September 8: Lesotho

This morning in my West Bay Rotary meeting a woman involved with Qholaqhoe Mountain Connections gave us an update on a project that my club helps sponsor in Lesotho. We sponsor a child who is attending high school in a rural region of this third world country surrounded by South Africa. Almost a quarter of the people in this tiny country have AIDS, and many of the children the non-profit sponsors are AIDS orphans. She told us that some of the kids walk two hours one way to get to school, because they know that going to school and doing well is their only chance to rise above the poverty and hunger that surrounds them. Because high school is tuition-based, many children cannot attend without scholarships, instead staying home to work to help their families. The scholarship for a year of school is $250. That seems like nothing to us, but some kids who had to leave school and work were only earning the equivalent of $7.50 a year. I'm pretty sure I heard that correctly.

As I was listening to the presentation and seeing the slides of the beaming students in their crisp uniforms, I couldn't help but think of my niece attending her first full day of kindergarten today. Despite all the crazy ups and downs of the economy and our current political scene, we are still so fortunate, so privileged--and it's rather sad that it takes exposure to life in a third world country to drive that fact home for me. We take our schooling--at least through high school--for granted. We take our water for granted, while this village had just built a water containment thing that now meant the kids didn't have to walk two hours to fill gallon jugs from a creek to water their gardens. Some of the children who are orphans live with relatives or family friends, but others live alone in what was their family home. I think of some child arriving to an empty cinder block house after a two-hour walk from school, having already eaten her one meal of the day at school (maize-based mash with kale for protein). What can her dreams be? Does she have any hopes for her future? Does she dare?

I think of Lesotho and love my niece, thankful that she is one child in the world who is well-loved and well taken care of. She'll get a good education. Opportunity lies before her. She won't go hungry. And maybe when she's older, she'll help some of those, like the children of Lesotho, who are less fortunate than she. Forgive me if this all sounds a bit melodramatic. But these children are real. They're out there, millions of them.

Poor crops, hungry child.
As we harvest fall bounty,
let's not forget her.

September 7: Nice weather... if you're a fish

For us humans, this cold rain makes for a bleak and dreary day. But as we move closer to the autumnal equinox (a.k.a. the first day of fall), these wet days replenish our rivers and streams and create the watery highways that Atlantic salmon and some trout follow to their spawning grounds.

Salmon return from the deep sea to their home river to spawn, guided miraculously by various factors--sense of taste, the earth's magnetism, currents--that are as little understood as those enabling bird migration. When they get there, there needs to be high enough water for the female fish to move upstream to appropriate habitat to make redds, the indentations in the river bed carved out with her body in which she lays eggs for male salmon to fertilize. On the Ducktrap River, where a remnant population of this endangered species lingers, some falls only a dozen or fewer redds are counted by fisheries biologists. But the fish are still hanging in there. And this rain will help them return to the river once more.

What's cold rain to us
is the way home for salmon--
a refilled river.

September 6: Thump

Earlier this evening I was alone in the office, working late, when I was startled out of my computer-screen daze by a loud "thump" on the door. I occasionally hear those heart-breaking small thuds of a bird hitting a window of my office. I've put ultraviolet stickers on the windows most commonly hit, and that's helped, but it seems like during spring and fall migrations one or two still try to fly through glass. But this noise tonight was much louder than anything I'd heard before. That had to have been a big bird, if it even was a bird. My mind (and pulse) raced--what would I see when I went outside? One of the local blue jays I enjoy so much? The kingfisher that's been rattling up and down the river all afternoon? Nothing could have survived that loud a crash.

To my surprise and horror, a sharp-shinned hawk was fluttering on the office patio outside the door. As I instinctively moved toward it--what did I think I was going to do, hold it cupped in my hands till it recovered, like all those warblers and chickadees?--it moved away, flapping onto the lawn. It looked broken. In instant anguish, I imagined having to figure out what to do with a small but seriously injured bird of prey. But as I stepped toward it again, it flew up into the dogwood tree, and from there, almost immediately flew off toward the river. It seemed ok, flying straight and using both wings. My relief was great, though it all happened so fast, my heart is still racing even now.

Hunting hawk, intent,
hit window. My heart lifted
with it when it flew.

September 5: Neighborhood Music

Sorry, I was away for a few days. Back to the daily posts...

Tonight as we read in the cool of our living room, a house finch serenades us from a tree across the street. He sounds most jubilant. Eventually he flies to the hanging flower right outside our doorway, chirping querulously as if stopping by to say hello. Meanwhile, the young man next door is out on his back deck lazily strumming on his guitar, not really playing a song, just trying out random, pretty phrases. And across the river someone is playing a jazz album loudly enough that the clear tones of a trumpet drift through the hazy, humid air, mingling with the sound of the rushing water. A song sparrow sings now, counterpoint to the house finch. And there's the neighbor's chihuahua, it's incessant yipping adding high notes to the mix.

Each one plays its part:
House finch, river, kid's guitar,
jazz, the hazy night.

September 2: Fonts of Nature

While running today along Route 105, headed south, my attention was drawn to a view of Mount Megunticook rising craggy and forested beyond a bend in the smooth as glass Megunticook River. Only a patch of lily pads marred the river's surface. The setting sun was hitting the mountain full force, causing the tree-covered mountainside to glow with all the power of summer. The river reflected the green patterns of trees on both banks. It was a moment of perfect calm and beauty: still water, still mountain. I was so entranced I veered toward the center of the road, only realizing my distraction as a car neared.

On the opposite river bank, a slender poplar or birch curved down toward the water. The trunk and the reflected trunk formed the two arms of a K, with a straight trunk immediately to the left forming the left side. My initial, written by trees and river.

For my eyes only?
Glimpse of calm river, mountain,
signed with a tree K.

September 1: September begins...

The air feels like September: crisp at night, brilliant blue sky during the day. The bay's a deeper blue than the sky. I had lunch on an outside patio today overlooking the ocean, feeling fortunate to have such beauty (almost) in my back yard.

A fat goldfinch fledgling hung out gorging in our window feeder, even after I pulled the car into the driveway next to it.

Around the corner tucked in between the house and the propane tank, with dead leaves stuck to its web, sits a giant mottled brown-and-white spider. It's both repellent and fascinating. More fascinating than the large spider that wouldn't leave my bathroom sink this morning.

The air already smells of leaf mold. Fern fronds are browned, curled up. Hum of the crickets has a tone that's somewhere between desperate and comforting.

The Strawberry Candy day lily has bloomed again in one last fit of summer flowering.

These in-between days,
that bittersweet edge--blue skies
and one red maple.