Part 2
If there were trolls, they would live in the highlands of Scotland.
© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2015
Along the road between Kilchoan and Salen, Scotland
Thoughts from biking and walking in Scotland July-August 2015
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Thoughts from biking and walking in Scotland July-August 2015
Part 1.
There is no beginning, and there is no real end.
Whatever road you are on, or think, that you are on.
There will always be hills.
© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2015
Scotland 7/31/15 Near the River Tay outside of Murthly.
Things my mother knew
My mother knew many things, I do not.
How long to wait between one canning to the next
If you rush you have broken jars.
Jars containing summer fruit at the peak of its ripeness.
My mother knew about dealing with ripe teenagers
How to handle, cajole, discipline, encourage, and love
Having eight she had lots of practice.
Practice largely mostly but not always came with patience.
My mother knew about patience, however.
She knew when to swoop in to prevent a disaster
She also knew how to stay back patiently
While her children adventured outward to far away places.
My mother knew about far away places.
She traveled to some, but she read all those books
How many times did she travel with Alice to Wonderland
While her children wiggled and squirmed trying to chase that White Rabbit
My mother knew about raising and killing rabbits
She also knew how to cook them and roast them
Much to our dismay
I would however, gladly sit and eat rabbit again with my mother.
Fiddle, Faddle, and Foe
Fiddle and Faddle made a great sound.
Stomping loudly around the wood
Fiddle said “Let’s find Foe and knock him down.”
Faddle said “Oh wait my friend, I lost my hood.”
Fiddle said “Lets search the town!”
The two friends tromped and rambled around
Till the sun wandered low
Fiddle said “I’m getting tired”
Faddle said “My legs are sore and moving slow.”
Fiddle said “Lets home to bed and have a fire.”
So that was the day for Fiddle and Faddle
Two best of buds now safely tucked into bed
But what is that “Where was foe?”
Not every story must lead to tears being shed.
Foe stayed home that day making wine and baking dough.
Canning time
The water boils as I skin tomato,
after tomato, after tomato, after…
Some from the garden, some from the market
All of last year’s harvest long since canned and sealed away.
Only one jar remains, yet to be eaten.
This year’s canning has begun, the tomatoes,
gathered, many fallen in the fields,
fallen by blight before their time,
bleed into the jars,
their peeled skins tossed into the compost bag,
to be carried out, to help nurture future garden plots.
The fallen giving new life to future family needs.
The new jars sterile and clean, wait for the bodies.
They start empty, then line up with the collected remains,
a little Arlington on my kitchen counter.
Each ripe tomato having given its youth in the full service of …
The summer
Summers ending is not yet, but yet the fall begins.
When I was little, we would play, while,
Grandma, my mother and aunt would work,
in my grandmother’s A plus, all purpose basement.
Busy times, with food cooking upstairs in the kitchen,
and busy canning in the basement.
They worked together side by side,
filling canning jars together in a communal effort.
Did it bind us together? Did it do more than nurture our bodies?
Did that communal time of family conversation, bind us together as souls.
Souls gathered together at the edge of Fall, waiting for..
Waiting for the death that comes with winter?
Waiting together for the new birth that comes with Spring?
Its canning time, but where are my siblings and cousins?
Its canning time, but where is the community?
That community that used to work to sow, and harvest and prepare.
Prepare for the cold hard days that winter would and will bring.
If little boy blue were to blow his horn?
Would all the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Rush back together to bring them all home?
Has fall and winter changed so much, or,
is it that today, that fruit from distant corners of the world,
has replaced those family ties,
replaced it with their genetically engineered sweetness, and..
and the illusion that the seasons do not matter.
That winter can be staved off, and that winter..
Winter is just a dusting of snow.
So blow your horn little boy blue.
And if they come.
If they come.
I will serve them gazpacho, while we peel, and can,
Bathe, peel, salt, and can.
and wait,
and wait,
for that soft sound that tells us an eternal bond has been sealed.
© Dan DeMarle 2014 – © photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2016
Winter evenings past and present
I exhale when the cold air hits my face.
My breath hangs in the winter air.
Far away I hear my brother and sisters
Far away I hear their skates slide on ice.
At the moment, I walk
My father holds my mittened hand
My ankles wobble, in my sisters’ pass me down skates.
My mother waits with a fire and cocoa by the pond
I look up and see the stars
I look up and see my father
Tall and strong, a smile on his face.
We walk hand in hand into the cold night air
Forty six years later
Another winter night.
My brothers and sisters and I sit by a bed.
My father is traveling through a winter land
Somewhere close by
I know my mother sits waiting for him by a fire that I can not see.
Outside I look up and see the stars
Old LP
For a hundred years music was round
It came in LPS, compact discs, and music rolls
All played that wild, thumping, unforgettable sound.
That parents knew was the devil reaching for their children’s’ souls
Today the 15 year old sits and stares
Ipod in bra, earphone in ear, rebellious and unafraid
Quizzically holding grandpa’s disc in her hands, unawares
Of that old devil’s sinful music, itching to be played.
Fathers and Daughters
A father raises a daughter
or does she raise him?
When does the child become the parent?
The parent the child?
Where and when does that bond grow?
Mothers and daughters
that relationship exists in a dance
A constant dizzying dance
of hormones and oxytocin
that goes on throughout their lives
A constant gravitational push and pull
that forces orbiting bodies
to weep and cry
giggle and laugh
A relationship that does not even end,
in death.
The relationship
between
a father and daughter
maybe distant or close
tight or lose.
Yet
they each leave an imprint
like a fingerprint
on each others souls
In the picture
my grandfather sits at his daughter’s wedding
His wife by his side
talking to another.
My grandfather’s eyes
however
are not on his wife
instead
he looks across the room
at his daughter
Her future is before her
Her future is with this other man
He has given her away.
His chest bleeds just a little
from where
he tore out that piece of his heart
to set her free.
© by Daniel DeMarle 3/19/2014
They called us often
Her voice called us
Called us to wake us
Called us for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
Called us back from Never Never Land
Called us back from Narnia
Called us back from the wardrobe
Called us to chores, to homework, to play,
Called us back to home
Called us back to love.
His voice called us often
Called us back from upstairs
Called us to tell us an interesting fact or story
Called us when we were in trouble
Called us when he came home after work
Called us over the distance
Called us to challenge us to think
Called us to challenge us to achieve
Called us, and in that call, we heard, love.
As we grew, the calls changed
They called us with news
They called us to gatherings
They called us to check in
They called us with advice
They called us with interesting stories
They called us home
When we were young their voices were strong and powerful
Their voices shattered evil spells
Sent monsters back slithering under the bed
Sent us love, and love, and love.
Then their voices got tired
or maybe we were so busy living
that we forgot to listen to their call.
Then their voices got old
Then their voices reached out to us
They called to us to tell us things
They called to us to tell us truths
They called to us to remind us where Alice had lost the key
They called to us for help.
Now their voices are lost to us
Our ships flounder and toss at sea
The siren call that was their voices
That always pointed out the way home
Is quiet.
Now
Now, no matter how often we call that number
No one is there to answer.
But on a cold night
I stand on a frozen pond
I listen with all my heart
I clap for tinkerbell
I clap and clap and I believe
And on that cold pond,
I hear the wind carrying those words
Those words they whispered to each of us
oh so softly when we were asleep
Sweet dreams my love
Sweet dreams.
Poem for an Empy House 2-25-14
Once a young couple saw this house.
They moved in, with one young one in tow.
The family grew, and the house grew to.
A bomb shelter, and a porch
Not enough room.
A kitchen addition
Another porch
All added on.
As the family grew,
They grew outdoors
A pond was made deeper
Pools came and went,
and came again
Gardens, gardens everywhere.
Children weeding, children eating.
Lawn mowers, mowing
The hot kiss of the summer grass
The cold kiss of the winter snow.
Yet still more room?
Construction begins
An attic is changed
Was it magic? Or just hard work?
A big cold bedroom and another bath
Both become,
Forever
The realm of the fairer sex.
Lothlórien
No boys, like dwarves allowed
Eye of newt and magic spells
Boys forever banned to the lower realms, Moria, the second floor.
At one point there were four, 3 girls and a boy.
Hopes of even numbers shattered.
Then another boy 3, and 2, oh so close.
Then another girl, bright and smiley.
Add another boy to make it…4 and 3?.
Then a pause. Game over. The ref is heading out the door.
Children in school, children in plays.
But wait overtime is called.
The owners meet and conference call and then…
Finally a last one added to the brood.
Boy or girl? Even or not?
The final score is – 4 and 4!
Now let there be wars.
The family rejoiced, and the house,
The house grew tired.
As the family grew so did the driveway.
There were basketball games
There was wood to split
There were bikes galore
There was a camper in the yard
And what
What was that?
A monkey in the house!
Then there were friends
Neighbors
Social hours
Fairy circles
Wild kingdom in the halls
Hidden mouse doors
Terabithia and middle earth.
Then there were boyfriends, lots of those.
And then cars, and cars, AND CARS!
Where was Neal Cassidy when it came time to park those cars?
Graduations
Then the children
One by one
Started to go
Away…
Colleges called, yes all eight
All away, all returning with degrees
Before heading off again.
The house started to relax,
The numbers started to thin.
but then
Was that the sound of tiny reindeers?
No!
What ho? Suddenly new family members
Inlaws and outlaws, children moving home
Babies again, hadn’t the house already done this before?
The house had to stop and ask itself…
Would they ever go?
Then they did.
One by one.
The house grew
Empty.
But not yet, Now there was
Just two.
The first two, all these years
Still together.
The house drew them in
Settling around them
Like an old cardigan
Then.
Then they were gone.
After all those years they could not be apart.
No, not for very long.
The second one quickly followed the first.
Now the house stood
Silent.
Until
A bustle of activity, unfamiliar feet
Vans, cars, trailers moving things around
Things stored away for 50 years
Brought out to see the day.
Then the sale.
Little bits of this and that, disappearing
Off to go to other houses, other homes.
Now,
Suddenly,
The house stands empty.
Echoes ring in and out.
Then fade.
The house sits quiet.
Empty rooms, Empty halls.
What next?
Who can tell?
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