knew that the name I chose would be the winner.

I sent in the entry blank and waited for the phone call that would tell me that Star would be delivered tomorrow.  I kept the whole thing a secret.  Every night as I was falling asleep I searched the dark sky for the star I had wished on and then dream about the pony who would soon become my life companion.

Weeks passed before the lucky winner was finally announced one late afternoon. It was perfectly clear that someone had made a terrible mistake.  I was heartbroken.  When I finally told Mom about it, she laughed and told me that not all of our dreams come true.  I responded with, “it was not a dream, I KNEW I was to be the owner of that pony and it is soooo unfair that somebody else has won him.”

My horsey daydreams continued into my teens when I was sent away to boarding school for a year, where I took riding lessons.  I learned to jump, and won a couple of blue ribbons at the school’s horseshows, competing in the novice class.  I also learned a deep respect for horses as well as fear when one of my classmates was thrown from her horse during a brief thunderstorm. She ended up in a body cast for many months.  But, the companion of my dreams never materialized on my doorstep and life went on its merry way.

I got married, had kids and living in a tiny community in northern Vermont, got into raising chickens, sheep and Angora goats on about 20 acres of open land.  One day, a friend asked me if I’d like to have one of her horses.  I had ridden Haggerty several times at her farm. He was a nice enough bay gelding, just a little skittish. I thought, why not?  I had the barn and the space.  I was a stay-at-home hippy mom with energy, time, and an aging dream.  If I was ever going to own a horse, this would be the time.

I was very excited and started preparing a stall. When Haggerty was delivered, he didn’t feel at home in his new stall and his skittishness turned into terror.  Whenever I approached, he’d back away and start to rear up or run off to the opposite side of the pasture.  One day he jumped the fence and ran into the wilds.  Randy, his former owner came to help me find and capture him.  He was clearly not happy and my fear of him was growing.  He was simply not the horse meant for me.

Haggerty went back to his old home and I gave up the dream that a horse was in my future.  But I still find myself dreaming about horses. This time, I’d just like a gentle old mare like myself.  I wouldn’t ride her or make her work.  We’d just chat across the fence and dream about what it might have been like had we found each other sooner. The problem now is that my yard is only one-third of an acre.

What’s Next?

Last week after hearing of our earthquake and the coming hurricane, a friend from California emailed me asking, “What’s Next?”  Sometimes I wish I had a crystal ball, but then I rethink saying, “No, that isn’t what I want.”

On days like today, what I truly desire is for everyone, (those I know and don’t know) to be free from suffering. That includes all creatures, great and small.  I sit and do a loving kindness meditation and then ruminate on what I can do.   More often that not, I find myself drowning in overwhelming guilt, unable to do more than donate some money if it is needed and stay out-of-the-way of those who have the skills to truly be of help.

Today is no exception.  As I listen to news from Vermont, hard hit by Tropical Storm Irene, where I spent 20 years of my life and where many of my friends and relatives live, my heart is breaking.  There is a story from my sister-in-law, who lives in Burlington, whose friend’s husband went out yesterday evening to bring in his dogs during the height of the raging weather. He has not been seen or heard from since. His wife and kids were rescued later, from their home, where mud slides were rushing towards them. I wait with hope and prayers that there will be a happy reunion.

I’ve spoken with my brother, Zed, and my nephew, Jesse. They are fine, but I don’t know the fate of many friends who live along creeks and rivers that have turned to thunderous torrents, overrunning their banks, taking trees and buildings with them.  For a state like Vermont, small and populated by many elderly and poor people, this is a tragic situation.

Sitting here in Central Virginia, where the sun is shining and Irene never knocked, it is difficult for me to fathom.  How could I possibly know the pain if I haven’t been there to experience it.  I can and do, however, carry the pain of a bystander, wanting to jump into the mire to pull them all out, knowing I’d most likely drown before I could be of assistance, only causing more sorrow.

I had hoped to go to Vermont this summer to visit, but life has run away with me, leaving me little time to take on the kind of trip I’d wanted. One in which I could spend long afternoons with friends and family members; talking, remembering and taking in their stories.  A four or five-day trip wouldn’t cut it, but it would have been better than nothing, I suppose.

I didn’t make the trip and rather than be filled with regrets, I’ll move forward, holding those that I haven’t seen in such a long time, in my heart … my nephew, Ben, who is now a first year student at UVM, my nieces, Julia, whom I haven’t yet met, and Anya, bright and beautiful.  There are many others. I will get there. The storm, by the name of Irene, has reminded me once again, that here on earth, time flies by faster than a rocket to Mars.

P.S.  The man who disappeared last evening, has been found and is OKAY!

Spring Fever

Daffodils blooming in the neighborhood. Copyright Joan Z. Rough

Spring seems to be upon us here in Virginia.  Daffodils, Winter Jasmine and Witch Hazel are splashing the still brown land with yellow.  Next month forsythia will follow.

I wrote the following poem remembering what spring, particularly March, was like when I lived in Vermont.   It was still a season for snow but it also held the promise of emergence.  While I trudged to the barn in the middle of the night to check up on my pregnant ewes to see if they had given birth, here in Virginia daffodils were blooming.  I travel further south on Friday for our civil rights trip, wondering what other flowers might already be blooming in those places I have never been.   I will be gone for a week and hope to post a few lines every day about what I am experiencing.  If that is not possible I will write about it when I return.

Spring

Snow spits                                                                                                                                             ewes bulging                                                                                                                                         with promise                                                                                                                                       are cloistered                                                                                                                                       inside

I count days                                                                                                                                         watching bags swell                                                                                                                           vulvas blushing red                                                                                                                             by night patrol                                                                                                                                     the wind riddled barn                                                                                                                         filled with the silence                                                                                                                         of sleeping hens

At dawn one ewe                                                                                                                                 shifts and strains                                                                                                                                 feeling the whisper                                                                                                                               soaking her body                                                                                                                                 small hooves emerge                                                                                                                           in purple blue satin                                                                                                                             that rips rushing                                                                                                                                   the lamb to the straw

Tumbling legs harden                                                                                                                          he readies his burden                                                                                                                          butts pokes                                                                                                                                            finding the teat                                                                                                                                    dripping colostrum

Somewhere                                                                                                                                           to the south                                                                                                                                           daffodils push                                                                                                                                       toward the light

jzr, 1990