The Canopy and Economy

Sun and traffic�" -- day economy.

Six a.m. drive to plywood mill. Too tired

to be angry. Each day a step

toward death. What is being accomplished? The

small satisfactions

within each day. Book consciously read.

And frustrations. Package dropped, honey jar broke.

One of 175 soil types. With the fifty

tree species

comprising the canopy under which Eric and Lisa clean their baby's face.

Sun in winter, old apples.

Inside the school

a brilliant but rebellious history teacher

is suspended by the school board.

200 students

wearing armbands and painted teardrops

protest. Another 400

are silent.

Within each structure

human dramas and routines.

Nancy will not love

any man who cannot do as many push-ups as she.

Trees grow,

porcupine scat in snow.

No job,

no niche,

no existence.

How you earn money is who you are. You are

what you do to get food to eat

and shelter from the winter, summer heat.

Each morning I seek God

by holding still

waiting for the smoke to be black or white

coins heads or tails

wind dark or bright.

Flock of evening grosbeaks

nipping maple buds:

the sign I need.

                              *                                    *                                    *

Less need =

more wealth.

2/23/89. So much equipment just to sleep.

More than a bare floor.

Plumbing vs.

wash at stream, find a log in woods.

Implements of human existence

unlike the deer or bear who

nip buds, forage berries.

I cannot eat the gum out of balsam fir

or bark from a popple.

I am not Wendell Berry

with a wife, a farm, philosophy.

I like the accuracy

of counting pear thrips in maple buds.

8/bud = complete defoliation.

This insect has four wings fringed with hairs

and is minute, 2.5 millimeters.

Two species within the genus:

one with tubular abdominal segment,

the other with conical abdominal segment.

Sugar maple their preferred food.

All I need

are names.

Names and habitats.

Elements, products, decay fungi, egg masses.

Marriage, copulation, regeneration, education.

Machinery, accounting, hand tools, laboratory.

I need your names

and histories.

Sexual histories, books read, unrequited loves, significant landscapes,

      broken bones, periods of boredom, favorite shows.

                              *                                    *                                    *

Immediately means

without mediation, intermediate moments

time in the middle.

Time in the middle

time in the middle.

I'm bummed I never saw a dinosaur, an ice age, a cave man, even missed

      the last world war.

Thanks to paleontology, geology, archaeology, history

mind equipped to take

time out of the middle.

It's in our DNA!

Why should she love me, her tenant?

Because I pay the rent on time.

                              *                                    *                                    *

Excellent. The white sun rose

and lit the frost.

Early February, late March, or in between.

Birds begin

discussing family. Sap starts to flow.

Where the borer spirals in, it comes out wet.

Birch or maple.

I watched from the window. Beautiful

but no desire to go out and touch

swelling buds of elderberry.

Is this shrub crazy? It knows what it knows

with elderberry knowledge.

Come Spring, so much to identify and name.

Insects, diseases and new flowers.

Lepidoptera, root rot, the pinks.

I think I might get married too

and watch the moons pass through the mists.

                              *                                    *                                    *

March rain.

Some snow remains

roads dangerous

but truck deliveries must be made.

                                                  The light

pushing back the dark.

Bark

getting softer, slippery

at the cambium. Sap

simmering. Summer

and spring are here and there

although only winter birds are in the air.

Some buds

break swell

want

to turn inside out

but wait

knowing better.

I too will not break or run

early

hold hope bound by ropes of discipline, experience

time the magic moments to come

take the last sleet and pain

slap in the face

glad for predictable seasons.

                                          We anticipate however

drought, maple defoliation, increased gypsy moth infestations

which some attribute to our existence.

That may be true.

Or it may be that the universe

has reversed its decision on us

and there's nothing we can do.

But we will do

what we can

and some things we shouldn't

because that is human.

Continuing

into the space inside me

unconnected to the light switch, plumbing

fairly independent of materials beyond

food and sound.

Where I pray

like an oak

that the light will enter me

unbroken, forever

and I will live the meanings in the wind.

                                                        Basic

necessities, wood

wine

and friends. And

the names

of everything

by which we know our way.