nichepoetryandprose

I have a picture of the late Tasha Tudor, the children’s author and illustrator, standing in her hermit’s weeds, clutching an armload of branches for the woodstove.  Her lined face and straightforward relationship with nature exactly describe my wished-for niche. 

I imagine myself as living with the land, growing all my own vegetables, foraging for food I cannot grow, living off the ‘grid’ with solar panels and wood fires, pumping my water from a dug well, patching my roof with pitch from the spruce trees… you are getting the picture.  I do few of these things.  My garden is pitiful, no sensible fish would attach to my line, and I have to keep a few litres of water in containers in case my electricity-dependant water pump succumbs to a power outage.

The niche I actually occupy is satisfactory when measured by many standards.   It falls short of my ideal, but I am not willing to sacrifice.  Even in the simple matter of the woodstove, I have only achieved partial success.  We have pleasant fires in the autumn when the days are getting cold.  But in winter, I rely on electricity to keep me warm.

wood gathered for winter

If my ideal niche is not possible, I do find joy in the bits I have achieved.  I think of my successful row of beans, my healthy crop of mint, my knitting of socks in winter, and my walks in the grey woods, as a ‘close approximation’ of my ideal.  I admit that I would like to leave my cosy electricity-dependant niche, and acknowledgement frees me to stay. 

'Odd Socks' ... I knit them all winter...

I accept the truth … the ideal niche is a difficult goal.  It takes determination and stamina to achieve.   

a close approximation

~

Dolbear’s Law states: the number of chirps a cricket makes in fifteen seconds, plus forty, is a close approximation of the temperature on a summer night

~

warm September   evening  

I sit on the stoop    consider

the timid wind chime    the silent screen door  

the unmetered patter of rain

 ~

soothing after a month of dry

~

the rain    picks a song

over stones on the river

dolce vivace

dolce

vivace

~

where does my mantra take me?

~

away, to the songs of a summer night

at the back door    on the concrete step

where crickets sing   from cracks in the sidewalk

~

strung together    patio lanterns

notes from a Spanish guitar

the insect refrain

~

behind me    light from the kitchen

potatoes at boil   the voice of my sister

the tap of her shoe

~

beside me   the metal rail   rings at my touch

cool on a night   so hot and so dry

the pavement cracks

~

out in the yard    the insect chorus

~

dolce

vivace

~

molto vivace

~

chirps

too quick

to count

~

Published as: ‘threshold’, Spring 1997, Pottersfield Portfolio 17 (3)

(revised)

© Jane Tims

'summer night at the back door'