Friday, August 30, 2013

SEAMUS HEANEY ~





















TIMBERED ~










It was our anniversary the other day (on the cusp of 40 years) and the two years since Hurricane Irene paid us a visit.
Those living near rivers are still sensitive.


We were deep in the woods that same day with a sawmill operator who brought up the hurricane anniversary way back in his tree domicile. From his bark-pissed perch he was as great a woods representative you're going to find these days in the northeast. Get yourself back out to the road and you'll see the remnants of what Irene did to his river. From the mill we took home six timbers of 4 x 4 hemlock. One was 12 feet long and juggled out of the truck after a mountain climb. It looked small out there on the lone roadway. Dirt. Rain from the morning on the gravel. Earlier in the day we had bicycled up to the village to be at the white clapboarded church where we had our wedding ceremony, once upon a time, at 7AM. Many of the people then are now long gone, including the minister who also sold us his house. My sister shouldn't be gone, but she had other plans. We awoke the oldest friend we have around here, and maybe the only one left, and she peered down from her bedroom window with old lady hair still worn in a bun and it would be long if undone and smiled with a giggle at our treat of being there and said she wasn't ready for visitors. . .what a lovely way of being, "not ready".

 

We'll be back.