Poetry

Last night I went with Miriam and Bill to a poetry reading organized by Miriam's bookclub. Usually they invite local poets to read but this time they decided that each person would introduce and read a poem, one they had either written or chosen. I had no idea what to expect and took quite a while choosing my contribution and thinking of how to present it, finally settling on 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop. In my introduction I said that the content of the poem was very meaningful to me but that I wouldn't dwell on that. It was the art of the poem I wanted to show. I went on to say that the best poems are the essence of literature; they are to writing what 'tire' is to the sap of the maple tree. I used the word 'tire' not taffy because the latter didn't seem to conjure up the image I was trying to convey of long boiling sap, amber essence poured over early spring snow, rolled onto a stick and licked, the unique maple sweetness bursting with memories of blazing leaves in the fall. But as I spoke I realized that the word 'tire' had no meaning for them. What I had thought was going to be a glorious analogy wasn't. I 'shut'er down', as Jay would say, and read the poem.
It didn't need an introduction.




The rest of the evening was entertaining, an eclectic group of individuals reading their poems or those of others with more or less success. It was my first time being among people I didn't know well who were mustering the courage to present to others what was meaningful to them.

Last Saturday the big maple in the back yard was pollarded by Caitlyn Snyder, a young arborist who has her own company, Wise Wood Tree Care. I called her in because I could tell that the tree had been pollarded before and some of the huge new branches looked unstable. But I was surprised when she estimated that the work had probably been done about 15 years ago. I had thought it must have been at least 25 years because the branches were so big.
Watching her at work was fun. She was in the cage herself, manoeuvring it and cutting, either with a scythe-like saw or a chain saw. Two young men ran around gathering the limbs as she carefully let them drop and pulling them into the chipper. She arrived late because of unforeseen hitches but managed to cut the last branch just as the sun set.













The pollarded maple. It's quite stark, but as a result, I was able to get a spectacular view of the super moon on Sunday evening. I probably wouldn't have seen it through all the branches and I hadn't heard about it before seeing it.

Jay sent me this cartoon yesterday. It's the most succinct expression I've seen so far of the dilemma we live with in these days of Trump. I hope these days are numbered and it doesn't become the age of him because if it's just for a while we can learn a lot from it about wisely doubting all powerful people but if it goes on for too long we'll just get numb from the neck up.