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Harvest
Season
©2001 Liv Nevin
Along the twisting banks of
Deer Creek
north of the wide-ranging Chesapeake,
it is harvest season.
And if you persist along the dirt roads
and past the fields of corn stalks which clatter in the wind,
the lane to my home trails off to the west.
Enter, and as you do be sure
to part the grasses
to notice the remains of summer's lilies,
brown and stained with faded pinks,
and flanked by row upon row of lacy autumn olive-
alive and humming with the work of bumble bees.
Down the stony lane, a quarter
mile,
beyond the forest of towering oak and bluebird boxes,
three vertical prayer flags stand in greeting,
white and flowing like cloud vapor in the yellowing field.
Four times your height- tethered
to skinned locust posts
and surrounded by grasses high as your waist-
their prayers fly in all directions, synchronized and silent.
You can walk round and round
them,
taking in the twilight-stained sky and forest,
and this field, where mist arrives and hovers each night.
Be watchful, for you may see the vigilant ears of slender deer
(stands of seven or ten of them at once).
Through the hedgerow the feathery
asparagus
waves its plumed arms in greeting.
There a whole field of giant rusty sunflowers
look with eager faces toward the vanishing sun,
and lose their color as the dusk approaches.
Walk past the peonies which now certainly
hang their brown heads, and past the full, round compost piles
heaped with straw and dying purple thistle,
past the bird bath and the bleeding heart
and into the silken woods, which already has invited night.
There stands a hidden house
of wood and windows, propped on locust posts,
and inside, a screened-in porch, where cicadas and tree frogs
shall lull you to sleep in a feather bed.
In the wicker rocker, by lamplight, sits my mother writing,
and in the shadow sits my father listening.
And even as the wraith-like
mists rise from the pond
and bullfrogs announce the night loudly-
the pole beans stand laden with pods,
and the squash and pumpkins lie growing.
The bok choy and lettuce stop
their bolting for the darkness.
It is the end of summer, full and clear-
The
Householder and the Nun
©2001 Liv Nevin
It is sunset and the evening
light is orange. Ann sits in the darkening garden on a wrought-iron
chair, rocking a baby. She is singing softly and looking intently
at her sleeping child.
Laurie emerges from the house
carrying a hefty backpack. She sets it down on the grass and
seats herself on it. She is dressed in the long dark robes of
a nun.
ANN: Have you finished packing?
LAURIE: Almost. I have everything
except my sleeping bag and toothbrush.(She moves over and kneels
on the grass at Ann's knees and gazes at the sleeping baby.)
A: So, you're off again.
L: Yep.
A: Wonder when you'll be here
again.
L: Who could ever know?
A: I'd sure like to know. It's
not going to be easy for me to come visit you in India at this
point in my life. And I'll bet this little girl would like to
know when she'll next see her aunt.
L: You're pretty tied down now.
A: You're pretty rootless. How
long are you going to stay so rootless anyway?
L: I hope forever. Committing
to my spiritual practice and whatever service projects I take
on feels like more than enough.
A: Are you ever lonely?
L: How could I be lonely with
6.5 billion people on the earth with me?
A: Yeah, but how intimate is
that?
L: It makes more sense to me.
Why would I want to foster new attachments to people and things?
Our lives are so impermanent anyway, what would be the point?
I need to be preparing for more significant things, like death,
which is the only certain aspect of being alive. I don't want
to be spinning around in a state of confusion when I die, pining
away for my family and wishing I were still young and beautiful
and in the arms of some man.
A: Laurie, how can you always
dwell on death? I mean, you're 28 years old.
What are you going to be talking about when you're 78?
L: Would you rather I talked
about how I need to get in shape or lose weight or have some
crush on a new man? What more worthwhile thing could I focus
on than understanding my mind to the point where I can die without
trauma and grasping? I feel that we either learn how to die peacefully,
and thereby live peacefully, or we deny that death will ever
happen to us, like everybody else does.
A: Generalizations. Not everybody
hides their gray hair! All of our lives are full of undeniable
cycles. Try to imagine the shock of giving birth! You get to
experience the start of this miraculous cycle! Just picture the
awe of cutting an umbilical cord. Why does religion try to make
human beings into something more than we are? We are biological
organisms, filled with instincts and urges and needs. Don't you
ever want to fall in love and make a commitment to someone?
L: Why would I want to expend
my days following a path so many people have tried and found
dissatisfying and fraught with suffering? You'd think after a
while we'd make different decisions. This country is full of
people trying to solidify themselves, and what does it lead to?
It leads to lives full of accumulated baggage, houses full of
junk, minds full of fantasies! And then look at all the broken
marriages and dysfunctional families, not to mention environmental
ruin.
A: Can things really be so one-dimensional?
What about embracing all the hardships that come with life but
still creating your utopia? I know it doesn't help us escape
death, but what about just accepting dying when it comes and
treating it like another of life's phases? Why do you have to
die like a hero?
L: Aren't you afraid of death?
A: Of course I am, I guess,
I mean I'm not really pondering it these days. But of course,
I'm afraid of losing our parents, of losing you.... Yeah, I don't
want to lose anybody, but I know eventually I will. Anyway, what's
so problematic about fear?
L: Do you want to push your
uncomfortable feelings underground, or do you want to address
them? And come to terms with loss in your own life for the sake
of helping other people?
A: Of course, I want to address
them.
L: How, in this life of children
and responsibilities?
A: How? Laurie, that's just
the point.... Aren't you always talking about devotion?
L: Yes.
A: What if I see my children
as my teachers?
L: Well then I suppose they
would be.
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Spring 2001