Snow Geese and Spring

A friend sent me a photo today, the return of snow geese to Harney County, Oregon. There, the ground is still icy, and winter keeps its grip on the high desert of southeastern Oregon. Yet, as they have done for tens of thousands of years, the snow geese have returned, right on time.

In flocks of ten, twenty thousand, they swirl through the air; choreography by an unnamed master, above the still frozen marshes and the sagebrush stage of nature’s annual show.

Showers of hail blow through my yard, plunking my raincoat with pea-sized kernels of ice, fresh off a 70 mph storm roaring in from the Pacific. Still, the buds on the lilacs are swollen, and the daffodils and forsythia bravely show their colors.

I want to plant my new fig tree, just in from California. Yet, its new, tender leaves look too fragile for the remnants of this latest storm, and I tuck the tree next to the house on the porch.

“In a few days,” I tell it. “It’s supposed to warm up, and then I’ll plant you in your new home.”

I’m not sure I even believe what I’m saying. The calendar says spring comes next week, but the hills are white with late winter snow that has fallen in the last week or two. The wind cuts through my sweatshirt and raincoat, reminding me “not yet”.

Still, the robins are here now, racing around the lawn when the sun comes out, adding their song to the familiar tunes of their feathered relatives, who have endured this winter, keeping me busy filling up the bird feeder with their favorite sunflower seeds and suet cakes.

The cold wind has found my bones, and it’s time for my chair and a cup of tea.

“The snow geese are back,” I sing.

Another gust blows in, and I dance in my mud boots across the lawn, just ahead of the next deluge of ice falling from the latest black cloud; images of snow geese clouds swooping and circling in my head, me joining in their ballet over the frozen sage.

–Neal Lemery 3/13/2016

The New Year Comes

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

The new year is almost here. I’m ready for a change, to go with the new calendar on the wall. Soon, there will be a new month, a new year, and the rest of winter. But, I’ve been adrift, not quite able to put words to this feeling, this restlessness for looking at life in a new way, with new words.

A new friend and I meet, sipping coffee milkshakes, as he tells me of his life and his hopes for the future. He is full of optimism, and hope for a new beginning. His life is changing, much for the better, as he distances himself from chaos and anger, to curiosity and new vocabulary.

He thinks I’m wise, and I can teach him much. Truth be known, he is my teacher, my spiritual guru today. Like him, I need to free myself from old patterns, old demons, and look ahead. I need a new vocabulary, and fresh eyes to see the world unfolding before me.

“I want to explore so much,” my friend says.

I could easily define him as a failure, a cast off, for something he did several years ago. His family has rejected him, and society has sent him to prison.

He’s a prisoner, I thought, but really, he’s free now. He’s been released, and can now truly live his life. One person’s idea of prison is another’s university of life.

A paradox. Yet, he feels free now, for the first time, to be who he wants to be, to stretch himself and move ahead in his life.

For the first time, he is with people his own age, making friends, going to school, and learning to write. He’s waking up every morning in a place where he is not beaten, screamed at, or kept away from the world. He’s escaped from the darkness of his family’s chamber of horrors, and has come into the light, joining the world as a real person.

He searches for words to express himself, and the words for his waves of emotion, all new to him. This coming year is a new beginning for him, a gift to be opened and cherished, with words and emotions he has never known before.

We discover we are both gardeners, in every nuance of the word. Like me, he’s browsing the seed catalogs, and placing his order, dreaming of the coming springtime, where one plants and brings forth new life. He yearns to nurture the garden of his own soul.

“Who am I?” he asks.

“Anything you want to be,” I reply. “You can choose now. The world is yours to explore.”

And, not just for him, I realize. It is my choice, too. I, too, am in this world, and I also can make those choices and have those opportunities. We are both gardeners and poets, thinking of spring.

And we are both prisoners, of our thoughts, our old perceptions of the world and how we fit into the mold of what others expect of us, how they think we should act and think.

Like my buddy, I too can be free, and move on towards the coming newness and freedom of the new year, and be who I really want to be.

12/28/2015
Neal Lemery

High School Graduation Day, in Prison

Graduations are wonderful. The best ones, however, are in prison, watching youth fill with intense pride and determination, grasping a diploma that was well out of their reach, until their lives turned around, until they felt a sense of hope and possibility in their lonely, desperate lives.

Today, they succeeded, they grew, they came into their own. Their valedictorian gave the best graduation speech any of us had ever heard, bringing us to tears, and cheers, earning a standing ovation from all.

“When the doors of this prison locked behind us, other doors opened ahead of us,” was his opening line.

Later, he told me he was half way towards achieving his associates degree, and dreams of earning an MBA. I have no doubt he will accomplish all of that, and more.

Another young man played a captivating song, exhibiting great talent on the guitar, and with his voice. The principal remarked that he had never played publicly before. It was another moment of amazement and celebration.

I watched sixteen young men celebrate their amazing achievement, and move ahead, seizing opportunity, changing their lives, and making a better world for all of us.

Congratulations, Trask River High School Class of 2013!

The Gift

What must it be like, to get a gift, for the first time in four years?

Four years in prison, after a childhood of hell, of being beaten and abused, and drunk and high, and then doing what someone did to you, to others, and then told by the cops that what you’d been taught was wrong, and you were going to prison.

And, then, for four years, no one in your family comes to see you, or write to you. You are in classes to learn about what you did, and who you are, and how you might want to deal with all of that, and actually be healthy and strong, and become a real man.

Manhood, what a confusing thought.

And, deep inside, you are a kind and sensitive soul, and spend your time being an artist, and creating some beauty in your world. All that is new, to be good to yourself, and to be an artist, to create.

How strange is that, after so many people have told you that you are a beast, and a pervert, and need to be locked up, and punished, for all the bad things you have done.

Yet, someone new in your life gives you a gift of a book, a book that honors art and creativity. And the giver of the book writes you a letter inviting you to explore your creativity, your gifts of beauty, and reminds you that you are a good person, an artist, and a creator of wonderful and beautiful things in this world.

No wonder you are confused. No wonder you find it hard to make sense of this world, and who you are, and what is expected of you.