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The bear feels his own fat
Sweeten, like a drowse, deep to the bone.
Bemused, above the fume of ruined blueberries,
The last bee hums.
The wings, like mica, glint
In the sunlight.
He leans on his gun. Thinks
How thin is the membrane between himself and the world.
–Robert Penn Warren
There is a family of mountain bluebirds that nest in a birdhouse in our yard every year. They come in spring, take up residence just long enough to raise other mountain bluebirds to flight, and then they are gone. They leave about the same time the blue-green swallows arrive, with their manic and dazzling flights. This year the bluebirds came when I was having my morning tea and devouring great scoops of Robert Penn Warren–who wrote so brilliantly about cypress swamps and southern pride as a damaging curse, and of course about those nearly Jurassic birds that stretch their necks and scull the swampy southern air for lift.
I am always delighted when I see the bluebirds back in their box because I take it as sign, from somewhere, that we are doing something right. I don’t know if we are doing anything right but the bluebirds still feel like a message. I also don’t know where they go when their chicks finally take flight. Berry patches, maybe, somewhere out on the juniper flat. I’ve never been there when they emerge because I don’t like to intrude. I give them room to be bluebirds. They make me feel like a guest in my own house which, let’s be honest, is all that any of us really are.
We are backing into summer here, with incredible rains. It has been raining off and on, mostly on, for the last couple of weeks. This is unusual on this side of the Cascades. We are the dry side of Oregon and the drought here has been severe—even looking at a tree sideways might cause it to burst into flames. I live in constant fear of fire, and have a vision I cannot shake of our barn engulfed. So we welcome the rains even if, underneath it all, we know it won’t be enough. Wells near us have run dry, and more will run dry this summer. There isn’t enough water to support the number of people who want to live here but we aren’t meant to say that out loud. The growth economy is running on fumes across wide swaths of the world, and in our local case it’s a sunshine daydream fueled by water vapor. Rain does not follow the plow. But they still want to build 400 new houses in Sisters and a resort out on the desert where there isn’t any water.
The bodies and the cars and the old boats are floating to the surface of Lake Mead, which should offer a warning but the larger conversation in America is about whether or not we are allowed to use the term “breast-feeding.” The latest directive from national thought headquarters is that the appropriate term is “chest-feeding.” This is more inclusive because some men think they are women. Or is it women who think they are men? I’m not sure.
Which isn’t why we decided to sell our place and move on. That’s part of it, but there is more. The cowboy part of me is ready to roll my bed, to ride some new range and, as Ian Tyson would have it, to learn some new knots to tie. That’s at the heart of it, though it is true that Sisters is changing in ways we don’t like, and that central Oregon is just getting too full of people for the way we want to live. The growing season here is only 60 days which–as a guy who likes to grow food–is something I’m also weary of. I want more vegetables, and more time to grow them. Every spring it feels like we are digging out from a Grad rocket attack in Luhansk. The mind feels bunkered and bruised. Winters here are hard, and long, and I’m ready for something else. We have our sights set on Texas but it may not be Texas. I don’t know. We misjudged the market here by a couple of weeks and may not sell as soon as we had hoped.
None of this is helped by the inescapable conclusion that there are children running the country, bottlenecking their ideology into the system and hoping for forced conversions. The theory isn’t working for anyone who isn’t a billionaire, and the President of the United States, let’s be honest, is a mumbling, shuffling, ass-clown.
Western Tanager
Still, we have the rain. This morning I fed the horses in a lovely downpour—they love it too—and stood for a long time just breathing the air, listening to the rain batter my hat, and watching them eat. And just now there is a squirrel outside my office window, motionless on a tree branch, a soaked and desperate looking thing, his nose aimed into the raindrops. His tail is curled back over his head and he’s wearing it like a hat. Squirrels don’t sit still but he is frozen in time and alone with his squirrel thoughts and it is something interesting to see. The last time I saw a squirrel sit still this long I also watched a hawk dive-bomb through the branches, crash to the ground with dinner shrieking in his talons, then carry it away through the ponderosas. But I think this guy will make it. Combat sorties are grounded today. I see excellent things from this window and the next one will have to offer something just as good to keep me interested in the main.
They are calling it an atmospheric river, this rain, which is a kind of poetry I can get behind, particularly when most of our national atmosphere looks more like the Shit River in Olangapo. Even in this life-giving rain my thoughts can run dour because as a young boy, playing with stick guns in the sagebrush, I had higher hopes. I thought the world had higher aspirations. I trusted adults. Nobody ever taught me to hate other people. I came up with some other vision, closer to what Giono wrote about in Joy of Man’s Desiring, which has been well-summated as a “revolt against industrial materialism.”
It would be hard to know that was an abiding principle based on the sheer amount of consumer shit we discovered while readying this house for sale. We’ve sold or given away a lot of it and that has had an actual physical effect, like quitting drinking or losing forty pounds. Some days I just want to set up my nordic tipi in the back forty and live out of it.
This morning came news of an arrest in Idaho, a U‑haul van full of nitwits wearing weird costumes and allegedly in town to disrupt some kind of gay pride event. They all got zip-tied and put on their knees. They hadn’t done anything, yet, and before the hatchets come out let’s just stipulate they were nitwits. They’ve been described as white supremacists and extremists but those terms have lost much of their meaning and from 30k feet it’s difficult to know if that’s true. If those things are true, then, naturally, I condemn their stupidity and ignorance with prejudice. But it was interesting that they hadn’t done anything yet and the charge was a “conspiracy to riot.” Which sounds more like a thought crime than anything they actually did, given they were apparently circle-jerking in the back of a rented van when they were arrested.
I don’t know what to make of most things, these days. I feel like Chichester sailing the Gypsy Moth through the Roaring 40s. At night. In a storm. The main thing is: don’t fall overboard and pray the mast doesn’t snap.
There are reasons to stay in the fight. Here’s one: a couple of weeks ago I was grilling meat on the back porch and looked over at the little creek in our yard. There was a bird there I had never seen before. His colors, yellows and reds, were so vivid and so bright I thought for an instant somebody’s tropical pet had escaped. I stood there like an idiot absently clutching a meat-fork and watching this bird dip his head into the water, mesmerized by a bird made out of sorbet. He was only there a minute, on his way to some-place else. When he was gone I ran up the stairs into my office to research what the hell I had seen. Turns out, it was a western tanager. In the lore, a yellow tanager is meant to symbolize joy, and good luck, and fortune to come.
So I hold onto that. I write, and I read, and I wait for the clouds to part, for the brilliant sun to come out, and for the rain we need so badly to finally stop. Which is when I know the squirrel will budge from his branch and birds will come out of the forest again, conspiring to riot.
Darcy Bedortha says
ooof. yes.
and thank you for sorbet birds
Kathryn Godsiff says
I had a learning moment this week when I read about “chest feeding” for the first time. Used to be that learning something new was a step forward. Now I just wish I could unsee all the words in that article.
I do like pretty birds though, such as mountain bluebirds and western tanagers…
I wish I could unsee it too. People often say the pendulum swings back, but for the last twenty years or so it has only been swinging in one direction. The weird direction. So i’ll stick with the birds, too.
Reese Crawford says
Look at northern Arkansas too. Good cattle country and with good management you can put an inch of topsoil on in 10 years. It’s also an unknown paradise. Not much urban invasion in the central part.
Stephen says
I really hope you find your place. The place where your horse can look at cows and say “ if only.” That place where and in which the news of the world is muted by the noises of nature or even better subjugated by the contemplative influence of quiet. I will continue to throw thoughts into the karma cloud for your benefit. I should also confess that I’ve been doing the same for the Guardians and they are two games over 500 so I might be pushing my luck.
Thanks Steve. We will find it. Have the fun is in the search. It’s a pioneer spirit kind of thing. And I’ll admit the Guardians are surprising. They remind me of Twain’s comment about German. He said, “German, as a language, isn’t as bad as it sounds.”
Cort Horner says
Parallel sentiments, right down to the tanagers. And I have (and will require) a similar window to watch the cardinals(perhaps?) in the next homestead.
The window is important. This one I write in has been amazing over the years, a kind of periscope.
FRANK JENSEN says
mumbling ‚shuffling ass-clown describes it well.
My Christian best. My heathen best is decidedly more colorful and less generous.
Consider coming up here to northern Wisconsin. Winters are tough, yes–they say it’s nine months of winter and three months of bad snowmobiling–but we have friendly people, plenty of lakes, great fishing, lots of jobs and the Green Bay Packers.
I have some good buddies from the Marine Corps who live in Wisconsin. But the Packers make the entire state unlivable for a Cowboys fan. 🙂
We’re pretty tolerant about that. We allow Vikings fans, for example, but for them there’s a quota.
John Gomez says
Damn good post. Thank you.
Ugly Hombre says
Yep, the Democrat run states are circling the drain– “Of the 36 ways- the best is to get out” . In general-get out- while you can- if you can, is my thinking. …
But-
Where to go? Maybe Thailand,? The R.P. a’int what it used to be, and Taiwan is in a gun sight. Eastern Europe would have been a possible go (they can still telll a hen from a rooster). But not now. The Constitution is being shredded by the New Democrat dum chit’s and if the Constitution is gone might as well live in Chiang Mai me thinks . If you move to a red state from a blue state cold they might throw rocks at you and think you are a New Democrat Bolo coming in to vote Neo- Comm. and fook the place up… lol. No joke.
And that’s IF a person has not been been wiped out by the Biden market crash and depression and still has the means. I don’t think there is going to be a way to correct course at the polls. 81 million people voted for Biden- more than people who voted for Obama so imo its to damn late. You can only delay moving to Havanna not stop it we are getting closer every day- D.G.B. anyone?. (BTW its back the new new speak term is “Internet Task Force” Chaiman Kamela commanding lol)
“Mumbling ‚shuffling, @$$-clowns” don’t even come close- the useless idiots are now costing the average American family 10K plus a year. They are kicking the doors off and the legs out from under the nation by design. They are not changing course they always double down on stupid- they don’t give a damn about the American Public. They only care about power. I really feel sorry for young people just starting out who will have to live a “transformed” life . Bad news.
I just saw a Democrat Dum Chit. blame the 10% inflation the Bidenites inflicted on the Republic- the worse inflation in half a century- on Trump and the Jan 6 morons.. The Democrat’s are such massive bull chit artists now its damn near comical. But the joke is on the our country…and thats not funny. The T.D.S virus has done massive damage to the country- if we can repair the damage it will take decades.
What was the classic Stother Martin line from “The Wild Bunch”? About vericity?
Yep- thats the one.
There probably is no geographic cure, but like a consumptive moving to the high desert there may be places that alleviate the symptoms. Where to go remains the challenge. The country has changed so rapidly in the last few years it’s no longer easy to point at the map and say: I shall plant my flag right there. It’s a crap shoot wherever you look. Perhaps the lesson is to stay mobile. I’m against bunkering in general so maybe that’s the solution. As we continue this determined slide into a third-world nation it may end up being the only way.
Ugly Hombre says
Lot depends what hapens in November- they have PO’d a lot of women and old Democrats with the baby formula disaster, the soccer mom’s are terrorists fiasco, KGB/DGB Gestapo, the what gender are you training in kindergarten- the food shortage’s, gas doubling in price, illegal alien invasion etc. So they might get a massive @$$ kicking in November at the polls and there by stave it off ‑for a while. But over all- its a done deal. Hope I am wrong. Makes me sad as hell.
There is a Tibetan saying that goes like- “If you know how to do it you can live comfortable even in hell.” lol
People will adapt I guess. I have to damn many books to go mobile and live in a van down by the river.
And there’s no charging stations down there. lol
It does appear that there will be a massive ass kicking come November, but the Republicans’ chief strength, historically, seems to be shooting themselves in the face every time they get handed a pistol. I fear the legion of intractable problems we have will evade political solutions, and that we are simply meant to embrace the suck for many years to come.
Ugly Hombre says
Yeah the odds are not good, Compared to Biden’s asinine rule looking back- the 4 years of Trump look damn good in the rearveiw. The Jumbo’s fook ups look small compared to the Donkeys historic incredible directed destruction and massive foul ups imo.
Wonder if the ITF Kempetai will let Trump sue the Old Bat for the Russian Bull Chit story.? Probly not lol.
Desantis would be my choice, every body and their monkey is trying to move to Florida and get away from the Democrat insanity- even Pelosi lol. no way in hades would I vote for a Democrat for anything- their brand is totally destroyed. the list of destuction they have wrought in just a year in a half is almost to long to list.
Speaking of pistols- Humpers been in the news again waving one around again, on some kind of a bender.
I am not sure the Dems will get a come uppence like to think so but I thought Joe would get dusted in 2020 after the “you a’int black” and his other idiot gaffs came out. Seemed clear to me at the time- he was shy a few cards in his deck.
Now we know for sure- he’s down to a poker hand.