By the shovelful

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

A letter to friends. First things first. Snow.

There really is no clearer demonstration of how rare it is to call something beautiful
that isn’t also dangerous. One of those unique instances nowadays
that’s impossible to argue with. I mean, look up. It’s that same cluttered,
pupil-shrinking prism for all of us. Weather.
And we fall under it.
What does that tell us?
The tilt of our wonderfully imperfect earth. The pull of the moon, pulled like a rib
from the belly of our world. The storied soil we work on and eat from and take on
yet cry and bemoan any opportunity or demand to give back. Which is inevitable.

It disrespects the dead to fear death this much.

That’s what winter is for. Every year, for a month, or a few, our planet tries to bury us.
Freeze us out. Toughen us up. Shed old leaves and dream and make plans for spring
staring longingly into fires as we listen for kettles to whistle
more eager than dogs do for dinner bells.

Wheels are not really ideal for snow.

Clothing becomes a form of shelter. As much home as one can carry worn like armor.
It can be the difference between a good day and that one day. Extra gloves. Dry socks.
Nature Valley bar. Lukewarm coffee.
It really is the little things that separate being outdoors from hell on earth.
Come equipped. Be stubborn about it. Dress in layers. Prepare for change.

A good nickname for winter. Change. Different.
Roll with the punches off a rolling earth.
Be buried up in ice and frozen rain and dig a way out.
By the shovelful. Claw with bare hands if you have to.

Show up.

A pretty titanic lesson that’s been working on me over the past year.
Which events of life am I truly willing to let deter me. Cold? Rain? Snow?
Were these elements not in the forecast when I set my plans. My intentions.
Yes. Of course they were.
These seasons have been forecast for millennia.
Put your boots on and play in them. Shovel out the drive and go adventuring.
Leave some tracks in something that was pristine when you first got there.
Perfect. Clean. And powder. Like paper. Put a story in it.
The greatest form of flattery is imitation.
So show winter it is not the only one of us who is willing to change.

Say to the earth, this is how I roll.
I, like you, stop for nothing.

North country. Water town.

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

The road glistens, like a mirror in some places, for the yellow trees above. With the window cracked, people listen to our music as they pass. Eavesdrop fragments of our conversation. Another sort of mirror. The words of other people when they think no one is listening. Rained all night. The road is glistening. Cars are ripping sheets of paper driving past. Shushing soggy leaves. Gone. Dry in one day of sunshine and dust rises from the dirt road. The whole landscape flushes like a commode, and weeks of rain does what water does best. It moves on. In autumn, leaves dream of being flowers and take on such vibrant colors, and petal upturned as they faint and fall in turn. Laying down carpet like middle aged men with stained rock hands.

It rains for days and the world never even thinks to apologize for it. Mean old world. Cold. Mouthy. Always tent flapping yapping black bird wing clapping branch snapping firelight and hot chocolate when you need it sappy. Sweet things. Mean words. Sour apologies turned sweet wine by time. North country. Water town. Rain cloud crowns. And cold upstate royalty. Hard ice loyalty. Turned summertime thaws. Winter snows. But rain falls. And roads glisten.
And the iron trees dress up in colors bright as flowers.

Born Ready

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

Nobody here was born ready. None of us came equipped,
or hit the ground running. Yet, you are here. I want to ask a question.
But I would like to invoke God first. Hey. You old God. Why is anybody afraid to die?
That’s why we all came here today. Isn’t it. The promise in baptism. Eternal life.
You don’t have to say it, I am too, so I’ll say it for you. I’m afraid.
Of what I feel. When I look at that child. I confess. I am terrified of true love.
That is how I know it is real. How I know to recognize it. Same as you. Old God.
Now that I think about it. Being in the presence of a higher power.
I know no greater terror.
And I just used a lot of words to say I am afraid of a baby.
That one. No teeth. No claws. Relatively small. Barely any hair.
Can’t move too well, or stand, or on his own, go anywhere.
He smells like purity. Right up until he doesn’t.
Only eats one thing, too much, and spits up.
And cries like a tomcat with a little juicy smile
sandwiched between his cheeks. You old God.

You did all this, I mean the miles that sit of great slippery glittery stepping stone
only eyes can step on, that big sopping wet lake, and the amount of land it takes
to call bodies of water like that lakes. And the scariest thing in the world
to me is that little precious lump right there?
Really buried the hook in that one, didn’t you.
It took every second of this much time for me to realize
just what we’re so afraid of losing to make us yearn this much for something
like making an eternal living. I see it, in his eyes.
How much it means, to us, to see our children baptized.

This love.
Wakes us up.
Like a splash of cold water.
Like becoming a father.
For the first time.
Nobody here was ready for it.
Not one of us came equipped to be a parent.
And yet, here we are.

What else is there to be afraid of?

A Thousand Lakes

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

The grass comes up so green. No thing here wants for water.
The mud goes down for feet. They’ll drink all summer.
Their roots will run deep. Scorched earth in black cattle trails
washed all around and throughout the trees. Seriously.
Ground as black as coal. Framed by fields of emerald.
Horse and buggy hugging the shoulder and the driver must be getting wet.
Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cup out front just barely see their breath
join the fog in the air. They were once newborns. Foal legs unfold and tremble.
They’ll grow old and get winded and these good Amish will relinquish
their ancient technology into the earth. Not today though.
Ninety seven minutes from home. And the barn.
The familiar stall. The straw. And the dusty pile of hay.
That good sweet oat mule grain. Seed of something green.
Drinking deep. In the land of a thousand lakes
and short tempered rivers.

Where the grass doesn’t want for anything.

Voiceless

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

Their eyes speak volumes.
Eyelashes turned up way too loud.
Milky white bleeds over onto the pupil.
That is how you know he can’t see you.
That. And the way his ears follow you across the room.
Which. When there’s animals in it. Is called a barn.

Little ones three to a stall.
No matter how small.
One of them
has to be
biggest.

What a perk. They let you eat first. She leaves two other pails just for us.
An orange and white tabby tearing at a frozen bird some other thing tried to eat yesterday. Reindeers wore their antlers bare. And I didn’t know, they don’t need so much water.
Because reindeer eat snow. And geese hiss like snakes. And donkeys crow.
The music mules make makes me believe this animal understands sympathy. And guilt.

The low. The rising raspy bellow. The arched head bowed down.
Salt peppered hay speckled crown. Makes me want to feed him again.

He knows this.

You know, it really isn’t voiceless.
Just because I don’t speak the language.

But when we listen through our eyes
we always strike some understanding.

Marbles

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

It is snowing in April. Last time I saw snow this late in the season I was a teenager. Hiking across Roan Mountain. We woke up in an old fire-watch cabin converted into a simple shelter. With a loft. It was the last weekend in April. Of course we had to sleep up top, and woke to snow on our sleeping bags. This time is a little different. I’m currently in my early thirties, toe rocking my two month old son, a sort of mountain all on his own, watching flurries of snow descend like white hot hornets in waves breaking before a double layered windowpane.

I’m not going to lie, I still woke up excited. Every time. I wake up and the world is clothed by the crusty white eyelid of winter. Whole great lakes lie like frozen teardrops, wind lashes dark tree filtered horizon. All that milk chocolate churned up by cream lipped waves, all along the shore like lips. Something about this temperamental weather lends itself to similes. Pardon me for not holding back. But the whole scene is like being inside a marble looking out.

And we were going to hike in it. Through it. Wind building its own structures out of snow, men and boys stomping over drifts three feet between trees in places. We climbed down onto the road in Carver’s Gap, which was completely frozen, and I ate it. All of it. Bit off so hard I actually cracked my Nalgene water bottle. You can ask anyone who was there. I was finished. In the moment, and for good, even though I hiked the next fifteen miles, I really didn’t. I was drug along in a sort of social stretcher formed of positive reinforcement and statement of base facts. I was rocked into stasis, and sustainable forward movement, by people who, in that moment, were far far more put together than I was.

It went from novelty to reality on that trip. Snow. Between here and there. Where I’m sitting now, under siege by an army of angry water in varying forms. Navy archers behind a cavalry of seething aqua and a tooth bearing beige wearing infantry up front, eating the shoreline foot by foot, entrenching and digging their way into this place. Where I am. Toe-rocking my own little Roan Mountain to sleep watching it snow this far into spring. Typing. Drinking black coffee.

Not as much as you might think has changed between then and now.

Mostly. I’m just not so surprised when a scene I was happy to wake up and see first thing eventually also makes me slip and fall.

There are a lot of experiences that are really quite dangerous.
That are also inexplicably, breathtakingly, treacherously.
Beautiful.

Now take your breath back. And brace yourself.
Marbles weren’t made just to be beautiful.

Pink Sun Rising

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

Auburn horizons with a purple tinge.
Fields of once white snow grow colored creme de la creme.
Cinnamon trees mixed in.
White lights slow strobe on distant radio towers.

And giant concrete straws blow bubbles of steam
in long trains that fade into brown clouds.

Snow soft as down falls apart in breath.
A foot or so of depth.
Ice layer beneath that.

From so much unexpected rain.

Dropped fifty degrees.
In the short course of a single day.

And the purple horizon.
The pink sun rises.
Signifies.

The rain intends to stay.

Bitter Fruit

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

The smell of cold. Dry. Sharp. A little sour white wine.
Whereas, usually, white wine is sweet. This winter is bitter.
Ice like bulletproof glass like stemware cupping all this snow
like a lightning slick bowl. Buried beneath flimsy bubbly
porous wine kept at the top of the refrigerator
too close to the freezer.

Chunky and slushy and heavy on the bottom with dirty foam on top.
Smell it. When you open the door. First thing.
The fuzzy insides of your nostrils stiffen.
Lungs have frosty fingers playing them like accordions.

Eyes sting.
Ears ring.
Cheeks are numb and lips become brittle.

Cold.
A season all on its own.
Icey disposition head buried in snow.

It is bitter weather.
It climbs into the fruit.
And it changes the flavor of the wine.

At another time, it could have been sweet.
But not this season. Too dry.
Just a thick sniff of it,
will freeze a tear to your eye.

New York: By Way of Storm

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

They were waiting on me to get here.
The wind.
The rain.
Soggy footsteps in dented grass.
Soldering tools.
Beer fridge.
Great lake licking shades that open by remote control.
An ambush.
A trap.
Set up in series like dominoes.
One begets the next and sets up the collapse of all the rest.
In good time.

Dog plastic clicks and floor rattles in battles against the inevitability we call gravity.
Laid in wait.
Mouth open.
Whisper breathing.
Eyes hungry and open.
As I enter a scene.
Well orchestrated and rehearsed.
All except for the part I play. Of course.
An unwitting fool. A chicken dinner.
Which goes against the oven roasted golden brown rule.

Be nobody’s chicken dinner.

If you intend to make a meal of me, you will only get thinner.
This wind blown rain spotted weather.

The long flat roads framed in soaked farmland and fresh water harbors.
Seabirds lost in lake mist and island peppered distance.
Trip wires in thinning choirs and cold church Sunday morning.
Broken boilers.
Daylight spoilers.
Cows feet caked in mud and old men with blond ponytails down their backs.

Poised.
For the attack.
Growing tired of waiting.
But now that I am here.

No one is waiting anymore.

Took New York by storm.
And it hasn’t quit since.

Or something

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

And why is the sky so often that color?
Like a cross between tomato and pumpkin or something.
Is it city lights blended into cloud laden snow choked night.
Or the moon. Low. Around six thirty. I hope.
Might surprise me just how bright it is still this early.
At the very edge of the Tug Hill Plateau.
Tugged along hundreds of miles
and laid heavy into rest right here.

At the western edge of Adirondacks.

Fizzled out and given away a long time ago
to the broken banks of the lucrative Ontario.
Thick. Weighted. Snow. Clouds.
Hold on to color.
Could be from anywhere.
Could be light left behind by yesterday.

Still stirring
in the swollen bellies
of yesterday’s snow.