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Wellfleet – Another Universe
I visit White Crest Beach with the magnificent Pearl on the day before Labor Day, 2023. People are snow-boarding down the cliffs on their surfboards. Others are riding down the cliff on bicycles, some holding surfboards, and one even holding a surfboard and a baby in his right arm.
I had a very nice encounter with a beautiful, deaf, pitbull, named Steve, and with two beautiful Two Spirit women who did not know what the Tet Offensive was or who Leonard Peltier was.
SHORT TRIPS
Maine
I was recently on a trip to Maine that reminded me how absolutely beautiful the state was at a that too distant future date I will try to describe that recent voyage, and its components which included a visit to the graveside of a friend and was very touching.
SHORT TRIPS
Whispering Among The Gods
Whispering among the gods
Sounds like the buzzing of a beehive,
like tides,
like Bach.
There is an urgency to godly whispering
To the call to the colors
To the nectar.
Whispering with the gods
I noticed the god within me
And jarred by this recognition
I sought my own meaning
among the gods.
Poetry
Making Hay
Harvesting hay is one of the oldest known activities required of any farmer who hopes his herd will survive the cold weather months in climates where winter grass grazing supplies for stock are inadequate to sustain them. And if a modern farm cannot grow, harvest, and store its own hay the cost of purchasing hay can be devastatingly beyond the farmer’s economic reach. We understood this reality, of course, but still were complete rookies in tall grass, not even knowing how to tell when the ideal time would be to harvest the hay growing on our farm in glorious meadows that were green and beautiful without our even having seeded them.
“Look here,” said the grizzled Saint George, “these seed heads are not quite ripe, which is exactly what you want to see to get your cutting time just right, with the grass leaves being about at their maximum growth, which these are. You see it?”
Well sure we saw it. Distinguishing it from earlier or later states of hay growth and maturity was another matter. But George has been checking every day he’s visited the farm and a few of us had been walking out into the fields with him for daily five minute hay tutorials. And as far as George can tell, he announces, if the rains hold off for three or four days this is the ideal day for the grass to be mowed in the field. Now comes the hard part.
Before the advent of horse drawn or mechanical equipment all hay was cut by hand sickle or scythe. We, of course, were centuries beyond such gleaning techniques and had already purchased for almost no money an old horse-drawn sickle mower with a seven foot long bar holding a few dozen very sharp triangular blades which moved back and forth as the mower wheels turned, sort of like a hair clipper works. Even farmers who rely on mechanized tractor drawn machinery use mowers not very different in design than the horse drawn ones. This was an amazing and also a truly dangerous piece of equipment, the kind of mower that has been around since before the Civil War. Ours may even have been that old, but with some sharpening and lots of oiling we were ready.
Well, maybe ready, except for the slight matter of hitching our team of horses to the mower. You may think that an easy task, but it is an immense commitment of time, first grooming the horses to remind them you are their friend and they are in your debt, then putting on their pulling yokes, fitting the harnesses and the reins, walking and then backing the horses into the space in front of the mower wheels, one on either side of the draw bar, hooking the draw and the pulling bars up to the harness, steadying the team, climbing onto the mower seat, walking the mower and the horses to the hay meadow, dropping the cutting bar so that it rides just inches of the ground, engaging the wheel driven gears, and then softly clucking to the horses to start moving forward without freaking out over the noise of the gears, the cutting blades, and the falling hay. Easy.
Except that first time I thought it was my turn – perhaps in ideological competition with tradition that holds only one person work a horse or a team no matter how steady and good the horse or the team is for consistency sake and perhaps in pursuit of my ideological credo that everyone had to share in the skilled and unskilled work … horse care and childcare, cutting hay and canning vegetables. Anyhow, horses in captivity appreciate consistency – and I was in waaay over my head – another Peter-Crow wisdom conflict in which Peter yielded, the team freaked out, literally bolted, flipped me out of the seat, and ran with a dangerously waiving seven foot long cutting bar with three inch long scissoring blades capable of cutting off a child’s foot at the ankle through the field, out the gate, and back to the barn, where they stood. Embarrassed. Pleased. Panting.
So how many people should we trust to drive the team? And why? This was an ongoing debate. Everyone had to do his or her share of childcare, at least ideally. Everyone had to cook and wash dishes. Everyone had to know how to wield a hammer, to drive a tractor, to muck out a stall, to milk a cow. But in reality not everyone knew how to change brake pads when that was a need, and not everyone needed to learn. And in fact Peter was the best handler of the horses. And he liked doing it. And it was better for the horses. And ideology was confronted by practicality. And on the day the team ran away from me with a seven foot long scissor slicing crazily in thin air I surrendered my hay mowing aspirations, much to the relief of the collective.
Once hay is cut it must be allowed to dry, ideally for a few days in hot sun. Then it has to be turned and raked into long narrow linear piles known as windrows, originally done by hand with a pitchfork, but now again using a piece of horse drawn equipment. And then, only when the hay has properly dried, is it ready for gathering in some form to be placed into the barn to protect it from moisture and rot. Most modern farmers use a tractor driven hay baler for gathering, and when ours was working we did too. At other times we used pitchforks to pile it loose onto a horse-drawn wagon and then off loaded into the haymow or loft.
Loose hay stored in a barn will compress down and cure. Hay stored before it is fully dry can literally produce enough heat to start a fire, due to bacterial fermentation. Farmers have to be careful about moisture levels to avoid spontaneous combustion. Who knew? The most familiarity any of us had with hay was seeing Monet’s haystacks.
COMMUNE STORIES
After The News
After news of the tragedy arrived
The Tibetan prayer flags waved in the breeze
As they always do
And a hummingbird came to hover
Inches from my face
Reminding me – as if I needed further evidence –
of the need to prepare
for the long journey
by feeding on the sweetness of life
whenever and wherever we can,
always aware,
like the hummingbird,
that we are mere hours from starvation or death,
grateful we can store enough energy
to respond when our houses need cleaning
and when it is time to move on.
The fact is that doors have closed,
and will close.
The question is,
where will we find the strength
to explore the doors now opened.
Poetry
Long ago, perhaps yesterday
Long ago, perhaps yesterday
Her visit exposes the soft underbelly
of the large, terrified animal
who rolls over on his back
like an infant in a crib
to let her rub him.
Long ago,
perhaps yesterday.
A man still at war
with himself,
his feelings,
neediness,
his country.
This close to losing
and this close to winning.
Maybe even having won.
Either way it’s a gift to be playing
and a privilege to be sharing
Poetry
Willow
She loved the sea
to sail on skin of ocean
to skid the surface
in quiet ripples
moving with aid of wind
no fish or bird
more buoyant.
He loved the dark of woods
trees young and old
to bend or lean upon
rustle of leaves
hint of other creatures
of mystery
without horizon.
She liked the silence
solitude
the play of elements
the heart of sun
colors brightened
fall of day
a peaceful harbor
to lie upon.
He liked the beach
stone and shell
the warmth of sand
beneath his feet
connected from solid to solid
to float and not to sink
to drift but not to drown.
As tide and shore
they lost their sense
of edges and beginnings
as each the other touched.
Not ship nor gull
they glide and wait
willow to starboard, mate.
B R Taub – June 1980
Poetry
Thinking About Doing
In addition to whatever actions I’ve taken to serve my self interests as I perceived them from time to time, I have historically acted and made choices out of some sense of desire and obligation to be of service, to save the planet and protect future generations, to end suffering, to end war, to protect threatened ethnic and cultural minorities, to seek justice, to make sure “Never Again” meant Never Again for all. Now, at 70, I see my most significant self interest as being to act in a manner that is of service to my highest self, that really “goes for it” for myself. What the planet needs from me may be no more than that.
As you know, I have historically protected myself from my fears and feelings of rage, from my abuse and humiliation, from my almost complete absence of safety and comfort, with a “who gives a shit” attitude, which while protecting me, was also part of what stood in the way of my caring fully about myself, and, because I was imbued with the sense that I could more or less be anything I wanted to be or get anything I wanted to get, I believed that for whatever loss I might experience there was always another more or less equally good option available behind it. And there was. But what is it “I” really want to make me happy, given that I know at 70 that every option, every woman, and every situation will always have its disappointing aspects built in. And what do I do when the hot love dies? And how do I sustain my excitement. And most of all, who is this “I” who thinks about these things?
So while I will no doubt “act,” and do, and make personally significant choices, there is another dimension that has entered “my” consciousness and that has assumed as much importance for me in realizing/attaining my goal of world and personal peace, of world and personal enlightenment, and that is an intense awareness, beyond anything I have known before, of the potential impact of what I actually “feel” (as opposed to what I do) as one who both emanates and receives/absorbs “feelings.” Now I suspect you will laugh and say, “Feel? You feel all the time and are very sensitive to your feelings. What are you talking about?” And I agree that on an “emotional/mental/psychological/gut” level I have always been aware of my feelings, and occasionally aware of their impact on others, but I have had no awareness of what I would call the energetic and spiritual impact of my feelings, no awareness of what I absorb and what I radiate out on an energetic and spiritual level. And that subconscious energetic and spiritual impact has come to have immense importance to me.
I believe for example that if you seek peace with hatred in your heart you are assured of failure. So too lack of compassion, rage, self righteousness …
So what will I do in light of that? Much less PDA, although not none. Much more yoga. Much more communing with nature, feeling it, even more so. “September 1, 1939”: “The windiest militant trash/ Important Persons shout/ Is not so crude as our wish:/ What mad Nijinsky wrote/ About Diaghilev/ Is true of the normal heart;/ For the error bred in the bone/ Of each woman and each man/ Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love/ But to be loved alone.”
Circa 2010
MISCELLANEOUS
Night Market
After leaving the very comfortable mall in Margapatta I grab a rickshaw for the ride back to Burning Ghat Road. On our way the driver takes a short cut that brings us into a teeming night market I had not seen before. I ask the driver to stop, saying I want to get out and briefly explore the market. He tells me it is “wery dangerous, not good place, good sir.” But in my ongoing euphorically distorted state I say I don’t care, that I want to walk around and see it for ten or fifteen minutes, that he can wait for me if he chooses, or he can go on and I will pay him for this portion of the ride. “No, sir, I not vait here,” he tells me, “wery dangerous place. No good place. No vait, Sir.” “Okay,” I say, “but what can be dangerous, look at all the people, the lights, just stop and let me off.” So he stops, I get out, I reach into my pocket for my money and he says, “I vait.” “Ten minutes,” I yell skipping off, “fifteen at the most,” as I implement my now well practiced Indian street crossing maneuver of attaching myself to a group of people already in the roadway, trusting that if they don’t get hit by a motorcycle or a car, I won’t get hit either.
Once in the market I am swept up in its festive air. It is crowded beyond a 42nd street merchant’s dream. Loud fast Indian music is being blasted from speakers throughout. There are vendors everywhere, kids’ rides, men blowing and selling bubble blowing devices, balloons, cooking fires, phosphorescent lights that people have on and are twirling, and even one darkly dressed Indian woman wearing a pair of lit up red devil’s horns on her head that make her into a very eerie visage and signal a change in aura of the scene, because no sooner have I seen the woman with the horns than I am surrounded by a pack of eight or nine hyperactive boys who I gauge to be ten to fourteen years old and who want to shake my hand, hold my hands, touch me, and are saying things in English that make no sense, and in Hindi that I obviously don’t understand, but are all extremely animated (and a little too close and intimate), and … it slowly dawns on me … are asking for or demanding money, I can’t tell which. But I just keep smiling, giving them high fives, shaking hands, laughing, saying “no, no, no,” and moving deeper into the market. And soon they are gone.
I am reminded here of a sweet note I got recently from my high school friend Susan Levine who said she would never do what I am doing on this trip, but perhaps, she speculates, I get away with it, or think I can get away with it, because of my size. Who knows? In short order I’ve explored all I want to explore of the market, have really enjoyed my little foray, and am headed back out through the crowd when I encounter the crowd of young boys again, still screaming, still a little too frenzied and bold, only now swollen to a pack of about fifteen or twenty youths. An event I witnessed in the Bronx 60 years ago, which I have not thought about for decades, flashes with remarkable detail as I recall a pack of kids I knew of the same age as this group of boys attack a much larger nineteen or twenty year old man.
As I saw the event then, and even as I think about it now, my initial inclination would be to bet on the far bigger stronger man, not believing then, or even now that I have been proven wrong, than the pack of much smaller young boys could beat and bring down the bigger man. But they did, and I see it with great clarity. Maybe the man was adverse to the fight, or maybe the boys drew blood early and it scared him, or maybe at first he didn’t take it seriously, or didn’t want to hurt kids smaller and younger than himself, and clearly in hindsight he shouldn’t have backed up to the parked car as he did, thinking perhaps that he was protecting his rear flank when in fact the car provided a launching pad for the younger boys to climb on and jump on him, and take away his height advantage, and deny him room to move and swing freely and turn. I really don’t know. But I do know the younger boys won that fight, and bloodied him badly, and dropped him to the ground, and kicked him until he was curled in a ball crying for mercy, and no one intervened to save him until then, speaking of indifference.
And it is here in my reverie that I also make a mistake in the night market, because, still acting as if we are all just having a jolly old time, I impulsively reach into my pocket, take out a Kit Kat bar I had purchased earlier, and hand it to the kid I perceive as the leader of the pack, saying at the same time, in what I intended to be a joking manner, “Now show some respect to an older man.” And the boy yells loudly, “Now show some respect to an older man.” And the throng of boys chants responsively, “Now show some respect to an older man,” and the leader calls again, and the boys respond again, and have started touching me, and grabbing my ass, and pressing on the small back pack I’m wearing, and in my pockets, all the while as I move toward the entrance, waving at the vendors who care to look at the unfolding event, swatting boys’ hands away, holding on to my wallet, passport, and cash in my left front pocket with my left hand, waving and swatting with my right. And smiling, of course. And trying to keep the mood jocular. And hoping the rickshaw driver is still there as I use the throng of boys to move blindly forward into the roadway, reaching the rickshaw, getting into the rickshaw while five or six of the boys try to get into the rickshaw with me, each saying words akin to, “Take me home with you,” as the driver starts to move forward, easing into the roadway, where the boys are forced to peel away, and the driver shakes his head and scolds me, saying, “I tell Sir wery bad place.” And after putting what he considers to be an adequate distance between us and the market says, “Sir check money and bag,” and I say, “No, no, it’s all good,” and am really feeling good. And even as I write this I cannot tell you whether it was all in fun, or threat, or something else we will ever know. And while it may be “odd” to say this, from my perspective I mostly enjoyed the overall experience – that’s mostly – and was mostly comfortable in it, and I would do it again.
Margapattaville
I visit the shopping center, a mall I suppose you might call it, that services the Margapatta community in which the yoga studio I’ve been going to is located: green grocers, little shops selling kitchenware, ice cream and pizza shops, Indian fast food joints, restaurants, cyber cafes. It is Sunday night after 9 PM and the place is alive with people: teens, younger people, clusters of men and women in their twenties, gatherings of women chatting, of men chatting, young couples, young families, young women in jeans, men in shorts, it is all very familiar except for the fact everyone here is Indian, everyone is eating with their fingers and then licking their hands clean, all the signs are in Hindi, the lighting is not quite what we are used to, and I am the only non Indian person there … and very comfortable.