July | 2012 | V E R S E and I M A G E

Archive for July, 2012

Sea of Blooms – Shelby Stephenson

Posted in Imagery, tagged family, NC Poets, poetry, Shelby Stephenson, Southern writing, tobacco farming on July 29, 2012| 3 Comments »

It’s been a few years since I saw a patient with their fingers stiffened by black gum, so tarry and mean you just absolutely couldn’t get it off. For years they were regulars, members of several local families, and by late August I’d usually treated two or three of them. Oh, they didn’t consult me to take care of the black gum. That was a fact of life. They’d come in with a sprained back from first priming (bending over to pull the lowest leaves, the first ones to ripen). Or one of their kids would be vomiting from green tobacco sickness when the morning dew permitted the nicotine to penetrate her clothing and permeate her skin. (The older ones all smoked or dipped, and a little extra nicotine didn’t phase them.)

To say tobacco farming has changed is like saying calling to your neighbor has changed. The wood-fired tobacco barn has gone the way of the rotary dial phone. The government bought back all the allotments, but you can imagine plenty of other reasons why you see so many fewer acres of tobacco in Surry County now (and so many more acres of grapes). On top of that, those big steel gas-fired curing barns just ain’t as picturesque. And I guess the kids have all gone off to college, because I don’t see them with that black gold on their fingers during priming any more.

. . . . .

I moved to Elkin over thirty years ago to join Jonesville Family Medical Center right where rural nirvana blooms, the juncture of Wilkes, Yadkin, and Surry Counties. Some days over lunch, one of my nurses shared stories of her farming childhood. When priming was finished and the barn was full the whole family would join in the curing – cousins, uncles, the tribe. The men had to tend the fire all night long to keep the heat just right. The women would bring baskets of supper; the kids would play until way after dark; someone would break out a fiddle or a guitar. There was probably a Mason jar of something potent being passed around in the shadows beyond the firelight, but my nurse wouldn’t want to make any accusations. She and the other youngsters would bed down in quilts and blankets around midnight, and when the sun came up across the fields, there Mama would be with cold milk and biscuits.

. . . . .

Who’s going to keep these stories alive for us? Thank goodness for Shelby Stephenson. I wonder if Mrs. Stephenson, watching her little boy helping with the priming, could have imagined he would go off to college and come back home a professor. Could she have imagined him turning the black gum into poetry? As English Prof at UNC Pembroke, as editor of Pembroke magazine, as author of numerous volumes, and as picker of a mean guitar, Shelby has given the old stories new voice, new breath, new life.

. . . . .

Tobacco Days

The rows almost ridge themselves, shaping the year again
towards seasons that let the dust of sandlugs
fall into yesterdays lost in failed crops, quick dreams.

* * * * *

I lay on the warm ground of the Mayo barn at four in the morning
hoping Brother would oversleep.
The flatbed trailer bounded across the ditch,
the Farmall Cub droned.
“Morning, boys.” I climbed the tierpoles.
Taking the top, I handed down four sticks at a time to Lee to
Paul who packed the trailer. From my perch I
stirred the sun through airholes uner the eaves.
The barn emptied, we walked through dew to breakfast.
Dreams drifted awkwardly, Brother’s Big Man chew
rolling over in sand-dust.

* * * * *

The tobacco greens for the farmer who dives into the dirt,
renewed in the smell of warehouses,
golden leaves in the lightholes bringing the legged sunlight in.
Dew in dust, a musk in mist,
the tobacco tips one more time on the prime,

a sea of blooms
bobbing in ninetyfive degree wisps of heat,
adhesive tape slipping over blisters.

My bare feet burn on the ground and I shuffle
toes into dirt for moisture, inching stalk by stalk
down endless rows in the ten-acre field where short rows
fade into plumbushes and shade.

The mules on the drags relax through the hot, climbing
July days, the frying dust, and you wonder if you’ll ever
get the gum off your hands.

Shelby Stephenson
from Finch’s Mash © 1990 by Shelby Stephenson

. . . . .

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Poetry of Conservation – Epilogue

Posted in Imagery, tagged Bill Griffin, Creation, nature poetry, NC Zoo, poetry, Poetry of Conservation, Raven, Snake Den Ridge, Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, Zoo Poetry on July 22, 2012| 8 Comments »

“It is impossible to care for each other more or differently than we care for the earth . . . there is an uncanny resemblance between our behavior toward each other and our behavior toward the earth.”

Wendell Berry

Attention precedes intention.

I know someone (actually, I live with her) who keeps a paper cup and square of cardboard under the downstairs sink. If a wasp wanders into the house she claps the cup over her, slides the cardboard under her, and sets her free out the front door. I’m thankful to Linda for this because I am slightly hymenopteraphobic. I’m also thankful to her for all the crickets, centipedes, “Palmetto bugs,” and occasional skinks that have ridden that cup to freedom. I can’t exactly express why, but it’s a blessing to be married to someone who doesn’t squash things.

Does Creation rejoice when one wasp is saved? Maybe not, but you never know – the web of life is complex and chaotic and includes every living organism, not least the trillion bacteria that cohabit my body. I couldn’t live without them. Each creature occupies its essential place.

I do know this – Creation rejoices in every moment we take to pay attention. Attention leads to intention. Once we notice the life all around us . . . once we notice how all life interacts and how we affect it . . . we become poised to care. And to behave as if we care.

The very concept of interdependence within the natural world is only about as old as the church I belong to, Community of Christ. That there is an intimate relationship between creatures and their environment was first developed by Charles Darwin, who is considered the Father not only of my other favorite “E” word but also of Ecology. The first published instance of the word “ecology” was not until 1879. One hundred and thirty-three years – not a great deal of time for the Western psyche to incorporate a radically new relationship with Creation: not dominion over all, not even stewardship of all, but coexistence with all. Perhaps it’s not surprising that there are many people who imagine we can somehow live without Cape Fear shiners, Yellow lampmussels, or Schweinitz’s sunflowers, much less wasps, crickets, and skinks.

I expect a visit to the NC Zoo would start a lot of those people on a journey down a path at whose end they would have fallen in love, not only with a baby giraffe, but with a minnow endemic to just five counties in central North Carolina. At least that visit would get their attention. That’s the first responsibility of a naturalist, paying attention. It’s the first responsibility of being human.

. . . . .

Two Sundays ago I left the house at 6:30 a.m. to head for a week at the Zoo. The car was crammed with nature books, poetry books, enough clothes to change two or three times a day anticipating some sweaty 100+ degree weather. I had enough handouts and resources to lead workshops and present readings. Enough food for two weeks, probably. Enough coffee for a month.

I stopped at Bojangles and bought two sausage biscuits because they were on special. As I headed south on I-77 I ate one, and then I thought – what did it take to make this? How many thousands of gallons of water to grow the grain to raise the hog? How much CO₂ from tractor exhaust, how much methane from hog lagoon exhaust? You’ve probably read how the United States creates over 16% of global greenhouse gases with only 5% of the population. You may have read how raising meat impacts the environment much, much more than raising grain or vegetables, and how in the developing world, especially China, they are shifting their diets to include more meat as standards of living rise. Well, when I arrived in Asheboro I handed that second biscuit to a friend and decided to give up eating meat.

Will my decision have any greater benefit to Creation than a few more wasps free in the azalea? Maybe not, but it’s just my intention, growing out of my attention.

No matter how you lift your eyes you can’t actually see beyond the horizon. You can’t be sure of the outcomes of all your actions, but you can pay attention. Pay attention to the things you experience every day. To the things you do. Pay attention to what makes you feel within your heart the love your Creator has placed there.

Continue to discover your own place in Creation.

RAVEN

Listen.
I’m not going to say this twice.
The sum and product of words
is no mark of intelligence.
Case in point – cousin Crow,
not half as smart as all his talk.

So listen,
I know three things:
Sky, that small kiss of warm air
that rises through my primaries;

the Water on its breath, ridgeblown mist
that bathes us all and makes springs
overflow into Inadu Creek;

and Earth, slope and cup of cove,
the steep that gathers with wide black wings
to draw down Sky,
draw Water up,
that sets free all things green
into a world first fledged.

But listen.
I know from twenty circles
of snowdeep and hungry moons
and twenty circles of fresh shoots
that Sky . . . Water . . . Earth . . .
none of them are mine.

And I know none are yours.

from Snake Den Ridge, a bestiary © Bill Griffin and Linda French Griffin, March Street Press, 2008

. . . . .

“The universe story is the quintessence of reality. We perceive the story. We put it in our language, the birds put it in theirs, and the trees put it in theirs. We can read the story of the universe in the trees. Everything tells the story of the universe. The winds tell the story, literally, not just imaginatively. The story has its imprint everywhere, and that is why it is so important to know the story. If you do not know the story, in a sense you do not know yourself; you do not know anything.”

Thomas Berry, 1914-2009

. . . . .

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A Story to Tell – Zoo Poetry Day 7

Posted in Imagery, tagged Bill Griffin, family, Fred Chappell, nature, nature poetry, NC Zoo, Poetry of Conservation, Zoo Poetry on July 14, 2012| 11 Comments »

I’m going to bet your family is a lot like mine. Sometimes my parents come to stay a few days over a holiday, with Margaret and her Josh in from Raleigh, Mary Ellen down from Sylva (and all with dogs-squared), and finally Josh, Allison, and Saul all squeezed in. Then it starts. First hugs, then catching up and gossip, meanwhile eating, momentary pause in eating, start eating again. Finally, if we’re all under the same roof for long enough, the stories begin.

Haven’t you heard them? Stories that start out with, “Oh, I remember when you were six and you . . . .” “Right, and remember that time we thought no one was looking and we . . . .” “Sure, and can you remember what Nana would say when we . . . ?” We’ve heard them all a thousand time, but we can’t help ourselves. We have to re-tell them. It’s the stories that bind us together and remind us we’re a family. Those stories make us a family.

I was at the Zoo about a year ago when Batir was smaller (though not by any means small). She still kept pretty close to her mother, Tonga, and they would frequently caress each other with their trunks or even interlace, touching . . . touching. Today they still spend much of the day near each other; is Batir leaning against her mother’s side? They’re that close.

Yesterday at the aviary, besides watching the Yellow-rumped Cacique add fronds to a large unruly nest in the very top of a sapodilla, I saw a pair of White-headed Mousebirds that evidently also had nesting on their minds. They nibbled at each other’s beaks, and then one would preen the neck feathers of the other . . . and they were perched pretty darn close together on that branch.

One morning this week I entered the Park early while the alligators were still bellowing at each other (there are two separate ‘gator enclosures so the males can’t get physical with each other). As I passed one pool, a larger ‘gator was rubbing his jaw up and down the neck of the smaller, and then she (?) would return the gesture. I’d have a hard time calling it “nuzzling” when your skin is smooth as an old shagbark hickory, but I can only assume they were making friends.

With such a large extended family of baboons, you can’t pass them by without noticing that there is always some grooming going on. Sometimes it’s a female picking through the thick mane of a large male; sometimes two females; frequently a mother and child, and then they reciprocate. The younger members of the troop sometimes stop chasing and wrestling to comb each other out with their claws.

Somehow each species communicates that they are a family. It may be the complex subsonic telegraphy of elephants or the ritual stereotypic breeding displays of birds, but the message is received. The bond is forged. The family prevails.

We humans prevail through the stories we tell. When that gets old, we tell stories about telling stories. As Zoo ambassador, here’s my challenge to you: tell me a new story.

I am leaving the Zoo after this week-long residency with a headful of stories. You’ve got some, too. Discover them. Tell them. You don’t have to visit a zoo, or an aquarium, or a botanical garden, or a national park. You have a backyard, a neighborhood, a schoolyard. There is something about any one of those places that can remind you what family you belong to. Do I have to come right out and say it? It’s the Family of All Life on Earth.

Maybe you’ll encounter a creature you’ve never paid much attention to before. You might learn to recognize a bird’s call or look up the name of that big butterfly hanging around your bushes. Perhaps you’ll gain some new understanding about how creature A depends on creature B, and vice versa. Could be you’ll discover that something you’re used to doing every day actually harms creature C. You know you’re going to feel invigorated after you get a big dose of Vitamin N (“Nature”).

And you’re going to have some stories. I can hear you now, each time you get together with your Family and spend some quality time under nature’s vast open roof – “Hey, do you remember when we . . . ?!”

. . . . .

A Prayer for the Mountains

Let these peaks have happened

The hawk-haunted knobs and hollers,
The blind coves dense as meditation,
The white rock-face, the laurel hells,
The terraced pasture ridge
With its broom sedge combed back by wind:
Let these have taken place, let them be place.

And where Harmon Fork piles unrushing
Against its tabled stones, let the gray trout
Idle below, its dim plectrum a shadow
That marks the stone’s clear shadow.

In the slow glade where sunlight comes through
In circlets and moves from leaf to fallen leaf
Like a tribe of shining bees,
Let the milk-flecked fawn lie unseen, unseeing.

Let me lie there too
And share the sleep
Of the cool ground’s mildest children.

Fred Chappell
from Spring Garden, 8 1995 by Fred Chappell, Lousiana State University Press.

. . . . .

You don’t have to visit the Zoo, but it couldn’t hurt. It’s done me a world of good. Next time you’re there, see if they’ve started displaying poetry around the Park. (It won’t happen until after all three of us Poets-in-Residence have submitted our suggestions, but if you don’t see any yet it’ll just be the perfect reason to make another trip before too long.)

Meanwhile, I thank profoundly Ellen Greer, Sue Farlow, and Dr. David Jones as well as all those on the steering committee that developed the vision for this Poetry of Conservation project. And to all the rest of you folks – design staff, animal handlers, Zoo Com, volunteers, interpreters, Sodexo, Schindler House folks – you welcomed me into your NC Zoological Park family, and I am humbled and grateful. In sheer awesomeness you are equal to any of the other animals in the Park!

Love, BILL