First Green

My couch is old old old, maybe from the 30's, 20's, or earlier; this is told by the recipe someone invoked to make a couch. The upholstery is a polished cotton, not the original covering, but a subdued facsimile; the material therefore came from a plant, grown from seed and harvested possibly by hand if gathered before 1940. Machinery was invented in the 1850's, but was not economically feasible because slavery was cheaper than running an engine or keeping up with repairs. Anything made before that time likely passed cotton fiber through human hands. 

Inside the couch is more cotton batting, supplanted by horse hair clipped from tails and manes when the horse was put down. The frame is a heavy oak wood grown as a tree for 20 to 30 years (oaks are long-lived and usually produce acorns only when they reach the age of 50), the springs are tempered steel composed of iron, carbon, manganese, silicon, phosphorus, sulphur, and oxygen; the webbing is jute, a fibrous reed grown in Asian climates also used for twine and burlap. I am sitting on a once living thing, a composite of life forms and minerals fashioned by human economy. Did I mention that this once alive being has clawed feet? Think of the possibilities.

Considering the age of the couch, it has supported convenience for decades; the minerals, plant, and animal life was stopped or interrupted almost a century ago, then processed from their original form into usable materials. We stopped time for them, the only place to go is into further deterioration and eventual discard. However, I will fight for this couch and care for it as best as I can. How long it will last has already been several someone's lifetimes, but what happens once I relinquish ownership is undetermined. For now, it is still a luxury of history that has timely conversations bouncing inside its frame of coils and fiber. 

It will only be reborn and refurbished at the desire of the owner, a subordinate fancy to what is now occurring in the natural world. Growing things are coming alive again, as it is springtime here in the Northeast of the United States. This area is lucky to have four seasons, with the quickening of spring providing wonder at the newness of, well, everything.

More foals are being born, more reeds are being planted, trees are exhaling oxygen through their leaves once again, brightening the brain. This is the first green, the greenest time before the growing things show stress and breakage by disease or aging.  Everything is fresh, luxuriously lush, with a show of flowering trees and flowers that lean their now exposed necks to the sun.

Oh tulips, oh daffodils, oh crocus, oh green mantles of ferns in the woods. The mushrooms are emerging in the sequence devised by species; morels are early, then arrive agarics, and slime molds (which are adorably beautiful), all rousing from mycelium just under our feet. Fungi form symbiotic relationships with trees, and behave as a wonderful network enabling the trees to communicate with each other through the system of roots and mycelium, it's rather magnificent to imagine.

The yellow green flowering buds are falling off the maples, covering the ground with a carpet of minuscule cups; petals in pinks and rosy reds rain down from the plums and crabapple trees; look carefully for the blue shells of robin's eggs cleaned out from nests. It is a more colorful, abundant, and soothing promise of life beginning again, life that cannot be stopped. 

Snowdrops have passed their time, as has maple sugaring and the first robins; now there are the warblers migrating back, thousands of them passing through at night, headed for summer homes. Go look for them, they are tiny but spilling over with song; chickadees, which stay winter long, are yelling their heads off, nipping at bugs and buds. Lilacs are opening, their rare perfume here for only a short moment. It is busy, this spring. The hardships of winter are folded away like mittens and woolen scarves, not thought of until October frosts return. For now, it is green shoots and mouse-eared leaves.

Crack a window open, to let the cool night air spill over the sill as you sleep, to breathe in the exhalations of the new grass as dreams run over fresh ground, happily digging in with long-legged strides through soft meadows. The constellation of Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, is above with Ursa Minor, the Little Dipper its fainter companion. Follow the line formed by the Big Dipper's ladle and you will come to the tail end of the Little Dipper's handle; this is Polaris, the North Star.

Sleep well, paddle your night coracle through the flowing Milky Way, sweep stars from your path, and catch the little fish that elude time and memory.

Alphonse the Tree

We lived in a house made of stone, the secret being the walls were double thick; a layer of rectangular-cut blocks layered over what only could be called boulders. The house came at a cheap price, as some of the iron rods holding the two layers together had let go, allowing the south side of the house to develop a bulge, the stone blocks heaving away from the inner wall. It was scary, who knows how long it had taken to develop, but architectural consensus gave the outcome of an exploding stone bomb waiting for a heavy truck to go by to jostle things along. 

Years passed, it was repaired by a stonemason who knew his business well; this is how I was able to see the amount and size of the immense rocks taken out of the opened wall and numbered. The house was stabilized, and became a loved place to live. Not that it wasn't prior to repair, it was one of those circumstances of walking in to view the place and feeling a tide, a current pulling you to home. 

I scraped windows that had been painted shut and learned how to tie the cast iron weights with rope around pulleys, allowing them to open and stay up without being propped. The original part of the building had been constructed in 1860, and the story goes that it was a central location for farmers to bring produce, hence the double stone to keep things cooler. In 1904, it was purchased and made into a residential house, with a kitchen, dining area, and pantry added onto the back. Echoes of past life permeated its bones; I still have a slug that I dug out of a door, and some of the square-headed nails used for the first roof.

Brian, our boy, loved the house, and one day brought home a tree seedling, growing in a cut-off milk carton from school.  He was ten, in fifth grade, and took care of his little tree which took hold and was transplanted into a regular pot at first, and then to an honored place in the front yard. He named it Alphonse.  

Life changed and the house was sold, but the tree, a honey locust, grew tall; it was a part of my son still attached to a home he had loved. He visited the tree whenever he came back into town with a slow drive down the street, introducing his wife and daughter to the memory. This year, this time, it was different.

"They cut the tree down, must have just happened; there are still wood chips in the front yard". It wasn't our property or our tree any more, things are transient and learning to accept them is a part of growing up. But here I am, even at my grown age, feeling a small pang of loss.  What my son feels is considerably more, a further good bye to a small mark that he put on the earth. 

Who knows what happened; there was a whipping wind storm a couple of weeks ago, the tree may have snapped or been too damaged.  I can't imagine any other reason for a tree that the newer people lived with for years to be taken down mid-winter. Did the roots damage underground pipes, were the tiny leaves clogging gutters? All conjecture, none of that matters, truly. All in all, Alphonse the tree lived for almost 32 seasons of leafing out in spring, sleeping in winter.  

Letting go is one of the best things that one can do; not to forget, but to release tethers that keep you in one spot. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, be kind, don't hurt others. Guess that's my best unasked for advice. Other things to care for will come and go, to exist in memory as a blanket against the tirade of stress and pressure. Yes, they will. I promise, and I never make promises.

Sleep; the dark nights of frost create a yearning to huddle and hibernate. Finnegan the Orange One is meowing for the bedtime snack to be revealed, city lights from my window travel in rows, outlining streets and spires. Make good things happen, fling open windows and breathe the clear, cold January air. Sleep well and deeply, the boat of dreams calls, sail among the stars. Good night.