Posts Tagged ‘peace’

Spring clean up time, the stones are washed and repaired from tippage of moles and frost. Washing them off to the sparkly freshness on a warming spring day made me think about the duck prints between the stones. Is it right that my ducks (who gift me daily now with very good eggs) walk on the memorial day after day? Should I try finding funds to fence the entire circle of the Labyrinth?

What do the ducks mean to me? They give me eggs, a wonderfully domestic and nurturing sensation—a fresh egg for breakfast. And waddle-footing it round the back yard, eating slugs and bugs and quacking, they are very entertaining. As we worked there on Sunday, removing grass from an area, tilling it and planting a no-mowing-needed lawn substitute, they were companionable. They would run up, close as three feet to investigate the newly turned soil as I moved rocks away. Their soft little ducky murmurs made me feel warm and relaxed in spite of an aching back. What do the ducks mean to me? They mean a home, peace, plenty, serenity.

So, what does the Labyrinth mean to me? It means honoring the dead of the current wars. It means missing the fallen and grieving for their families whose homes have suffered a shattering loss. It means wishing Iraq could again have peace, and plenty and serene homes—-all the things the ducks symbolize and embody for me.

So, yes, suddenly I am alright with the ducks patrolling the Walk of the Fallen. Maybe by some sympathetic magic, the things they give to me will filter into the stones I walk with names of the dead (at least eight more this week alone). When that energy swirls as I do so, and I pour my libations at the central stone, perhaps something besides my grief and anger will be directed, maybe some of that ducky peace and feathery comfort will go with my words?

The morning was white, lichen and moss on the trees comes out looking like neon lime on days like this.  Yesterday was sunny and the temperature climbed into the fifties, which sent us out on the motorcycle on roads not glazed with ice.  But after a warmer day, there is always the fog at dawn.

So, walking my dog in a color coordinated landscape this morning was an oddly harmonious experience.  He is white and dense, and so was the fog around us.  Trees loom out, moisture frozen on the limbs.  The tall marsh grass is wheat yellow with an overlay of white.  Even the returning birds are subdued and silent this morning.  It is a holiday, so there are no school buses and reduced traffic back on the main road.  The water in the pond is intensely black in contrast to the white and gold world.

Before me is a broken gate, on one of the rare raised spots off the road where you can walk into the field beyond without getting immersed to the knee in the watery ditch.  It is, of course, private property.  But I look around at the expanse of fog, the yellow white grass beckoning to me like Rumplestilzkin’s gold and just can’t resist.  There is no house here, not any more and nobody will see me in this fog—my gray Army sweats are perfect fog camouflage.  Through the gate we go.

Jayne hangs back, peculiar behavior for my big Pyr clown—-he has never been taken “off road” here before and looks at me as if I have taken leave of my senses.  He is patently uneasy.  I on the other hand, wish I was walking without him.  I’d like to stay here.  The fog, although cold on my face, seems like an insulation from painful reality of newscasts and headlines.  The blades of tall marsh grass, brushing my face, have a soft and caressing sound and they smell good.

The blackberry thicket still holds a few green and grizzled looking leaves, soon new shoots will spring out and there will be blossoms.  The tree branches look brighter, the buds swelling in toasty shades of red-brown.  The peace of winter is almost over, illusory  as it really is.  The quiet of winter—no lawn mowers, no weed whackers, fewer dogs out of doors, will soon be shattered with spring noise.  Leaf blowers, garden tillers, stereos blaring from open windows will soon rule the sound world of my neighborhood.  “Breaking news!” will blast out of open garage doors and there will be no momentary escape from the world.

So, this morning I walked into at least nominally forbidden territory, in the fog and frost—-barely allowing myself long enough to feel it.  Oh, that grass the color of gold, like my hair as a girl, like the wheat fields of my birth state!  And the soft white fog, like falling into a cloud from 30,000 feet, swirling round me like embracing ghosts of better days!  I didn’t really dare linger in Winter’s Fairy Hill, or I might not have come back at all.  I wanted to drop the dog’s leash and lie down in that lost-maize-crayon color, to dream forever, while tears froze on my cheeks.  The fog still calls, outside my white window, White Siren of luminous liminality!

Jayne walked home with rare dispatch, as if he feared that secret world of winter rest that could seduce me away from laundry and duty.  But then, my computer agrees with him, my spell check insists that “liminality” should be the word “Criminality.”  I suppose it is wrong that that makes me feel even less detered?