By David Ferry
It is a summer afternoon in October.
I am sitting on a wooden bench, looking out
At the lake through a tall screen of evergreens,
Or rather, looking out across the plane of the lake,
Seeing the light shaking upon the water
As if it were a shimmering of heat.
Yesterday, when I sat here, it was the same,
The same displaced out-of-season effect.
Seen twice it seemed a truth was being told.
Some of the trees I can see across the lake
Have begun to change, but it is as if the air
Had entirely given itself over to summer,
With the intention of denying its own proper nature.
There is a breeze perfectly steady and persistent
Blowing in toward shore from the other side
Or from the world beyond the other side.
The mild sound of the little tapping waves
The breeze has caused—there's something infantile
About it, a baby at the breast. The light
Is moving and not moving upon the water.
The breeze picks up slightly but still steadily,
The increase in the breeze becomes the mild
Dominant event, compelling with sweet oblivious
Authority alterations in light and shadow,
Alterations in the light of the sun on the water,
Which becomes at once denser and more quietly
Excited, like a concentration of emotions
That had been dispersed and scattered and now were not.
Then there's the mitigation of the shadow of a cloud,
And the light subsides a little, into itself.
Although this is a lake it is as if
A tide were running mildly into shore.
The sound of the water so softly battering
Against the shore is decidedly sexual,
In its liquidity, its regularity,
Its persistence, its infantile obliviousness.
It is as if it had come back to being
A beginning, an origination of life.
The plane of the water is like a page on which
Phrases and even sentences are written,
But because of the breeze, and the turning of the year,
And the sense that this lake water, as it is being
Experienced on a particular day, comes from
Some source somewhere, beneath, within, itself,
Or from somewhere else, nearby, a spring, a brook,
Its pure origination somewhere else,
It is like an idea for a poem not yet written
And maybe never to be completed, because
The surface of the page is like lake water,
That takes back what is written on its surface,
And all my language about the lake and its
Emotions or its sweet obliviousness,
Or even its being like an origination,
Is all erased with the changing of the breeze
Or because of the heedless passing of a cloud.
When, moments after she died, I looked into
Her face, it was as untelling as something natural,
A lake, say, the surface of it unreadable,
Its sources of meaning unfindable anymore.
Her mouth was open as if she had something to say;
But maybe my saying so is a figure of speech.
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It was a spectacularly gorgeous October day, and after older son got home from volunteering at Hebrew school and we had French toast and turkey sausage, we went on the fall Countryside Artisans tour, when a group of rural crafters with home studios invite people to come see their work. We went first to Art of Fire, the glassblowing studio, whose owner was at the Maryland Renaissance Festival as he is every weekend in the fall, so we got a demonstration by the people working there. Then we went to Dancing Leaf Farm, where sheep are raised and fibers created from their wool, and Sugarloaf Studio, which has a labyrinth cut into the grass in the backyard and paintings and prints on display inside.
When we got to Art of Fire around 2 p.m., the artists had been making glass pumpkins all morning and decided to create a pumpkin goblet.
The finished pumpkins are very pretty but only take about 15 minutes each, so the artists had gotten a little bored and decided to improvise.
This is clear glass -- it looks orange because of the temperature -- having color added to it before it is shaped.
After being blown and heated again, it is blown in a mold to create the pumpkin shape.
That creates this pumpkin sphere, whose opening is slowly expanded with tongs after being heated.
With the goblet resting in an oven to keep it hot, the artisans next made this stem, starting with clear glass turned green and slowly stretched and twisted.
Two artisans worked to fuse orange glass onto the stem to create the base. Then the bowl part had to be attached to the stem, again requiring two people to work together, and the hardest part, separating the completed goblet from the pipe.
But it worked, and now the pumpkin goblet is in an oven being annealed!
There were snacks at all three studios we visited -- Halloween candy at Art of Fire, cookies and cider at Dancing Leaf Farm, and snack crackers at Sugarloaf Studio -- so the kids weren't ravenous, but we had to drive past the very good inexpensive El Mexicano on Route 28 heading home, so we had dinner there. There's a new Persian gourmet market next door -- homemade hummus and kabobs, sugar plums and lemon almonds and saffron candy -- and they had Ahmad decaf Earl Grey tea, which is stronger than any decaf I can get here, with no trace of bitterness and a lingering sweet bergamot aftertaste -- I had no idea that anyone sold it locally! Now I can have wonderful Earl Grey tea after 5 p.m.!
As I type this, the Red Sox are still playing the Rays. Now that I know Tampa Bay has a touch tank in the stadium with actual cownose rays, I have moved from general disinterest to actively rooting for Tampa Bay!
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