I know I’m writing a novel, but yesterday was a poem of a day. It has been a long time since I’ve been so genuinely and completely, simply happy in a day.
After some really bitter cold around here– single digits at night and only up into the 20s during the day– we had a few days’ reprieve. And at the retreat house where I work, we used that opportunity to give a good soaking to the 35 new trees planted along the road as part of a prairie restoration project (by Steve). He helped me get the hose set up– it’s a big place and a really, really far to these trees! As soon as it got back into the 40s, I started watering them, and my friend Maryjude, a volunteer at the retreat house, came for an entire day I couldn’t be there and made a lot of progress.
Yesterday I had 10 trees left, about 5 hours worth of work. And yes, I had a lot of other, somewhat complicated work to do. AND, there was a silent retreat going on, so I was sure I was going to be a real nuisance to them with my egg timer going off every 20-30 minutes and me going in and out of the door all the time.
But then I got into it. The retreatants were mostly wandering around, silent but not bothered by me. The day started frosty, but the way the ice in the hose cracked when I bent it was really pleasing. The warmish water broke through the icy spots and by 11 a.m., I was able to get the water running without backing up and bursting through the spigot. And, well, I’ll let this VERY rough draft of a poem on the experience tell you about it.
Mindfulness in Mid-November
The Tich Nhat Hanh group is here
For a weekend practicing mindfulness.
A sign on the bathroom mirror says: “Be free here.”
A sign by the door says, “You have arrived.”
There is a poem about drinking tea by the boxes of tea.
People are walking in silence, back and forth into the woods.
People are picking up sticks and by the door is a small grouping
I think first are just beautiful, then walking sticks, then,
As the collection grows, some sort of ritual totem.
I am working on bills, on marketing, on complicated things,
But every twenty minutes the egg timer under my coat
(so I won’t hear it’s relentless tick, tick, tick)
rings and I rise and go out to move the hose.
It’s mid-November, we’ve already had two weeks of bitter cold,
And it’s the last chance to water the last of the thirty-five new trees.
Today it’s back near fifty degrees, warm though bare.
A woman sits on a bench with her face to the sun.
I walk the length of the long drive, past the metal birdbath
That has kept its layer of ice all day, past the parked cars.
Even though I started late in the morning,
I had to lift the hose from frosty ground
And bend it, cracking the ice inside
This long, green snake in the new grass, stiff from the night.
When I managed to screw the end full on,
The spigot squirted everywhere, backed up, until a trickle
Got through and melted the constricted spots.
Now it flows freely and I count down the remaining trees:
Six, five, four… then loop the long hose back around two trees
That are in the way, to get it out to the final grove.
A woman watches me, comes close to stare at the kinks
As it loops and I wonder if she’ll help if it catches on a root.
I am thinking about the way the trees drink deeply for ten minutes,
Before they are saturated and the water fills the bowl of earth.
I am hoping it will overflow and run down to the smaller transplant
Which I am thinking of skipping over. It’s Friday. I want to get home.
But then I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to be anywhere but here,
Watering the trees, startled by the egg timer and rising from my chair.
The light changing doesn’t panic me. The day is passing over.
The gravel drive crunches. It might be the last warm day.
I move the hose again, into the bowl of the last new tree.
Outside, the silent group has gathered by the door.
They take their sticks and move out, toward the church next door.
When I come to wind up the impossible length of hose,
They are spread out in the baseball diamond, turned west,
Holding their sticks, perfectly still. Then collectively they move
Like warriors, scooping the earth, lifting the sky, closing down the day.
(They are doing Tai Chi of course, but I want to say it through the movements. If you know the names of good Tai Chi movements that would end the poem, please leave me a comment!)