Joe's Swing

A few days ago, we were, as usual, out in the woods. I pointed to some stuff floating down the creek and asked John, “Do you remember what those are?”

“Sycamore seeds!” he said. He has had a lot of fun picking up the seed balls and separating the seeds to scatter them on the wind or water.

I suppose there are some standards for good poetry. But in the end, I think it comes down to what you like. Or maybe what strikes you, what resonates with your own experience. So, I have shared with you before how one cold, snowy morning I was hunting Charlie Wilson’s farm in Robertson County. I trudged up the hill, found my spot, settled in and waited. Sunrise came and I had not seen anything. But the day was not lost at least; Three crows were in a cedar tree next to me and they all flew away at once with loud “caws”, beating of wings and a spray of snow. I didn’t see a deer, but I comforted myself that I got that close to the crows. Or maybe they just didn’t care. Anyhoo, it brought to mind a short poem by Robert Frost that I used to love only for it’s tight structure. But now I love it because it described something I now knew:

The way a crow shook down on me

A dust of snow from a hemlock tree

Has given my heart a change of mood

And saved a part of a day I’d rued

There’s another Frost poem that has spoken to me, “Birches.” When I was a kid, I loved nothing better than to go to my grandparents’ house. It was out in the country, and I loved the solitude. Me and an old border collie and whatever adventures we might cook up. You had to make your own games.

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter, darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging them doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice storms do. . . .

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter of fact about the ice storm,

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

On the day that John and I were looking at sycamore seeds, I heard Joseph laughing downstream. I looked and it seemed he was floating in mid-air! He had found a vine draped over a tree branch in such a way that he could sit on it and swing.

Now, we don’t live too far from town to learn baseball, or to have toys. But there is something important about being surprised, being open to what might come along if you’re looking, or if you’re open to what it means to be in the right place at the right time.

Not only did the poem come back because Joe had some play he found himself, but also because I found myself in the poet’s voice, nostalgically wanting there to be boys who are outside, doing something besides watching tv or playing video games. Boys who come running when one of them says he’s found a snake.

We went hiking Saturday at Taylorsville Lake. After our brief snack we went to the tailwater and saw all kinds of people fishing. The boys definitely want to fish, so I got them rods and they practiced casting. Unlucky for them, I am not much of a fisherman. I like it, but am no good at it. So we’ll see.