Day: August 28, 2013

So listen, dear person, it is not all about loyalty and love,

but frustration and commitment too.

We are always watching,

always listening to you.

If I could I would make you

stop all your lawsuits of the brain,

hold you upside down and shake

all of your nonsense out,

all of your arguments, your waste,

your violence and fear,

that make you fight within yourself,

dear ones,

and with others.

You say you love us so much,

but love is sometimes blind,

you are not like us,

perhaps you can’t bear it,

one day I will tell the truth to you.

You say much, listen little.

You cause the world to weep

on so many beautiful days.

My prayer for you is not just to

love us, but to listen,

Some days I would  drag you

around the room by your hair,

ripping from your clenched fists and

bleeding souls all the toys of the world

that bring you no love or joy.

Sometimes I howl at the moon

and she covers her face with her hands.

I can’t bear to look.

 

I sat on the stoop of Bedlam Farm,

and we talked. Both of us have often cried

this past year with one another,

when no one is looking, for who

would understand shedding tears for a farm?

Let’s start laughing again, I said.

You are in my blood now, the farm said,

mixed with my soil,

you can never leave me,

that is so true, I said, and you can never leave me,

but we can both move on.

You broke my heart when you left, the farm said,

and it broke mine to leave, I said,

they came one after one,

but they could not see,

they came to look,

but couldn’t love,

still

but it’s like having a good dog,

it can only be one thing,

not everything.

This lonely time is over, I said,

your fences need trimming,

and painting, your gardens weeding,

the big old rooms are getting dusty,

the weedwhackers oiling up,

you can start laughing again.

You saved me, the farm said,

yes, I answered,

and you saved me.

but a pitcher needs a cup,

and you need dogs in your yards,

rabbits in your barn, donkeys in the pasture,

children in the studio barn, telling ghost stories,

having sleepovers, shrieking and running on your paths

I am here today to tell you this,

we are all playing in God’s Orchestra,

some wield their guns and arrows,

some play their fiddles.

Tonight is worthy of music,

your new people are coming.

We’ve shed so many tears together,

brought each other back from the dark places,

brushed one another up to go out into the world,

It’s time to start laughing again.

They are coming.

I have always loved the Bedlam Farm carriage barn, it is dignified, even stylish and has seen a lot of work – housing horses and carriages, trucks and motorcyles, hay and farm machinery. Local lore has it that the carriage barn hayloft was favorite meeting spot for young lovers, it looked out over the town, the couples could see anyone coming a long distance away. It has retained it’s radiance and dignity, helped along by a new floor and foundation.

I was surprised by many things when I moved to the country, one of the biggest surprises was that I found people in rural life to be the most tolerant people I had ever been around. It wasn’t that they agreed with the politics of everybody else, or approved of the different lifestyles of the people fleeing the cities for a different kind of life here. The area in which I live is rock-ribbed conservative and Republican. People here are religious and traditional, they don’t like government much and wish it would get out of their hair, they are not big on change.

But you can do whatever you want to do on your own land, and it is nobody’s business but yours.

There is this bedrock ideology here that I came to appreciate and respect – a great respect for property, for boundaries. Some of my gay friends have told me they felt much more comfortable moving up to the country in the 80’s and 90’s than they ever felt in Brooklyn or Queens. No one ever bothered them.

So we were surprised to learn that a neighbor had been taking his four-wheeler onto the farm’s beautiful path into the woods and racing back and forth at high speeds. We saw the tracks when we came to check on the farm, but we didn’t know who they belonged to. We’ve since found out. This neighbor not only came onto our property every morning, he told some of our other neighbors that he had permission to dig out a new trail at the edge of the path so he could connect to another property. He was quite huffy and indignant at the idea he couldn’t ride there any more.

This was pretty shocking to me. You don’t go on another person’s land without permission, not to hunt, walk, fish and certainly not to ride a four-wheeler and cut new trails. We are especially concerned because a new family is moving into the farm and they have three children who will doubtless be exploring the paths (they are already deeply into the story of Alexander the ghost). So Maria and I went up to the farm to post a “No Trespassing” sign, our first and stretch a nylon rope across the path.

It felt good to be protecting our property. I will look for this neighbor and ask him what he meant by coming onto our land and racing his four-wheeler through our woods without permission. This is a rural value I have embraced. I respect other people’s property, I insist they respect mine.

 

We went to Bedlam Farm today to take some things out and bring them to our new Bedlam Farm. One of them was my headstone for “Wiggle: A Good Dog, 1931-1945” that was bought at a farm auction in 2004. I love this headstone and we put it by the garden at the back porch, a fitting spot, right next to the “Orson” marker we brought over from Bedlam Farm.

I’ve often thought about “Wiggle,” I know him to be a farm dog who lived to be nearly 15 years old. I imagine him as one of those skinny farm border collies who race after trucks all day, herd sheep and ride around with their farmers until both of them drop. I see Wiggle riding tractors, trying to herd the family goat, nipping at the dairy cows to get them into the barn, racing alongside the machines during plowing and seeding, making noise when coyotes and stray dogs came around. Wiggle probably never went to the vet, did not sleep in bed, and ate table scraps, not gourmet dog food.  I am quite certain he was a healthy dog, I doubt he ever had a shot back then, and I guess he died a natural death, perhaps by the wood stove in the old farmhouse.

I had this marker steamed cleaned, it was so black and dirty I couldn’t read the words, and it will darken up again outdoors and in the wind, snow, sun and rain.

This grave marker for a dog was interesting and compelling for me for many reasons. It was created long before the current companion animal craze, before dogs were so intensely emotionalized and this farmer must have loved him dearly to spend that money. I loved the simplicity of his name, and of the market. This marker, “A Good Dog” says it all and it inspired the title of my book about Orson, “A Good Dog” in 2006.

I am very happy to have Wiggle at the new farm, a part of our quite eclectic back porch. “A Good Dog” is the highest compliment a dog can be paid. Maria, bless her, didn’t blink when I suggested bringing it home, nothing much would surprise her now.