EASTERN SHORE HOME

I stay on the Eastern Shore
because the geese migrate here

Year after year
their flying shadows 
their moves
settle my doubts

wet days of spring, hot days of summer

We are the passerbyes

the accidental tourists

They, the geese are the people. 

Eastern Shore Wetlands

Yesterday I drove south, looking for a destination. Vaguely imagining the Atlantic Ocean, the beaches of Virginia, the ponies of Assateague and Chincoteague.

Instead, I turned right on to the old route 50, then south of Vienna, still in Maryland.

Endless Monsanto-Bayer driven corn and soy to feed the "world"

Then

a long narrow ditch of lotus flowers, frogs and dragonflies...

Out of nowhere

I crossed an old, noisy and narrow wooden bridge.  Only saw one man on a lawn tractor mowing down the edge. Waved at him, Eastern Shore like. He waved back.

The waters belong to the Nanticoke River, to the lower shore, to the Chesapeake Bay.

Retracing my steps, I find Route 50, then Route 192, south from Vienna, Maryland, then Henry’s Cross Road, west on Griffith’s Neck and a bit on Bestpitch Ferry Road…

Eastern Shore Bay Marshes.

A destination for sure.

THE GEESE

I stay in the Eastern Shore because the geese migrate here.

 

Year after year, their flying shadows settle my doubts of earlier
wet days of spring, the heat of summer.

As I approach and suffer the assault of high frequency screeches,

my tolerance nearly quits on me.

Excited and riled up by my presence,
they are like potent neon lights focused on my hearing.
Their incessant talk remind me of village markets in foreign places,
constant din of conversations, calling out for goods,
haggling for better prices.

They dance toward each other, retreat, advance

"Hello, how are you, I lost track of you up in Maine. Glad to see you.
There is a PREDATOR there. WATCH OUT!"

My arrival at the shore with the dogs creates

an immediate flurry of movement.
A large v-shape of water in front of us clears. 
Noisily explaining our presence,
they split into formal dance troupes.

Ripples shimmer the surface

as I stand there quietly,

the dogs enthralled, and a bit afraid. 

The geese begin to regain their distance

and soon, in synchrony,
the gap is bridged.  

For hours, we watch their dance,

these armies dressed in brown
and white and black.

Not war like, not at all. 

More like assembly lines inside textile factories. 
The acrid odor of sizing sprayed on to every bolt
straight on to my teary eyes. 

Assembly lines of look alike,

brown and white and black
yarn floating back and forth, in motion on to belts.

Assembled colors in the weaving of the looms,

unending touch of texture in textiles.

Why humans cannot like their steady beauty?

Like deer, geese are a metaphor, a figure of speech
I do not particularly care to be accurate about,
or bother check in the dictionaries and annals of figures of speech. 

It is simply that geese, migratory or not,

just like deer,
remind me seriously that we are not getting it together
as maybe we should. 

As it stands, we are screwing up this place all to hell.

The geese talk, they exchange views.

All they are doing is meet again. 
Get back in touch after a journey four times more difficult,
than any journey either you or I have ever taken,
in a year. 

Longer than you and I imagine to travel,

this dimension of life. 

The geese have traveled.

They have stories to tell. 
They include us in their conversations,
as you and I come near.
They talk to us. 

You and I are passerbys,

the accidental tourists. 

They, the geese

are the people.

THE GREEN WHITE LINE

 

The Green White Line

It is strange to know how the search for (or the certainty of) this steady green brilliant line to the heart continues to keep some of us from going away on sojourn for good; continues to keep some of our hearts from breaking.

We’ve had unusual snow cover now for a couple of weeks. Our green line has turned to white lace and ice for now.  And again today we’ve had a rare raw cold and beautiful snow and wind day.

The geese are very quiet, holding together against the Northeaster that blows cold ice snow white across the copper gold tall grasses, toward the West against the Sun.  It is this stillness, this clear white boundary to copper grass movement – it is this wispy swaying gray of clouds of snow.

Old cars, junk, stored boats in their tight blue Winter wraps between me and the beauty, so I imagine.

And we make our boots into huge flat snow shoes so as to give our Wild Willie, the slow cat a chance to walk with us.  The six of us, me, you, Posho, Beans, Big Foot and slow Willie falling and trampling across the fields, enchanted by all this sculptured crackly white lace.  The green white line holds our hearts together for a while.

But soon the muddy footprints of deer, rabbit, dog, cat, bird and people alike start to set all nice feelings about snow and ice into a dirty semi-urban slushy nightmare, an ocean of mud without the benefit of concrete pavement.

There, in a nutshell, we are back to daylight, we are back to the Shore, we are back to this South.

 

Ew 2/3/2000 revisited 10/27/2013

Beneath the line

Remembering dead You, Posho, Beans, Big Foot and Wild Willie