Beluga

for Lucille

The snow softens in a brief mid-January thaw. I remember the day 5 years ago when Susan and I—provoked by a similar thaw—built a sculpture on the lawn. We boldly declared it to be a Beluga whale. As we rolled large snow-balls and sculpted our rough artwork with garden trowels, we unexpectedly began to feel we were summoning the spirit of Beluga—inviting it to join us in Vermont. As though the Beluga clan began to feel our welcome, share the humor of our clumsy, affectionate creation. It was a strangely gentle and powerful experience—opening our hearts to the cold north ice and waters, these amazing creatures, deepening our affection for and connection with our vulnerable Earth.

The snow sculpture event also became a celebration for my aunt, Lucille, who died that year. She and her husband, Van (my father’s brother) were the two older friends who modeled for many of us a way of living and dying full of grace, recognition and expansiveness.

The creation of the sculpture, our remembering it, the poem it prompted, the birds at the nearby feeders, and Van’s gentle, wry, loving, comment have become a node of awareness I cherish. In the midst of a world fevered by ego, desperation, cruelty, anger, and profound unhappiness, I want to share it with you.

More about Van and Lucille in my next post.

*** Come join me at the following event if you are near Central Vermont:

Poetry Reading at the Jaquith Public Library
122 School St., Marshfield, VT
Sunday Afternoon, January 25, 2:00-4:00

I am excited to be reading with poet friend Judith Janoo at this wonderful community library. The event is the first of four poetry readings at the Jaquith, co-sponsored by the Poetry Society of Vermont. Thanks to Susan Green, Librarian; and Elizabeth McCarthy and David Hartnett of PSOV for their work in putting these readings together. Click here for more information (scroll down to the event, but please take note of the others). I am thrilled that the remarkable group art exhibit will still be on display when we do the reading.

The Jaquith is an example of how a rural community creates opportunity for folks to come together—whatever their political opinions—and participate in the vast ongoing conversations of our culture.

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Beluga

(for Lucille)

On the ochre March lawn
a length of blue plastic baling twine 
beside it a black two-inch 
piece of flexible garden hose.

They were the mouth and eye
of the beluga whale we summoned
from that last heavy gift of snow
a month ago.  Blue line 

as mouth   dark plastic eye
brought the snow to life
as though the spirit of a whale
might pay a two-week visit.  It was 

a hurried sculpture   improbably 
short   tail raised unbelievably 
high   and yet our yard assumed 
the welcome of an arctic bay.

I watch the chickadee beside
the redpoll at our feeder—one 
with a map for staying, the other
leaves tomorrow for the tundra.

And my favorite aunt slipped
off with ease and gratitude
as her husband gently said
to some other jurisdiction.

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