Skunk Cabbage, by Mary Oliver
And now as the iron rinds over the ponds start dissolving, you come, dreaming of ferns and flowers and new leaves unfolding, upon the brash turnip-hearted skunk cabbage slinging its bunched leaves up through the chilly mud. You kneel beside it. The smell is lurid and flows out in the most unabashed way, attracting into itself, a continual spattering of protein. Appalling its rough green caves, and the thought of the thick root nested below, stubborn and powerful as instinct! But these are the woods you love, where the secret name of every death is life again–a miracle wrote surely not of mere turning but of dense and scalding reenactment. Not tenderness, not longing, but daring and brawn pull down the frozen waterfall, the past. Ferns, leaves, flowers, the last subtle refinements, elegant and easeful, wait to rise and flourish. What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.Not necessarily pretty. What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.
I opened to this poem this morning, after a dream filled with skunks, and knew it was not by accident. I’ve been revisiting this feeling of living in between, caught between knowing where I want to be and being where I want to be, unsure of how to get there, but walking nonetheless. The other day in conversation with Edge, I said aloud, “We didn’t choose this life because it is easy,” more as a reminder to myself than to him, and he smiled and agreed.
And now this morning I open to this poem, one I have never read before though it has sat on my shelves for years, and I know there is a reason I am only discovering it now.
What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty. I have visions of a house, of ponds and perennial gardens, of finished buildings and hoop houses, of established gardens and lush pastures, of ease and profit in our business.
We did not choose this life because it is easy. For every moment spent dreaming, there are two spent planning, five spent doing, maybe one spent stressing. I am doing my best to stop stressing. When the pipe bringing water to the yurt freezes, when the driveway slicks over with ice, when the chickens stop laying, and the woodpile diminishes too soon, and I wish for an indoor toilet, I get to a point of breaking down or breathing in. I prefer to breathe in. Sometimes I forget. But eventually I remember my own words: if I am a seed, all I have to do is know every possibility is inside me. The life that is easy is not necessarily the one that brings me alive.
If I had an indoor toilet, how many sunrises kissing the ridge line would I miss?
What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty, but like a pond lily beauty grows out of the muck. Any good farmer knows that compost started out as shit, and so I move forward today, remembering the work of turning the compost pile, the work that must come before the seed, the work that nourishes and transforms the seed into the flower.
I understand how you feel Katie. I too dream of beautiful land with luscious pasture and a big perennial garden on and on. I am going back to school and feel so impatient sometimes to be done. But I try and remember that it is all a journey and the difficult moments can be the most precious times in hindsight. I think you and Edge are doing grew things. I am so excited for you.
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You read the poem exactly when you needed its words…. and I just read your words exactly when I was ready to receive the thoughts they bring to mind. Thank you.
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