Blog #5: "If Not, Winter"

Yesterday, I went into the park a little after five, one of the latest times I've been to the pond.  It was cloudy because of the precipitation Pittsburgh has been having, so there wasn't much to see in the evening colors of the sky. The snow the past day or two has been light and constant, and I imagine this is what it might feel like to be inside a snow globe: constantly having your world speckled with dots of white descending around you, small patches of white on the grasses, bits of snowflake lasting a minute on an eyelash or a hand before fading away. As I made my way carefully down the frosty stone steps built into the hillside, it was lovely to see everything capped with the tiniest mounds of white. With the various grey shades of the trees, the puffy sky, and the black of the stones that made up the archway ahead of me, it felt like seeing the world through a black and white filter; a live-action, old time film.

I dedicated part of my exploration today to a closer inspection of some of the plants.  It's hard to get a good look at some of them for identification right now, because of all the weather abuse and slight death they've been enduring.  I'm no artist, but I took out my pen and paper and attempted to draw some of the plants I saw.  I sketched some of the white snakeroot I mentioned before, which has one of the most lovely winter lives. It grows hard and brittle, browns, but still retains its delicate structure and a bit of a tawny colored tuft.


Among a lot of the trodden-on brush along the side of the water, I found some bush-like plants that I sketched and looked up on the internet later.  On the Pittsburgh Parks website, under 'conservancy projects' I read how they had planted native tiarella and heuchera shrubs in 2003 to increase the sustainability of the wetland area.  I think a lot of the bushes I saw were winter versions of Heuchera Shrubs, but it's still hard to be sure.

Around the border of the pond on the left side, there are tall, grassy pond plants.  Some of them I think may be rush plants.  Others are the taller, bigger versions of what I thought were pussy willows, but every time I search on the internet I only get pussy willows.  Instead of having many, tiny fuzzy buds, they usually have a big, fat brown top about the side of a glass soda bottle. I remember my first grade teacher pointing them out to us and mentioning that they only grow near water.  If anyone knows what these are actually called, let me know.

Lastly, I wandered to the far end of the pond that I don't go to as often, where the ducks usually are if they're there.  In the woods on that side, I found my favorite type of tree- the paper birch.  White bark is one of the most lovely aspects of nature to me, the way it seems rolled out in circling strips around the trunk, the deep, scarred notches of dark brown or black, how smooth it is when you lay your hand on its body. I have a book Sappho's poetry translated by Anne Carson called "If Not, Winter".  It's mainly fragments of the writing that has endured time since she wrote it, and though some poems have great chunks of lines missing, even the fragmented ideas of what Sappho was speaking to are so affecting.  One of my favorites is simply: "I long and seek after."

The cover of the book makes me think of the paper birch, with its satin white and etching of tans and blacks along the binding. The books title, along with the bark of the paper birch, are some of the most romantic aspects of winter I can think of.  "If Not, Winter" as a title speaks to this longing, this anticipation of something lost or unattainable being able to be reached in the Winter season.  Perhaps it speaks of lovers, unable to see one another, separated, or maybe even too conflicted to find peace with each other at a time, having the winter to look forward to and resolve their love within.  This idea makes the starkness of winter, the cold, the bare raw spaces, the peeling white bark of the birch, the snow falling in slow procession around us into a picturesque scene so enchanting, so nostalgic, so romantic in its still, still quiet.

After some research, I learned that the first budding leaves on paper birch plants can be used to make tea if you collect them.  This might be now what I am most looking forward to in Spring: gathering tiny new leaves off the birch, pinching them inside of my metal strainer ball, steeping and drinking such a fresh tea. I have a strange infatuation with the idea of becoming a tree. Its a very prominent theme in my work, as I think I've mentioned before, and the idea of drinking something made from such a gorgeous tree, bringing the tree into my body, is so stirring for me.  If I were ever to be reincarnated or perhaps have been something in a previous life, I think it would be a tree. I wrote something for my prose poem class with Sheryl, a sort of fantastical imagining of a woman becoming part of a tree, and it's still in the works but I'll share it below.

The Fullness of Sap 

She travels the long way down the tree branch. It is enormous, the width of twice her waist, extending for miles. Each foot touches its underside to the etched line of wood, steals energy from the rawness inside. This is a dream but it is still important.  The bough she's chosen is a vibratory one to travel, full of the hard thick flow of sap inside the hollow, milking its way to the tips, sweet if you can get to it. Imagine how it feels to dip a finger in, how the thickness would surprise you, full of pressure, color of hard, glowing amber.

The wind pulls a little ahead and the branch begins to rise and dip, rise and dip. She lies her belly down on the wood, wraps herself around the hardness, doesn’t listen to the creak of the bending bough. Hands touching, thighs tight against the branch, she lays an ear against the surface, listens to the humming. It takes its time, warming, milking.

Imagine the branch could gasp open, take her in slowly, dipping a leg, the pressure pulling the other deeper, deeper, enveloping the small back, the belly, arms drawing in, further, further, the chest and collar bones submerging, pulling, pulling, while the wind blew them around. How full it would be, supple when the branch dips, tensing when it pulls up. 

What a marvelous thing, the branch muses, to be entered, and so gently.

Link to the Schenley Park information:
http://www.pittsburghparks.org/schenleyprojects