In Writing: Dale Hobson

Snow falling on the Setback in Wanakena. NCPR Photo of the Day archive: Kristin V. Rehder

I remember how eagerly I used to listen for the school closings on WPDM when I was a kid. Will it be a snow day? I think my father, being a teacher, listened with similar anticipation. A snow day was the touch of grace, an unanticipated diversion from business as usual.

Thanks to the power of the cursed internet, my snow day yesterday meant a work day at home, doing all my usual duties on a much smaller screen. But who’s bitter? Saturday will do just as well, sending out this poem composed in my pajamas.

Snow Day

All night while I was sleeping snow came down,
the way time invisibly accumulates until one
morning this is this face I see in my mirror.

What plans I might have had for the day – poof.
Nothing is moving from here to town, nothing
moving among the white-freighted trees.

Only the snow is moving, steadily downward
as I peer out through the north-side windows
and school closings crowd out the radio news.

But the reassuring rumble of the furnace is steady;
the pantry and the fridge are good for days yet.
Why get dressed? Why not cook comfort food?

Photo: Wesley Shaver, Pexels

I’ve held up through many a North Country winter and this one was no worse than many, and better than some. But by May, I expect my just recompense: blossoms, birdsong, sunshine. To misquote the legal maxim, “spring delayed is spring denied.” I hate to complain (well, actually I love to complain, at least about the weather; it’s a cherished North Country prerogative), but enough is enough. Let there be sun.

Late spring complaint

Spring has stalled again in that spot that feels
more November than May. Wind whips cold rain;
gray clouds scud low over drenched hilltops,
and the heart – long-distance runner that it is –
slogs rubber-legged with a stitch in its side
up the last long slope before the blessed finish.

All the rivers rise and will keep on rising for weeks;
who can say where they will stop? Water taking land,
fog choking air, rain down the neck, mud in shoes.
The lilacs bide in bud; the apple hoards its blooms.
Where is the trillium? Where is the heron? The sun?
The windshield wipers beat their endless idiot reply.

At first glance, the North Country does not look its best in November. For those who do not fly with the geese, it means looking a little harder to find the sustaining beauty that rewards any kind of weather. After so grandiose an autumn display, it’s easy to become discouraged; after long bright evenings, sunset comes too soon. I get it – bigly. There is the weather in the head, and the weather of the world. But wait, look a little closer.

A change in the weather

Gray sky today, and the trees a darker gray
where rain has stripped the prayer flag
leaves. It’s November now; the grand view
is gone, except these snow geese shipping
off south, fleeing flurries from the north.

Look no more up to the hills, up to the crowns,
across the still waters. October is for heights;
November is for near at hand. October is all
distances; November is in detail – orange fungus
on a stump, a tawny tamarack amid dark cedars.

The woods will drip all day, the trail slick
with mud and leaf duff. Only the understory
of saplings holds autumn’s shreds – little
candles of lemon, orange and russet glow
a brave resistance to the sudden evening.

With night and snow the eye turns closer still –
going no further than the porch light’s beam,
or the pages of a book, bright peppers on the
cutting board. And finally, inward altogether,
as dreams swim like fish beneath thin ice.

Ninkasi, Sumerian goddess of beer

Yesterday an article in the Food and Drink section of Huffington Post caught my eye: “According To History, We Can Thank Women For Beer.” It details the role of women in the invention and development of brewing going back at least 9,000 years. But it never answers the question that immediately arose in my mind – “Why did women invent beer?” Here’s my theory.

Why Women Invented Beer

In those days the hunters had to range so far to find
a mammoth the whole clan would have to come,
leaving behind the sheltered valley rich with berries
and nuts, the river teeming with fish and mussels –
out to where there was nothing but wind and moss,
snow blown sideways across the endless steppes.

Then a year came when there were no mammoths,
not a track, no dung, nothing. The men pogoed
for hours around the fire, chanting their hunt songs;
the shaman babbled, wailed, shook the magic rattle –
all to no avail. And so, half-starved, footsore, the band
dragged themselves back to their bend in the river.

That lean year the clan ate anything they could find:
roots, bugs, even the grasses the wild horses grazed.
Being barely edible as was, a woman boiled it, added
a little wild honey so the children would eat it too,
and set it aside for later. But she forgot about it
until the batch went bad, bubbling and stinking.

So when himself came back grumpy, hungry, with
his game pouch empty, she said “Well, there’s this;
it’s nasty, but it will fill the hole in you.” Having eaten
worse – raw snails, rotted fish – he choked it down.
Later he began to laugh at nothing in particular
and rolled around with the children in the dirt.

This being so unlike him, she made another batch,
gathering all the seed-heads she could find.
He shared the brew with his hunting brothers,
who spent the whole night hooting around the fire,
dancing and showing off. When morning broke
none of them felt much inclined to take up the hunt.

And so settled life began, and agriculture. The men
began to build fences and walls and huts. Women
planted, harvested and brewed, and the place beside
the river became civilization. The Sumerians knew
her as Ninkasi, goddess of beer. In ancient Egypt,
she was revered as Menqet. And the rest is history.