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Febyooerry Beguines
Ah, February. When we are forced as a country to come to terms with how rayciss America is. Because why else would those politicians assign Black History Month to the shortest month? We were spared the ice sheet that fell down on Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, and we were grateful. We’ve been down that road before, and it ain’t something we want to repeat. A couple of years after we bought this farm, we were hit with an ice storm. The fences around the chicken coop were bowed over to the ground, having become glittering drapery for the poor beleaguered girls inside the henhouse. Massive limbs from the old pine…
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On The Nearby Hill
They buried an old man today in the cemetery up on the hill. He was in his nineties, and from a distance it looked like about two dozen mourners attended the graveside services. I didn’t know the man, though his family name is prominent in these parts. And now he has gone on from this life, away from those who knew and loved him, and someday he will pass into that place where unvisited memories go. He lived, and he mattered, and now he is gathered to his people. This winter seems harsher than any of the threescore-plus ones I’ve known, and it has only begun. The land lies dormant…
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Chill
I utterly despise the media, whether the news, popular culture, or what passes for “art” these days. A question came to me this evening and I turned to express it to my wife. “When’s the last time you heard anyone mention monkey pox?” She laughed, because she knew what I was getting at. Before that stumpy, swarthy little illegitimate comedian’s appearance before Congress today in his grimy gym suit, how many of you had heard anything about Ukraine (formerly known as the Ukraine) in the news in recent days? Do chefs still prepare chicken Kiev, or is it now chicken KEEEEEEEV? Covid is apparently cured completely, with flu and RSV…
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Before Winter’s Solstice
Early this morning, I dreamed I was standing at my mother’s grave, down there in the flat delta where the cotton fields stretch like bolts of corduroy for monotonous miles. In my dream, I wanted to say some words to Mother, because I knew that she would be able to hear and understand me, but I could not bring myself to speak. There were leaves blown against her little tombstone with the hummingbird carved into its sleek surface, and they seemed to be telling me that it was all gone, my life and difficult relationship with that haunted little woman, that no matter what I might say to her, none…
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To Roam Through The New Earth
Heeding the news or pundits or bloggers about what’s going on in the world is like listening to preachers expound on the book of Revelation. None of them really knows what he’s talking about. It’s naïve speculation at best, and cynical self-centered grandstanding at worst. I grew up listening to sermons and skimming booklets that “proved” that Richard Nixon was the Beast, or that Henry Kissinger was the antichrist. And where are those authors now? Look at the current crop of blathering boys & girls, ignorant of both history and human nature, standing atop their picnic tables and waving their arms about. They, too, will be completely forgotten someday. Any…
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The Cold Rolling Towards Me
I began this post in longhand, sitting at my desk this morning, allegedly working, watching tufts of cool mist hanging in the air outside the glass door. This is the time of year when the nearest neighbor is separating his cows from the calves, in preparation for market. The worried mamas have been bawling all day, as they have been for the two days before. The air over the farm is anxious, fretful, which is a shame, because we’ve just gotten our first dose of fall-like weather, about 50F at night and in the mid-70s today, air as clear as an infant’s eyes, same deep blue, same lack of omens…
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The First Day of Spring
…and the third Sunday in Lent. Yesterday, the winter went out quite lion-like with gusty winds preventing us from describing the day as “warm.” The temperature was in fact nice, but we had to bundle into jackets as we sat with the dogs on the back porch in the afternoon, talking in our quiet Orr voices and watching the greening of our acres in this warming half of the world, the day, the so very awake day rushing along with the urgency of a waterfall, even an unseen waterfall. Things are warming, but I was also chilled by something I encountered while we were out shopping for supplies yesterday. I…
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Night, On the Feast of Saint Patrick of Ireland
First thing I did when I rolled out of bed this morning was to confront Mrs. Orr and see if she was wearing green. Foiled again. I usually do some sort of Saint Patrick’s Day post, but after reading Laura Wood’s collection of recent Hibernian posts, I decided it would be better just to link to what she’s written. First, a thoughtful and reverent entry about a prayer some say was written by the old saint himself. Next up, a grim and needful post about the state of Ireland today. And then finally, two items to leave a lighter feel in the heart, here and here. This day has been…
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Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Tonight we make the annoying switch over to Daylight Savings Time. I believe the time changing back and forth is both irrational and also a deliberate thing. Those who rule this world could easily enact a law to keep the time one way or the other, if the hours really do benefit mankind by their placement. but those people choose to do the silly back & forth. I think they do this so they can remind us that they believe themselves more powerful than God. They can speed time up or reverse it, depending on the season, and for no better reason than a bureaucratic whim. Yesterday marked the two-year…
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Winter Begins
And now we sit in the deepest pocket of the year’s darkness, with the night air so still that even the nocturnal predators do not dare to disturb the hush with their cries. We have reached the farthest point on our yearly circle around the great light in the sky, and are now beginning to swing back to complete the ring, spinning always, the great seas and the vast acres containing numberless bones slipping in and out of light and dark, and so it has ever been since ages ago, back when certain words were spoken. It’s difficult when I stand in the yard to remember that this bleak patch…