Some quick notes:
Someone turned five on Monday! No party this year; just cupcakes with co-op.
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| This was from a hike we took the other day at the end of the kids' Spring Break. We were looking for the superbloom but wanted to avoid crowds. We saw a few patches of wild mustard flowering and some random pink flowers. There are poppies planted along the highways, and some pretty blooms along our own coastal walk, so I'm not sorry we didn't drive out to the desert with the crowds. Or maybe just a little sorry. |
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| Sycamore Canyon hike |
Lest we give too much thought to celebrating, I have also been finishing up all of our financial obligations - the last three things are three CSS profiles. You would think the College Board would allow you to submit one file per family, but I have to fill it out for each college student. Same thing with the FAFSA. I also waited until April to file taxes - five sets this year. plus seven state tax forms because of the kids making money in different states. Now I'm facing the April 15 deadlines. Most of the taxes I do for free online, but California has the most complicated tax forms, and I didn't want to pay to file a second state tax, so I did it myself on a pdf. I'll pay next year.
And classes have been rolling along. I had a heck of a time grading papers on Walden. A good chunk of them were excessively vague and/or redundant. They took me a while to grade because I couldn't figure out what they were about. I think when I put "collegiate level diction" as a criterion in the rubric, some students thought it would be a good idea to look up words in the thesaurus and sprinkle them through their papers. Or perhaps they didn't read past page 9 in Thoreau's book, so they had to make some guesses about the rest of the book. I just know it took me much longer to grade than it should have.
Track season is also underway. I am again helping with middle school track, even though I was going to take a break this year. After today's practice, I may go into early retirement after all. Perhaps the moon is full or something, but these kids had a lot of energy. Except for running. They did not want to run. Parents, if your kids don't like to run, please sign them up for something like swimming or tennis. Golf, maybe. But not track.
By the first week of May, life will slow down considerably - track will end, college will end, our pre-school co-op will end, religious ed will end, all the financial aid documents will be submitted, and I can catch up on sleep again.
Until then, here are poems about wild geese that we read in class. We don't see a lot of wild geese here, although we do host wild parrots who nest here this time of year. Occasionally I will see some visiting waterfowl on the bay, but I don't think I have seen any Canada geese, which are what I picture when I read these poems, although the exact kind of wild geese are never noted. Thoreau also talks about the geese coming and going from Walden Pond. The second two poems were written by Mary Oliver and W. S. Merwin, authors who passed away this year. May Wendell Berry write for a few more years yet, or at least be a pillar reminding us where we stand.
The Wild Geese
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
From Selected Poems of Wendell Berry,
by Wendell Berry. Copyright 1998 by Wendell Berry. With permission of author and Counterpoint Press, a member of Perseus Book Group. https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/go-local/poetry-by-wendell-berry
The Wild Geese
It was always for the animals that I grieved most
for the animals I had seen and for those
I had only heard of or dreamed about
or seen in cages or lying beside the roadfor those forgotten and those long remembered
for the lost ones that were never found againamong people there were words we all knew
even if we did not say them and although
they were always inadequate when we said them
they were there if we wanted them when the time came
with the animals always there was only
presence as long as it was present and then
only absence suddenly and no word for it
in all the great written wisdom of China
where are the animals when were they lost
where are the ancestors who knew the way
without them all wise words are bits of sand
twitching on the dunes where the forests
once whispered in their echoing ancient tongue
and the animals knew their way among the trees
only in the old poems does their presence survive
the gibbons call from the mountain gorges
the old words all deepen the great absence
the vastness of all that has been lost
it is still there when the poet in exile
looks up long ago hearing the voices
of wild geese far above him flying home
for the animals I had seen and for those
I had only heard of or dreamed about
or seen in cages or lying beside the roadfor those forgotten and those long remembered
for the lost ones that were never found againamong people there were words we all knew
even if we did not say them and although
they were always inadequate when we said them
they were there if we wanted them when the time came
with the animals always there was only
presence as long as it was present and then
only absence suddenly and no word for it
in all the great written wisdom of China
where are the animals when were they lost
where are the ancestors who knew the way
without them all wise words are bits of sand
twitching on the dunes where the forests
once whispered in their echoing ancient tongue
and the animals knew their way among the trees
only in the old poems does their presence survive
the gibbons call from the mountain gorges
the old words all deepen the great absence
the vastness of all that has been lost
it is still there when the poet in exile
looks up long ago hearing the voices
of wild geese far above him flying home
— W.S. Merwin, from his forthcoming book Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). Copyright © 2016 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission of the publishers, www.coppercanyonpress.org. https://merwinconservancy.org/2016/09/the-wild-geese-by-w-s-merwin/
Wild Geese by Mary OliverYou do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain / are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.
https://onbeing.org/blog/mary-oliver-reads-wild-geese/
