In Writing: Dale Hobson

Archive Photo of the Day: Sr. Mary F. Barnes, Ogdensburg, NY

We all have one special thing that is the real sign of spring for us. It might be the first trillium, the first lilac. For me, it’s the first heron. Here’s a new poem from a moment long ago when that bond was set.

Hunt at Spitfire

Following just behind its shadow and just as silent,
a heron ghosts into the slough from Spitfire Lake
no more than five feet off the water, close enough
to hit with a rock, my Stone Age genes advise.

The heron too is of a hunter’s mind, spilling air
to light in an open shallow amid marsh grass.
Where fingerlings flit and feed in warmer water
the heron stands still and straight to prey.

Out of line of sight I paddle closer, careful dip
and pull to make no splash, slowly, slower,
until I ship the paddle, lie forward and slip
into reeds, pulling myself along hand over hand.

I wait and watch, feet away, as the heron steps,
stops, waits and stabs downwards. One stab,
one fish. Good hunting. Nothing is in my eye
but heron, whole mind gone heron for a spell,

until the hunter squats, leaps, beats great wings–
once, twice, thrice–splashing on the downbeat,
willing its weight into the air, a little higher,
higher, away. “Oh! Me too,” I cry. “Me too!“

"Even the problem of Time is simple in comparison with the problem of Eternity." --P.D. Ouspensky

My friend Allen Hoey was fascinated with the esoteric multiverse philosophies of Gurdjieff and his follower, the mathmetician Ouspensky. Here’s a primer, as best I understand.

Your life as explained by Ouspensky

Every choice in life splits you in two–
the you who married the girl and you
who did not. For every bullet you dodged,
there is another you, shot to the heart.

Over the course of time, your life
resembles a worm, with a fetus
for a tail and a corpse for a snout,
writhing, derailing the lives you touch.

There are whole graveyards full of you,
full of your victims. And when the bullet
comes for this you, there will be another
luckier bastard to carry on instead.

No matter, we are all just “food for the moon,”
Gurdjieff, his esoteric mentor, said.
What he meant by that, you’ll have to ask
the you who chose to go to graduate school.

Dale Hobson 2/1/16

Archive Photo of the Day: Kristin V. Rehder, Wanakena, NY

In her monthly astronomy chat this week, Aileen O’Donoghue put a number to how much less light we have each day as September drags us off beyond the end of summer.

That brought on another outburst in my ongoing poetry project, “Light Year,” examining the qualities of light throughout the months.

September Light

Counting down toward the equinox, a few minutes less
light each day–hardly enough to notice really, except
that last week I woke to dawn and now I wake to dark
and turn the porch light on when going out after supper.

Otherwise, it seems the same as any summer day. Cooler
perhaps, in the morning–no longer the shirtsleeves start
to an August scorcher–but still, warm as a kiss on the cheek
in the full light of noon. I should have nothing to complain of.

The leaves remain mostly green, if a slightly duller green
from the recent spell of dry weather. Only the dying maple
out front, shedding bark and limbs these recent years,
ess-oh-esses its distress in orange and lemon and red.

As sunny yellow school buses prowl the roads to carry off
poor unfortunates sentenced to compulsory education,
maybe that’s what dims my mood. Memory–the other light
by which we see the world–all other summers winding down.

Another “Light Year” poem.

July Light

Today the light is no light, just a glow that comes
from everywhere and nowhere—not quite fog,
but shadowless, diffused through the muggy air,
and this vague unease that presages thunderstorm.

But other days the hot light of midday shouts out
over the fields, strong enough to put you on you back,
one hand shading your eyes to stare up into a sky
that runs unbroken piercing blue in all directions.

Days that call for sand next to cool water, the bright
scent that sunlight draws forth from balsam and pine,
dappled light that filters down onto woodland paths,
the light that pops and scatters off a rippled lake.

And after the long late light falls to evening,
the moon’s bone-white path across the water,
bracketed by stars and fireflies, and campfire light,
and lantern light that guides you toward your bed.

Another poem in the series “Light Year,” examining the qualities of light in each month of the year.

May light

There are only two seasons in the North Country
winter and not-winter. April was cruel as usual,
arbitrary, fickle, indecisive—unable to pick a side.
But May delivers what April only pretended to.

You drowse away through the dawn chorus,
but when you do rise it’s already full light,
so bright you squint out the kitchen window
waiting for the coffee to filter through.

What began as a yellow-green haze softening
the black outlines of the maple’s branches
has popped a green so lurid you would call it
“not found in nature” without the plain evidence.

And the air is a fresh rain-washed blue, so clear
the distant hills are sharp on the horizon.
A confection of cumulus dots the sky, still cool,
but on the short-sleeves side of cool, for once.

So you step out into the sweet scent of lilacs,
into the bee buzz and the hummingbird whirr
and lever your sluggish bones behind the wheel.
A little apple petal twister follows you down the road.

Photo: Joseph Gruber, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Two years ago I had this idea that each month of the year shone with its own unique quality of light, and that I should write a twelve-poem cycle that would capture those qualities. Until yesterday, I had managed to write one–for August. But now there are just ten left. I figure I’ll be ready for press by 2020.

November is pretty tough–dark, wet, cold, stingy. But there are a few moments that can help you last out the coming winter.

November Light

The last sweet day of November
comes after days of gloom and rain
while you are still in mourning for the fallen leaves,
resigned to coming cold and endless dark.

It comes after a frosty night has filtered the wind
and dry leaves crunch underfoot to add
their tannic tang to the odor of the air.
It comes sultry, in the 60s, and dazzlingly bright.

One last day. The sky holds blue to the horizon
except for a scribble of cumulus clouds,
some drawn long by mid-altitude winds,
some stacked serenely into stiller upper air.

Such a glory of blue and white that the eyes rise
squinting up from the dull brown and gray surround
despite themselves. How could they not?
A sane man would take the day off from work.

But these few moments will have to do.
November is a parsimonious month.
It was only luck that there was even this,
and just your usual luck to have it be a weekday.

Still, days later, you remember that brief warmth
on your face like the blush of love, and you taste
again that last sip of brightness, precious now
as the flash of a cardinal’s wing amid twilight cedars.

"Clover Fields," Rockwell Kent

Two years ago I had this idea that each month of the year shone with its own unique quality of light, and that I should write a twelve-poem cycle that would capture those qualities. As it is with many summer projects, I made a start but couldn’t follow through because–well–because hammock, because barbecue. You know how it goes.

I ran across the abortive effort last night, one poem imaginatively titled “August Light,” and realized that in this chilly August, this particular light has been completely passed over. As long as you’re all showing off your North Country stoicism by resisting the impulse to fire up the furnace “just to take the chill off,” maybe this will provide you with a little warmth.

August Light

In the cool morning of a hot day
the road is lined with chicory,
purple loosestrife, buttercups
and Queen Anne’s lace.

The corn is green, grass is brown,
the sky blue, except at the horizon
where haze tints the raking light
the same shade as lemonade.

When I was five I would walk
in lemon light all by my lonesome
(without crossing the street)
to the store for a five-cent treat.

And at ten, identical light shone
down through filtering oaks
where I crossed the rusted tracks
to mess about beside the river.

It was light the shade of lemonade
I was trying to evoke at twenty,
sweating out the writing workshop,
beating at the page like a moth.

At forty, this light lit up my dad–
elbow out the window, pipe in teeth,
ball-capped, driving a ’67 Safari,
trailing his motorboat toward heaven.

Memory, sweet and sour, mixed
like lemonade in August light.
Everything everywhere always shining–
that is how the light looks now.

Woodcut (detail), Hiroshige, from "Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido," 1835

Finally, a poem fresh from the oven.

February Light

I see the snow has fallen overnight,
pure and shining as the New Jerusalem
set down outside my kitchen window.

Cupping a white mug of black coffee,
I peer into woods white as angels’ wings.
Each limb, every twig bears a fragile froth of glory.

Now, before the sander rumbles through
and the school bus intrudes its bright yellow racket,
before the wind rises to knock all askew–all is well.

One quiet moment, as in between the breathing in
and the long exhalation, to savor what day could be,
before it slushes down into what day will be.

—Dale Hobson, February 28, 2013