The Longest Day of the Year.2

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It’s not the greatest picture, but here is a Prothonotary Warbler, singing! When encountered back in the dark, swampy woods where they nest, their plumage is almost incandescent, and their song is nearly as bright as the feathers. Other birders have commented on the ridiculous name, claiming that Golden Swamp Warbler would be more appropriate. And it has also been suggested that this would have been a more interesting state bird than our Carolina Wren.

Somewhere along this section of the river, I noticed my right foot and leg were going to sleep, which had not happened before when I paddled. Then I realized the cause: I had not taken my wallet out of my back pocket. Of course, that’s not the best place to wear it, anyway, and I realize that…I just haven’t changed the old habit, yet. I finally managed to extract the offending wad of leather — which wasn’t easy while sitting in a tippy kayak — and circulation returned to normal.

The Longest Day of the Year

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…in the Northern Hemisphere, at least.

(First, an explanation: Since my Flickr account has no way to blog more than one photo into the same posting, I’m creating six postings from the same event. And WordPress is glitching over photo sizes, only allowing full-sized 1.5 MB or larger pics in the blog, so that’s not practical.)

Thursday, June 21. I made it to the river and was on the water at 5:20 PM, after answering lots of questions about my kayak from a group of men and boys fishing there at the boat landing. This photo, looking eastward toward the Lancaster County shore, gives some idea of the size and character of the Catawba River.

My goal was to paddle upstream to the foot of the rapids at Landsford Canal State Park, have a picnic supper along the way, and arrive back at the truck after sunset. Total distance would be approximately 9 miles.

April Paddle

Since I haven’t been able to get out in my kayak lately, here are some photos of a previous paddle down the Saluda and Congaree Rivers in Columbia, SC. In the first two, Jim Cubie is in the back calling the shots, which was a good thing when we went through the several stretches of whitewater. He knew what decisions to call out in the rapids, and I enjoyed a good workout following his instructions. The result was that we had a lot of fun and stayed dry. In the third picture, I’m trying an old Wilderness Systems Rascal that one of the other group members was using that day. Later, I tried an Old Town Cayuga 139, but I don’t have any pictures of that. (Photos by Ronny Rentz)

Click on the thumbnails to see the larger photos.

While Not Kayaking

Even if there had not been thunderstorms every evening this week, I was occupied, anyway, with vacation Bible school. You know, I love kids, but VBS is an overload of an otherwise usually wonderful segment of our human population: children (or “short people”, as one frustrated teenage volunteer kept calling them, as in “All short people, line up over here!”) The adults who organized the week did such a good job, and we had more children than expected, which was exciting; it was a successful week. But it was so tiring!

VBS tends to focus and concentrate certain aspects of modern childhood into an episode of near-fatal proportions for some adults, especially adults like me who are introverted and not battle-hardened by having kids of my own. Think about it…there’s both the excitement and fear of being around other kids your age…there’s the fact that several devious parents obviously fed their children raw sugar chased with energy drinks before fiendishly dropping them into our care…there’s the sheer inability to pay attention to any verbage not screamed in a high, cartoon-like voice…there’s poking…there’s retaliatory poking…there’s preemptive poking…there are sudden outbursts of screaming and fits of indignant non-participation that proceed from no stimuli observable to the adult senses…there are (Jesus, have mercy) Kool-Aid and cookies…there’s messin’ with someone’s stuff…there’s the complete non-comprehension of English sentences even though these children were birthed and raised by literate English-speaking parents….

Seriously, though, I know VBS does a lot of good, and even most of the adults get a real blessing from it. When the light of coherence comes back to their eyes sometime early the next week, they hear themselves saying things like, “You know, that was fun.” I had fun, too, in between the obstacles, and many of the children and I had moments of meaningful communication, maybe even some bonding.

VBS might be so important, in fact, that we should raise its status and priority in church life, being careful not to overburden or rush the teachers and organizers of it. The best way I can think of to accomplish that would be to hold it once every four years, just like the Olympics (but without the running with fire, please!).

Poem

Recently, while reading blogs of kayakers and other outdoor types, I came across a posting that referenced cow pasture smells in a positive way. That reminded me of another poem I wrote a few years ago. I’ll share it here since people have been asking to read some of my pieces.

With the Window Open

It’s a cow I hear, off in the night,
supplied only by crickets for accompaniment.
A pleasant bovine screaming it is,
urgent, but not paniced, voicing some
concern to the herd. –A peaceful sound,

but perhaps I would enjoy it less
if she were my cow, calling to her
sisters, also mine. A wakened herdsman,
at this moment, might be grumbling his way
into boots and pants to go out
and set his mind at ease by flashlight.

And he knows nothing of my
listening in the distance, envying his path across
moonlit fields, where, rewarded in his chore
with the scents of honeysuckle and sweet manure,
he finds nothing wrong.

Speaking of Home…

Here is a poem I wrote which touches on the meaning of home. It was originally published in the Trestle Creek Review, in 2000. Incidentally, this was written a few years before it was published, while I still lived in Florence.

Swallow Flight

There the streaming swallows go,
Barn and Bank only, tonight,
twisting above field
in the twi-lit coolness
of pre-autumn’s wind,
flying into darkness,
slipping in the night past
destinations unchosen,
aiming vaguely, easily,
toward a place
that smells like south.

It’s a traffic of feathers
whipping gentle eddies
of unbreathed air,
birds occupying night trails
‘til morning gravity
strengthens its pull
toward sky’s terrestrial partner.

Home is not a place
but a time of day,
a fatigue in the wings,
a decision made by
swallows in the flight.
Home is the distance between
memory and premonition.
There, swallows incubate powerlines
until breezy begging prevails
and they tango
once again with the sky.

Back Home

Alright, I’m finally back in Lancaster after being away for a week. The Greatest Youth Retreat in the History of Youth Retreats — officially themed “The Water of God” — was truly tremendous! I might describe more of it in another posting. I came home at the end of it long enough to wash some clothes, repack, get a little sleep, do some necessary office work, and then leave for Annual Conference in Florence, SC. (AC is the yearly business meeting of the United Methodist Church in South Carolina, attended by clergy and lay delegates from each local congregation. The superbly moving worship experiences are the high point of each year’s session, and this year lived up to the expectation.)

Another highlight for me was getting to be reunited with some friends from churches where I served previously. The itinerant lifestyle leaves too little opportunity for keeping up with the people who are special to you. The same might be said for this earthly life, in general. But for a short while, it felt nice to be back where I once belonged…and with people who felt like home.