Near the Timberline: Poems and Stories from My Inner Hermit

By Marty Price

This collection contains an ambitious poem, “Black Spruce” and a range of my short stories and poems. Some are serious, some funny. Many have ghosts. All reflect my quirky notions of literary purpose, including the notion that there is something rich and beautiful about this Universe and everything in it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359742806

Book preview

Near the Timberline: Poems and Stories from My Inner Hermit

Near the Timberline: Poems and Stories from my Inner Hermit

By Marty Price

Copyright © 2019 by Marty Price

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2019

ISBN 978-0-359-74280-6

Windword Press

106 Dunbrook Drive

Starkville, MS 39759

[e-mail]

Dedication

To Carolyn, Rob, Allison,

Zathras, Nessie.

In Summer dress,

The Yukon courted me.

I was acquiescent for a fling

But did not stay

To pass

The long nights that are Winter.

Introduction

This collection is a bit of a menagerie, with this and that and everything (like all my collections). Some of the material aims to capture two distinct notions, as I understand them: aloneness and loneliness. They are very different, almost antithetical. So, some of the pieces are about lonely places and lonely people; some are vaguely Thoreauean contemplations.  In common, those thematic pieces are from near that Timberline found within myself.

Other things to remember: writers lie; I choose not tell which of these poems and stories reflect my own reality, which are purely metaphorical, and which are lies. Essays, any I include, do reflect my genuine thoughts (the stories and poems are more worthwhile).

Black Spruce: a dream from the timberline

[Synopsis: a demi-goddess who has found herself turned into a black spruce has her imagination impregnated by a Wind. She dreams Humanity, from its beginnings to … .]

Once upon a time in a place

Where all things green give way

To mountain gray and lingering snow

The whisper which was Wind drifted past

A stand of shallow-rooted black spruce trees

To find one standing, alone,

Among some low shrubs at the very edge of broken ground.

He approached, and the Spruce spoke,

"I am a Spirit of Water, changed to black spruce

By some garden witch at play.

I stand against fierce Winter snow, enjoy sunshine,

Weave my dreams while trees below pass days in silence."

Smitten, the Wind whispered, "Perhaps

I might tell a story and you might weave it into dream."

Yes, the Spruce Tree answered, "For I am rooted here

And you, Wind, are of a sort peculiar to this northern Spring.

Let us weave a story of a species of wanderer,

One who barely approaches this land where lichens thrive."

So it began, the Wind whispering words, Water giving them flesh,

And the dream of the Black Spruce became

The history of a creature whose destiny wandered,

Mingling farce, high tragedy, and romantic dreams divine:

In a place that knows few snows or none,

Tropic forest gives way to grassland,

Lion prides stalk all who live in herds,

And a creature from the trees, nibbling grain and carrion, crept forth.

Ever hungry, a few clans of these creatures wandered north,

Felt the heat of the equatorial desert,

Discerned a great river guarded by dragons and river monsters,

Cried like creatures fenced, then undertook a perilous journey,

Took advantage of a day when grasses grew

Between the swamps of the river horse and dragon

And the land of sand and flaming sun.

Generations passed. Some found their way to a great sea;

Some crossed the river near its mouth, evading dragons;

Some made their way around the edges of the sea, discovered fish,

All were hungry, aspired to be hunters while gathering dry grain.

Sparsely furred, with bodies built for Serengeti heat,

They ventured into lands touched, lightly, by Winter.

One body of migrants adapted, became Hunters in the Cold,

And when it seemed all the Earth would become a glacier,

They met the cold land’s thick-furred herds with spears and tools of stone.

There were creatures greater than the river horse,

But these furred ones could be hunted by those who wielded spears.

These creatures kept their own way until hunted, too,

Unlike the river horse, a creature whose impulsive temper matched its bulk.

There were predators, great furred trackers, smart as well as powerful –

But the great roaring predators were hunters, not river-impeding dragons.

Creatures of craft, they were creatures of reasoned appetites.

They could be avoided by those who walked with care,

Looked for tracks, sniffed the frozen air with caution --

At least sometimes the bears chose different game.

Hunting, hunted, the trekkers passed though many lives.

‘Twould be a dull, dull story, a merely murky dream,

If all the creatures did was hunt and eat. They did more,

Enough more that we might give flesh to a few forgotten tools,

A gravesite, drawings on long-buried rocks.

They found words, a few words, more words,

Words to name the mammoth, words to chart the stars

To know the days of the caribou and the days of want,

Words to say, "I’ll trade my son for yours, that yours may

Join my clan and mine may marry your daughter,"

And simpler trades – a knife for a haunch of meat.

Words to speak of death, "a door: for when a flower

Wilts and dies its season ends with seeds, but it returns

When Spring germinates its seed; Life is a cycle."

So they know, when Og is dead and buried, his soul

Will return, a fresh and empty new-born baby,

And they ask, "If there is time between, Og should know

That we remember him well and expect him to return.

We will bury flowers with him, that he might remember."

"And bury tools with him, too, that he might

Remember their use, remember more of what he learned this life,

That he will learn rapidly again and his next life will be good."

And a ritual memory began, and it was rich and beautiful

Until someone forgot the metaphor of the flowers

And the memories carried in the tools

And imagined dead Og tromping a cold hell beneath the ground,

Or carrying his old tools through some land where none were needed,

Seeking to appease some autocrat instead of living free.

The Wind sighed, and the Black Spruce spoke again,

"I told you I would dream all three:

The Romance of sweet life ever renewing, every end a door;

The Tragedy of forgetting freedom, imagining a tyrant behind the Door;

The Farce of reifying ritual, denuding symbols and reducing them to stone."

The Wind resumed its whispers and the Black Spruce dreamed again:

Another migration followed, more sparse-furred creatures from warmer lands.

These met the cold with tricks and learning, borrowing skins of animals they slew.

Visited by Prometheus, they harnessed lightning,

Learned the best Fire for their warmth, the best for cooking,

And one to crack sharp edges onto obsidian stones.

Like those who came before, they ventured into Winter,

Following rivulets toward the mountain peaks, embracing heat and cold.

One day, there were wolves, graceful hunters who padded easily through snow

And pursued game through both meadow and forest,

Who discovered they might share tasks with the walkers from the south.

Some wolves took comfort at the edge of camp,

Tracked for the creatures who had spears to kill,

Some ventured to the firesides, declared themselves friends and partners,

The species joined as family and clan.

The families thrived in seasons of grain and berries; learned to hoard;

They followed the moving animals – and then they learned to herd.

Dogs and humans thrived; some grew fat, many survived.

The Earth grew warmer, stayed warmer. The glaciers retreated,

The black spruce and low shrubs crept up the mountains,

Leaving lands below to birch and aspen. Maple, oak, and chestnut

Chose their niche, along with hemlock and great, towering pines.

It was good, the Wind whispered.

"For the forests, it was good; for the grasslands and the herds it was good;

For a time, it all was good," the Black Spruce nodded.

A Romance should be good; if there were endings, it would be the happy ending.

There are no endings, so she let her dream unfold once more:

Next came anguish, for to learn to hoard and herd is to learn to steal.

If one has not one’s own, there is always another’s for one both sly and strong.

Grain could be grown, but only if the herds were kept away.

Herders and growers fought.

Grain could be stolen, as learned by men who harnessed steel.

Warriors came first to pillage, then to conquer.

Land could be held, herds could be traded, people could be enslaved.

And the conqueror looked on, a worthless golden crown atop his head,

And he smiled at all the misery his warriors had created,

And he spoke, It is good.

The first poets heard him, and wrote of his conquests,

And of the glories of slaying and the slain, claiming honor

In cleaving the head from another man or falling in bloody death.

They praised the killing of kings and armies, burning others’ cities,

Kidnapping, rape, and every torment ever inflicted on an innocent soul.

But it was evil, said the Wind.

Some of it, said the Black Spruce, "And too many poets are sycophants,

Too many praise the feats of brutal men and damned infernal fools.

But there were other things as well – there was a girl …"

… and a dream was spoken of a child eating an apple,

And a mother’s voice saying plant a seed

And from such seeds grew voices (male voices, for females were ignored, enslaved),

And those voices (granted, at first only two or three)

Spoke old words of planting, sharing, touching the beauty of the flowers,

Of looking at the hungry beggar and knowing, Might as well be me.

Once the word was learned it was not forgotten,

Kings still ruled, armies still slew, the poor were taxed that the rich might fight,

But cradled poets learned from their mothers

All is Love, there must be planting, and by our sharing we gather joy.

Yes, said the Wind, "It is enough, in the face of all things vile and violent,

That some few times still are spoken the words – All is Love."

The Spruce dreamed cities and the wonder and the beauty of great hanging gardens,

Yet felt those who stood near the opulent scents and wept.

She pictured polished gems and beautiful shining things,

Toys aplenty – while the Wind cried of feasts beside those who starved.

She spoke of all that humans built, all they saw, all they learned.

"What tiny earth-bound mortals have I wrought,

That they might apportion the Earth into fields and farms,

Take flight though wingless,

Build cities that sparkle in the night with flameless fire,

Share words across the miles and broadcast thoughts into the depths of space?

What dreams have come to pass in a few thousand years of thought?

What magic turned to science have they discovered and they learned?

"What tiny earth-bound mortals have I wrought,

That they might devote more energy to theft than life,

And even more to demolishing all that others build?

What creatures would sharpen steel to only slash and cut?

Who would fashion tools that only destroy and slay?

Who have I dreamed who would enslave and murder each other,

Poison Earth itself in motiveless destruction,

Turn each other’s creations into rubble, dream each other’s souls would burn in hell?

Alas, what have I wrought?"

In the heat of a Summer afternoon, a handful of humans approached the tree line.

They pointed and they smiled. They knew that it was good.

In the chill of Winter a lowland family circled a blazing fire.

They ate the crops of Autumn. They smiled, for it was good.

In a city filled with traffic a poet tended a potted flower.

It was Springtime, and in the sunlight all was good.

Six lines, four seasons, the happiest of happy endings.

Yet, in every land, angry ones work that none may smile.

Some steal, wallow in meals they will never eat and laugh while others starve;

Some bomb, as though they might turn the beauty which has