Cut Light

A chilly morning and reasonable temperatures again. The sun is trying to break free from high clouds bisecting the sky into white and blue, but they lurk in the southern half, blocking its way. Out my back window I could be farther north for the spruce trees reaching into the sky and filling my view. A white and a Norway, content in their 40-50 year growing places, harkening back to mid-century, after the world war, when coffers were flush and Americans retreated to their protected hovels and houses and built fences and planted trees and stopped asking hard questions of their government. That history has been witnessed by these silent sentries, a world transformed, a culture, fully materialized, consumption, replacing political freedoms and civic pride with acquisition of more stuff, empty promises of meaning through wealth. There is a murmur underneath the great roar of commerce, questions shooting in from every side. Is this the true path of life? Are these the values that we intend to live for, perhaps die for, fight for and protect? Who has won in this dawning century? Has the poison of greed and self-interest completely consumed the better nature of human kindness and generosity? I am not innocent myself, feeling less than generous toward those I perceive as misguided, toward the great mass of corrupted men and women, even, at times toward neighbors and friends. It is difficult to stand like sentries, to merely witness the changes and not feel moved to push back. When do we break? When do we flourish anew?

I notice three species of oak growing within ten feet of where I sit in this urbanized settled little town of Maynard. Here, where earth has been filled and packed, where a century of lead paint has drained into the ground, trucks have driven, buildings have have been built and removed, not once, but twice. Where smoke and soot and pesticides and hebicides have been dumped, three species of oak stand tall, taking their place in my landscape. Reminding us all. Challenging us to remember.