Florence Chard Dacey
Writings from Various Authors
Hawk
Creek By Michael
Groothuis
Hawk Creek flows on the southern edge of the community in which I was raised. That creek flows into the Minnesota River somewhere. Interestingly enough, I have never seen where that occurs. A tributary of Hawk Creek was a little drainage ditch, which we called Little Hawk Creek.
Little Hawk Creek divided our property in two. The southern bank was as tame and civilized as the northern bank was uncivilized with wild plums and gnarled old roots growing out of the ground ready to trip someone who dared to cross the bridge to enter this land. To a five year old the forest on the northern side was dense with little light filtering through the vegetation. In the winter odd footprints would abound in the freshly fallen snow. From the tame side my brothers and I would nervously gaze across the divide and wonder what animals had made those prints and why they hadn’t visited our side.
Little Hawk Creek was vastly different each season. In the winter it created cover and places to hide and play. In the spring new birds would be chirping and waiting for their mothers to share the food. Mother cats would take their young and teach them to hunt. It was a schoolhouse of learning for all the new animals. The rabbits would play on the banks, finally able to find a source of food after a harsh winter. My brothers and I could shed our heavy winter coats and frolic along with the animals, discovering new things and rediscovering the old.
In the summer we would take our toy trucks and create a community along the bank. Large mansions and farms would dot the countryside. This spot was safe until a summer storm would bring torrential floods that would wipe out our community. We would rebuild and enjoy the challenge we had against nature.
In the autumn the vibrant colors of the trees were a welcomed relief after a hot summer. The air was crisp as we continued our play.
The creek is still there, but as an adult the forest is not as dense. At my last visit years ago came the realization that the footprints I saw as a child were from normal animals; rabbits, cats and dogs. The little island that I used as a reading sanctuary was no longer inviting. The bridge that my dad made was rotten and had fallen into the creek.
I was glad my memories of this magical world were still vivid and with a little imagination I could return to the life of a five year old.
Hawk Creek flows on the southern edge of the community in which I was raised. That creek flows into the Minnesota River somewhere. Interestingly enough, I have never seen where that occurs. A tributary of Hawk Creek was a little drainage ditch, which we called Little Hawk Creek.
Little Hawk Creek divided our property in two. The southern bank was as tame and civilized as the northern bank was uncivilized with wild plums and gnarled old roots growing out of the ground ready to trip someone who dared to cross the bridge to enter this land. To a five year old the forest on the northern side was dense with little light filtering through the vegetation. In the winter odd footprints would abound in the freshly fallen snow. From the tame side my brothers and I would nervously gaze across the divide and wonder what animals had made those prints and why they hadn’t visited our side.
Little Hawk Creek was vastly different each season. In the winter it created cover and places to hide and play. In the spring new birds would be chirping and waiting for their mothers to share the food. Mother cats would take their young and teach them to hunt. It was a schoolhouse of learning for all the new animals. The rabbits would play on the banks, finally able to find a source of food after a harsh winter. My brothers and I could shed our heavy winter coats and frolic along with the animals, discovering new things and rediscovering the old.
In the summer we would take our toy trucks and create a community along the bank. Large mansions and farms would dot the countryside. This spot was safe until a summer storm would bring torrential floods that would wipe out our community. We would rebuild and enjoy the challenge we had against nature.
In the autumn the vibrant colors of the trees were a welcomed relief after a hot summer. The air was crisp as we continued our play.
The creek is still there, but as an adult the forest is not as dense. At my last visit years ago came the realization that the footprints I saw as a child were from normal animals; rabbits, cats and dogs. The little island that I used as a reading sanctuary was no longer inviting. The bridge that my dad made was rotten and had fallen into the creek.
I was glad my memories of this magical world were still vivid and with a little imagination I could return to the life of a five year old.
Ballooning the River
Valley by Kim
Sander
The rustle of fabric, unrolling and spreading
Grunting, groaning while lifting and tugging
Heat and flames warming bright faces
Dragon roaring as the envelope lifts
Laughing and aahhhing, heavenward bound
Gliding and quiet, soaring with wonder
Treetops dancing, ribbons of road,
Dogs barking, cows lowing...dream making
The river below us, winding and flowing
Balloon reflection, sparkling and growing
Splashing and dashing, watering our shoes
Giggling, dripping, the basket again lifting
Rising slowly, rippling reflection shrinking
Picking leaves from the treetops, tickling the tassels
Floating with ease, searching for landing
Touching down softly, smiling in awe...mission accomplished!
The rustle of fabric, unrolling and spreading
Grunting, groaning while lifting and tugging
Heat and flames warming bright faces
Dragon roaring as the envelope lifts
Laughing and aahhhing, heavenward bound
Gliding and quiet, soaring with wonder
Treetops dancing, ribbons of road,
Dogs barking, cows lowing...dream making
The river below us, winding and flowing
Balloon reflection, sparkling and growing
Splashing and dashing, watering our shoes
Giggling, dripping, the basket again lifting
Rising slowly, rippling reflection shrinking
Picking leaves from the treetops, tickling the tassels
Floating with ease, searching for landing
Touching down softly, smiling in awe...mission accomplished!
The
Mighty Minnesota River by Sharon Sannerud
Beauty of our river prevails in many ways,
Diamonds sparkling as they skip across the river top,
Circles forming, beckoning as a fish teases below,
Mighty, I say, reflecting ice jams causing floods,
people scurrying around preparing for the swift,
swirling, loud rustle of the mighty river.
Beauty in watching friends and strangers work together
to save our town, using hands, or any strength they can share
whether by body or words of comfort to brace us for what
beholds us unknowingly, the mighty frozen chunks of ice
will break loose and the river will rise soon in the silence
of the dark, ghostly night with only a small beam of light to see
Beauty returns as the warm sun rises in the early days of April,
Fright from the frigid ice jams now clinging to the trees
One must look past the frightening night and see the beauty,
Beauty one might ask, beauty of the frozen ice clinging to the trees
in many different sharp pointed glistening art forms
Our mighty river has finally given way to more peaceful days knowing
the worst is past, but we must always respect our beautiful but forceful, mighty river when it thinks it is time for another awakening
of friends and strangers to meet once again.
Beauty of our river prevails in many ways,
Diamonds sparkling as they skip across the river top,
Circles forming, beckoning as a fish teases below,
Mighty, I say, reflecting ice jams causing floods,
people scurrying around preparing for the swift,
swirling, loud rustle of the mighty river.
Beauty in watching friends and strangers work together
to save our town, using hands, or any strength they can share
whether by body or words of comfort to brace us for what
beholds us unknowingly, the mighty frozen chunks of ice
will break loose and the river will rise soon in the silence
of the dark, ghostly night with only a small beam of light to see
Beauty returns as the warm sun rises in the early days of April,
Fright from the frigid ice jams now clinging to the trees
One must look past the frightening night and see the beauty,
Beauty one might ask, beauty of the frozen ice clinging to the trees
in many different sharp pointed glistening art forms
Our mighty river has finally given way to more peaceful days knowing
the worst is past, but we must always respect our beautiful but forceful, mighty river when it thinks it is time for another awakening
of friends and strangers to meet once again.
How
Can You Own the River, Gaga? By Sarah Archbold
“How can you own the river, Gaga?” my grandson asks on an afternoon when the sun warms our faces, but the annoying hum of mosquitoes has not yet begun. We sit together in the long-suffering chairs, a bit mossy and creaky-jointed after winters of piled snow and spring flooding. He carefully placed them here three years ago among the canary reed grasses and false sunflower at the damp most edge of the riverbank. We have just finished mulching a curving path to our secret meeting place among the reeds and flowers that still grow taller than he. Soon they will be undulating and nodding their golden heads in summer winds that blow even here in the shelter of the bank. For now, though, it is still and pungent as the reeds push up through damp ground. How does one own a river, I think trying to muster my child wisdom and the literal logic of a seven-year-old mind.
I live in a largish small town through which the Redwood River winds like an errant strand of yarn. Gaga is the name my grandson gave me at seven months, and it stuck. Now at seven years, he still uses the name, I think, because he knows it pleases me. We have been discussing the property boundaries of my little sanctuary on the river for the construction of our path. I tell him about my abstract and how it reads that my property line is at the center of the river. And so, the question: “How can you own the river, Gaga?” A fair question, I think.
Head back in my weathered Adirondack, lured into reverie by a small boy’s question and the golden ripples of trapped sunlight, I begin to count my river treasure as Midas must have counted his gold before me. More than the gold of sunflower and ripple, there are the brilliant rubies of metallically clicking cardinals, feeding one another in the rapture of bird love or in the warning of innocent offspring about the inherent dangers of feral cats and pouncing puppies. I remember one pair that called for an hour to their injured young one still warm, heart still beating through fragile skin when I discovered it. It broke my heart to hear them calling and calling. I took my spade and the now cold baby to the riverbank to bury it in their sight. It would not be alone on this riverbank, joining as it was with Mr. Frog, my grandson’s three unlucky koi hit by an early freeze on the pond, and seven tiny turtles crushed by construction equipment in the street. The parents mourned over it another fifteen minutes then were gone. But my rubies returned to me the following summer with a new brood of innocents, and I am honored they would choose to call this home. The experience counts as a real treasure in what I learned about love and the nature of my world.
The baby turtles did not have such a loving mother to mourn their passing, and also broke my heart. But I learned another sweet lesson about nature—this time of the human sort. I waited for “coffee break” to pick up the seven for burial so that the sun-browned workers in wife-beater t-shirts wouldn’t see this soft-headed woman picking up little turtle pancakes in the torn-up street. But one saw, and this burly construction worker in yellow hard-hat patrolled the boulevards on both sides throughout the afternoon, watching for tiny adventurers scaling concrete cliffs and lush grass forests in their quest for life on the river. That worker is counted as one of my river treasures, as well.
Life does keep moving on in this sanctuary on the Redwood. Baby blue jays, my little sapphires, peer inquisitively at me from the upper branches of the maple tree. I have had mourning doves sit in rapt stillness, watching as friends moved through a tai chi form in the backyard. Perhaps they sensed the energy we shared with each other and the nearby river, for as soon as we finished, they flew off. I released a nosy possum once from a live trap intended for a feral cat whom I do not welcome here. I carried the cage to the riverbank and opened the door, where he quickly scurried into the hollow black willow as if that had always been his home. There are a number of us creatures here who make that claim. The possum is joined by raccoons, an occasional beaver, chickadees, downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers, nuthatches, goldfinches, flickers, wood ducks and sparrows. Because of these, of course, we are frequently visited by a sharp-shinned hawk. How can I dislike this silly fellow who once saluted me with an orange talon as if to say, “I’ll only take one or two. You’ll hardly miss them at the feeder.”
There are other not so frequent visitors. These little transients follow the river to my backyard like hoboes once followed the rails. “Hey, lady, can you spare a light meal and a nice roosting spot until I am on my way again?” They come in droves before morning light. I delight at the first “Poor Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” whistled out my bedroom window. I know the white-throated sparrows have found their way to me again this year. I can look out my bedroom window some mornings and see the bright yellows and greens of migrating warblers flitting quickly and tirelessly from branch to branch as if the trees and shrubs had suddenly burst into flickering facets of emeralds and twenty-four carat gold.
When my grandson was very little, we would circle round and round the mulberry bush like the monkey and the weasel. Now that he is all of seven we harvest the bumpy mulberries from trees the birds have planted in the fertile soil of the riverbank. Some pop into his mouth until he becomes a bit of a purple monster. Most are cooked into our famous tangy jelly and lined up on the counter in sparkling rows of amethyst and sweet memory.
No, Kofi, I cannot own the river, hurrying by as it is now in springtime or poking along as it will be by late summer. It will always keep incessantly moving toward the Minnesota, the Mississippi and finally out to sea. In counting up our river treasures, however, I know we will never experience the regret and disillusionment that Midas did. Our treasures are mounting in memory banks, not financial ones. Some may seem silly. What possible good can it do flat turtles to be returned to their environment? Yet, somehow we honor turtlehood by not leaving them to be pounded into the dust. In honoring turtlehood, symbol of Earth Mother, we honor riverdom, as well. I cannot own the river, but with you along side me in our secret meeting place among the reeds, it is safe to say that the river—our river—is in full possession of me.
“How can you own the river, Gaga?” my grandson asks on an afternoon when the sun warms our faces, but the annoying hum of mosquitoes has not yet begun. We sit together in the long-suffering chairs, a bit mossy and creaky-jointed after winters of piled snow and spring flooding. He carefully placed them here three years ago among the canary reed grasses and false sunflower at the damp most edge of the riverbank. We have just finished mulching a curving path to our secret meeting place among the reeds and flowers that still grow taller than he. Soon they will be undulating and nodding their golden heads in summer winds that blow even here in the shelter of the bank. For now, though, it is still and pungent as the reeds push up through damp ground. How does one own a river, I think trying to muster my child wisdom and the literal logic of a seven-year-old mind.
I live in a largish small town through which the Redwood River winds like an errant strand of yarn. Gaga is the name my grandson gave me at seven months, and it stuck. Now at seven years, he still uses the name, I think, because he knows it pleases me. We have been discussing the property boundaries of my little sanctuary on the river for the construction of our path. I tell him about my abstract and how it reads that my property line is at the center of the river. And so, the question: “How can you own the river, Gaga?” A fair question, I think.
Head back in my weathered Adirondack, lured into reverie by a small boy’s question and the golden ripples of trapped sunlight, I begin to count my river treasure as Midas must have counted his gold before me. More than the gold of sunflower and ripple, there are the brilliant rubies of metallically clicking cardinals, feeding one another in the rapture of bird love or in the warning of innocent offspring about the inherent dangers of feral cats and pouncing puppies. I remember one pair that called for an hour to their injured young one still warm, heart still beating through fragile skin when I discovered it. It broke my heart to hear them calling and calling. I took my spade and the now cold baby to the riverbank to bury it in their sight. It would not be alone on this riverbank, joining as it was with Mr. Frog, my grandson’s three unlucky koi hit by an early freeze on the pond, and seven tiny turtles crushed by construction equipment in the street. The parents mourned over it another fifteen minutes then were gone. But my rubies returned to me the following summer with a new brood of innocents, and I am honored they would choose to call this home. The experience counts as a real treasure in what I learned about love and the nature of my world.
The baby turtles did not have such a loving mother to mourn their passing, and also broke my heart. But I learned another sweet lesson about nature—this time of the human sort. I waited for “coffee break” to pick up the seven for burial so that the sun-browned workers in wife-beater t-shirts wouldn’t see this soft-headed woman picking up little turtle pancakes in the torn-up street. But one saw, and this burly construction worker in yellow hard-hat patrolled the boulevards on both sides throughout the afternoon, watching for tiny adventurers scaling concrete cliffs and lush grass forests in their quest for life on the river. That worker is counted as one of my river treasures, as well.
Life does keep moving on in this sanctuary on the Redwood. Baby blue jays, my little sapphires, peer inquisitively at me from the upper branches of the maple tree. I have had mourning doves sit in rapt stillness, watching as friends moved through a tai chi form in the backyard. Perhaps they sensed the energy we shared with each other and the nearby river, for as soon as we finished, they flew off. I released a nosy possum once from a live trap intended for a feral cat whom I do not welcome here. I carried the cage to the riverbank and opened the door, where he quickly scurried into the hollow black willow as if that had always been his home. There are a number of us creatures here who make that claim. The possum is joined by raccoons, an occasional beaver, chickadees, downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers, nuthatches, goldfinches, flickers, wood ducks and sparrows. Because of these, of course, we are frequently visited by a sharp-shinned hawk. How can I dislike this silly fellow who once saluted me with an orange talon as if to say, “I’ll only take one or two. You’ll hardly miss them at the feeder.”
There are other not so frequent visitors. These little transients follow the river to my backyard like hoboes once followed the rails. “Hey, lady, can you spare a light meal and a nice roosting spot until I am on my way again?” They come in droves before morning light. I delight at the first “Poor Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” whistled out my bedroom window. I know the white-throated sparrows have found their way to me again this year. I can look out my bedroom window some mornings and see the bright yellows and greens of migrating warblers flitting quickly and tirelessly from branch to branch as if the trees and shrubs had suddenly burst into flickering facets of emeralds and twenty-four carat gold.
When my grandson was very little, we would circle round and round the mulberry bush like the monkey and the weasel. Now that he is all of seven we harvest the bumpy mulberries from trees the birds have planted in the fertile soil of the riverbank. Some pop into his mouth until he becomes a bit of a purple monster. Most are cooked into our famous tangy jelly and lined up on the counter in sparkling rows of amethyst and sweet memory.
No, Kofi, I cannot own the river, hurrying by as it is now in springtime or poking along as it will be by late summer. It will always keep incessantly moving toward the Minnesota, the Mississippi and finally out to sea. In counting up our river treasures, however, I know we will never experience the regret and disillusionment that Midas did. Our treasures are mounting in memory banks, not financial ones. Some may seem silly. What possible good can it do flat turtles to be returned to their environment? Yet, somehow we honor turtlehood by not leaving them to be pounded into the dust. In honoring turtlehood, symbol of Earth Mother, we honor riverdom, as well. I cannot own the river, but with you along side me in our secret meeting place among the reeds, it is safe to say that the river—our river—is in full possession of me.
After All Of These
Years
By Lori
Ryer
I don’t
want to remember
Because the joy it held for me once is absent.
After all of these years
I don’t want to remember
Because the joy was replaced by memories of hearts breaking.
Questions abound but answers are few.
The images I am unable to erase from my mind.
After all of these years
I don’t want to remember
Because the joy of innocent, peaceful times along its bank
Have been sadly overshadowed.
After all of these years
I don’t want to remember.
