Risa Stephanie Bear's Blog, page 4

The First Few Fires

The first few fires of autumn laid by meHere in this stove aren't much; I acknowledgeEven the hummingbird's still caressing blooms, so I
Feeling only a brief dawn chill, build accordingly. In thickets of summer I range about,Ratcheting my long-handled pruner among stout sticks,Stealing from oak and ash, letting in a little light.These I pile in the long room where that stove squats.
Fueling it with paper and a stack of twigs, admiringEven the least hints of gold and vermillion therein,We sit back, warm enough for one dark cup of tea.
For awhile; then day overtakes us, readyIn sweater and chore coat to see to hens;Really, we shuck those soon enough, sweat on ourEars and eyelids, summer reborn briefly in our knees.So; until the ground grows cold that will hold our graves.

What's to Come

Nothing can stand still. If it were to do soabsolutely, I could not see it; if I were to cease scanning, I could not then see;
therefore change is all. These were my thoughtsas I walked our dog, watching a year run down.Apples were falling; I chose one to eat.
Hips blushed fiercely; I stuffed my pockets full.Ash and maple and willow turned and turned.Restless mice and voles risked their all
for seeds. We reached the river; a trout rose, anosprey plunged; they met and rose as one.An osprey will turn a trout head first in flight, 
you know -- for improved aerodynamics. I disbelieve it; surely the bird is kind. It turns the trout to show it what's to come.

She Likes Red in September

She likes red in September. Viney maple, poison oak;Her plum trees dress well in it. Where she lives, allElse goes brown. Except the dog roses 
Leavening hedges with their hips. She stuffs theseIn her pockets on every walk, then does research,Kindling a ken of potions, liqueurs, oils.Easily, drying comes to mind; to prep for thatShe'll split each pod and rake away hard seeds, 
Removing them to her freezer to stratify;Else they might not emerge come spring. SheDigs out also myriad tiny hairs,
Irritants if retained. It's a slow business,Not for the impatient, which well describes her;
She knows of this but means to tough it out.Each hip's a silent mantra: she'llPush, pull, twist, scrape, sort, and set asideThe emptied husks for drying or infusing.Eventually the pile is done, just as light fades.My eyes, she tells herself, are getting on,But this I can still do. I'll make rose tea;Evening will fill my cup of mindfulness.Really, there's nothing more than what there is.

Just-Enough

The ubiquity of Queen-Anne's lace annoys her;it's not the plant's not doing its job; her soilis loosened and enriched; in time of human 
hunger, roots, young leaves and even umbelswould have table use. But there is so much of it; her chickens dislike the stuff, especially 
in its second year, allowing their yard and moat to fill with cohort-ranks of pungent spikes. Her friend keeps bees and tells her they will feed 
on this exclusively, bittering his honey, bringing down its price. So he watches; when the umbels bloom he moves his hives. 
She'd like to query those who thought of Anne;these tiny droplets in a sea of laceNeed not have been a queen's: she tells herself
her own blood has fed this thorned and rock-embedded acre thoroughly. So, queenof weeds, she! Or queen of just-enough.

It is Quiet Out There Now

It is quiet out there now. SheTakes her hat, stick and forage bag,
Into which she slips her pruners, thenSlides her feet into green clogs, feeling
Quite exurban-agrarian, ready to lookUnder brush piles and into cottonwoods --In every place that might consent to harborEven a hint of birds' music. They have flown,The silence tells her; those that haven't died.
Out along the roadside she waves to cars,Understanding her neighbors have to drive,Then pockets up her apples, rose hips, leaves
That now are turning away from green: cat's ear,High mallow, chicory, plantain, sow thistle, herEars pricked for passing flights of geese.Really, thinks she to herself, there oughtEven now to be more birds. There are 
Not so many feral cats round here as that. Or could it be the sprays? She supposesWar has been declared. A war on song.

Terrified of Them

Terrified of them she was through long
Experience being swarmed with stings,
Running, her hands over eyes and mouth,
Running to the house or jumping in the lake,
In whatever way possible to stop the punishers.
For years, she made herself their nemesis
In revenge, setting nests afire! Or in
Evenings inverting a glass bowl upside
Down over their holes to watch them starve.

Only in recent years, as her ways have slowed,
Finding in books their part in the scheme of

Things as helpers in garden and orchard,
Has she learned to move more gently
Even as they light on her cidery hands,
Milking fingers for juice, never stinging.

And Now It Sings

She stands in wet and likes it; drips rolling around the brim of her split-bamboo conicalhat to fall on thirsting clay. Here's
weather at last, there having been sun,sun, sun, a lip-cracking and tree-splittingdry, since the vernal equinox. Nothing
had been vernal about it, and her landknew so. The very fir limbs sulked;willows on creek banks browned up and died;
birds fell everlastingly silent, droppingon needle-sharp tufts of what had been haymowbeneath their perches in rattling cedars;
fish sought pools deeper than any there were,crowding in together, fin by fin, gulping and grunting, then rolling over
to bump along hot, slimed rocks and lodgesomewhere, stinking. Her crops had miniaturized,flavorful but insufficient to pay her labor;
She'd lost heart and let vining morning gloriesinto her cracked farm at last. And now herecomes weather. Not enough to top off the well,
maybe, and certainly not enough to start the creek.But here she stops, catching chill -- watchinga goldfinch settle on fence wire with a twist
of foraged thistledown. It drops the meal,opens its beak, cranes skyward. And now it sings.

These Are Highlands

These are highlands, in a region of highlands, sonot especially notable. It takes a long time to get there, though the graveled road
is short enough; park and walk -- not far,but bring a lunch and water. Sign in; it's wildernessaccording to the kiosk and its map.
Immediately you have shade. These areDouglas fir, mountain hemlock, perhapssome red cedar. Beneath, on both sides the trail,
a scattering of vine maple, ocean spray,rhododendron, and, in the draws, willow.Sometimes bear grass is in flower;
not this year. As late season turns, firstvanilla leaf, then devil's club, then redhuckleberry, then the blue, will shade through
gold to sienna to cranberry: cool nights.Kinnickinnick under foot will be your signyou are straying; do not lose the path.
Along the way are springs, but they are dry;near them are holes of mountain beaver,a town like that of prairie dogs. You will
not see them; they go abroad at night.Admire twinflowers and trilliums, thoughthey are past bloom. So it is as well
with gooseberry and false Solomon's seal --they are tired now, and long for snow.As your path turns upon itself and climbs
rocks and trees will change to andesiteand alpine fir; soil to red dust, shrubsto ceanothus. Now you discover that view
eyes come here to see; a mountainscapeof scree and scarp and what remains of ice,not far away as the crows fly, yet leaning
over miles of air, blue with smoke and firs.You may eat, and drink your water, leaving somefor your return. Wait here for me a bit
while I go to see a stone nearbywhere both my parents' ashes lie at rest.

Where Are the Potatoes, She Wondered

Where are the potatoes, she wondered, watching
Heat shimmer across her corn block, its leaves
Each rustling against other, turning brown.
Right here they were planted, next bed over,
Evenly spaced, in two long lines, eyes up

And covered in soft soil, mixed with compost --
Really exactly as she had done these fifty years.
Early next morning, she reached for her mason's hammer,

The experiment with the spud hook having failed, and
Heaving her old bones down onto her gardening stool
Exactly at the end of that mysterious weedy bed;

Pulled block after block of solid hexagonal clod
Over, busting up each as she went, feeling for
That coolness she knew as round starch balls
All her life she'd depended on. It's not 
That she hadn't watered and weeded, no,
Or fought those gophers well, newly arrived.
Earth could not drink for once, it seemed.
Some spuds appeared. They were even

Smaller than those from last year. Some felt
Hollow. Some were cracked. Some were
Even green with poisons though they'd grown

Well deep enough never to have seen sun.
Oh, well, she thought, I'll take what I can get;
Now we'll have barley for every other soup, with 
Dandelion to help stretch out my kale. This
Earth, she told herself, never did all,
Really even in days of rain. Barley I bought.
Ere I go forth from here as buried flesh or ash, I'll
Do as I have done: work with what is.

She Has Work to Do

She has work to do, establishingHer anchor threads, her frame threads,Even her bridge thread and all her radii,
Hub to be ready by dawn, herself resting --All-powerful, so far as any lacewing canSee. Seeking out the ripest berries, she 
Works not to eat drupelets, but entirely toOffer them as bait to fruit flies and their ilk.Right away along comes anotherKiller, a ladybird beetle, seeking the berries
Too, and for the same reason. He's caught,Offers resistance, is overwhelmed, rolled up,
Done. Whatever comes in, if protein, herOvum will accept. Death it is brings life.