Thawing persimmons, Feasting Ravens

Yesterday I caught a fleeting glimpse of a leaf-bare persimmon tree with maybe ten persimmons, pendulant, ornamental, like deep orange Christmas balls. But it was ten ravens in the tree that held my eye. The persimmons and ravens and bare limbs on a cloudy Marin New Year's Eve day closing towards dusk. Fire and night. Just after a cold snap when the ravens must know the getting's good or it will be. Maybe they were standing guard. I'm not from California, so persimmon trees are still so exotic. Just last year, I was the novice caught puckered trying to eat a local persimmon not yet ripe after reading Gary Snyder's "Mu Ch'i's Persimmons" poem. I learned you can force a persimmon ripe by freezing but it's got to be goop to eat.

Last night we ate sweet persimmon cake Debbie and Oliver fed us for New Years Eve dinner. Which of the three cured my hunger? The tree, the poem or the cake eaten with old friends? Those sugar-dark thawing persimmons, those feasting ravens, New Year's Eve.

Plum Tree Solstice

in the longest dark night
sliver of moon
silver bark thread bare
a hummingbird sits there
high on a top perch
buds already visible
white blossoms soon
for Chinese New Year

in the shortest light day
I write here nostalgia
moments just passed
tick tock
the ocean keeps time too
techno jellies
swimming across my screen
as if a photo might be just
what we need to save
a life

our tree outside
what makes
its bitter sweetness?
how does it create so much
so always
from its concrete roots?

Eco Lit

Turns out there's a professor at Naropa University whose been teaching Eco Lit for ten years: An Ecosystem of Writing Ideas is a lovely site with poems written from the class.

One Boy Told Me

Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "One Boy Told Me"
Played this reading a few times to my 3 1/2 year old. He remembers it and talks about it all the time now. I guess what I want to remember is that it's the language of a toddler's questions, his contrarian stance, his play that has a revolution in it that I think might help us shift mindsets. You know, like Jacks reply to my explanation of God. I said I sometime see God as a tree. He replied, "My god is a gun." My little Kurt Cobain. His reply made me mad! But now it reminds me that sometimes when we claim something like a natural object as the symbol of a cause it is already a myth. It is already a heavy power tool in any dialogue. It's self-serious, too earnest, not slippery enough to empower. Explication is not really going to make most of us ecologists.

Solstice

Happy Winter Solstice! On this stormy winter day-night I'm thinking of my dad's love of storms. We didn't celebrate the solstice together but I'd like to believe he would want to be remembered on a day like this one. So this one's as much for you, Dad, as it is for all the wild things enduring the wind and rain.

Sea Fever John Masefield (one of Dad's favorites)

I must down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the sea again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying.

I must down to the sea again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Maira Kolman's Blog

Check out Maira Kalman's Blog: Back to the Land. She's the author of Elements of Style, many children's book and my favorite book by hers: The Principles of Uncertainty.

Winter Vegetable Garden for West Berkeley Schools

Here's some ideas for plants for a winter garden. We can plan it over the next month and plant any of these vegetables during the winter months:

November/December: Broccoli, Cabbage

January: Lettuce, Onions, Radishes, Rhubarb, Spinach and Turnip
February: Artichoke, Fava Beans (good for the soil), Beet, Cabbage, Carrot, Collard, Lettuce, Onion, Pea, Spinach, Swiss Chard

In March if you plant the following you can harvest and eat before the end of school:
March planting for May/June harvest: Carrots, Beets, Chard, Lettuce, Peas, Garlic, Onion