The Garden of the Seasons: Winter into Spring -- Those Back-and-Forth Days in the Changeable Month of March

A beautiful light in the late afternoon glows in the windows today (Saturday, March16), making me desire to go back outdoors and stare at the world. We have already done a good deal of staring, and looking, and traipsing around in the Blue Hills Reservation today, catching the park in one of its late season undressings. 

        Change is underway. Last week's snow cover has largely melted into once frozen ground, offering slush and some mud-season conditions on what are otherwise clear and well trod paths from the blows of thousands of feet over scores of years. 

        Now the feet must rest, even as the eyes may go on feasting. 

        Today's date means we're halfway through the month of March, that most changeable of moons, given its folklorish status as both lion and lamb. How about lollipop? If the crocuses pop open. Lamplight night-owl? If the longer light, seriously extended by early daylight savings tempts you to stay up later. 

          I heard an owl hoot from a very nearby tree after midnight one night last week. Though I have never seen one in this neighborhood.

          March is the month of first green shoots. Crocuses, blade-like leaves, then budding mouths nuzzling up between the shoots.

           Of forsythia's yellow, and pale willow green. Of -- when the ice clears out of the drenched forest lowlands -- the sharply fragrant skunk cabbages. Wild, prolific, and done in a month.

           Of bulging, red buds on the slim branchings and tiny twigs of spring-blooming trees. Of the newspaper photos of cherry tree blossoms looming pink and white on fruit trees in the states south of New England. Especially, it seems in the nation's capital (did Jefferson plant these?), if all the blushing pink in the world has not been consumed by the faces ceaselessly embarrassing themselves in the White House and the Capitol building.  

            March is the season of wind, such as the sudden blast crossing the back garden from north to sough, and then west to east, in the midst of this extravagantly sunlit afternoon. 
            The season of bird song too, or does my memory deceive me? A few years back I would have sworn that the dawn serenades of the returning, and seasonally reviving, avian chorus were loudest in March. Their instincts are roused by the stronger, longer sunlight, the warming bare ground of the new year's revelation, and by the springlike temperatures. 
            Temperatures, we're told, are typically averaging in the low to mid forties by these middle days of the month. Bare ground? 

             I am remembering Marches with no snow on the ground; recent calendars, however. have banished these vernal expectations. Last year the month gifted us with four consecutive visitations of the fierce storms we called northeasters, because that's the direction from which the wind blows strongest on this coast. We were coming home from Florida during one of these on a flight I greatly feared would be canceled. Is this a sign? I asked myself then. Should we not be coming home from Florida to face all this?

            And then a few years before, the legendary Massachusetts killing winter of 2015, when the snows of late winter rolled steadily through March. And the snow embankments were scarcely off the earth through the month of April. Fat chance for the crocuses; and the daffodils were similarly late as well. 

              This year, after a remarkably snow-free winter. we get our only substantial snowfall in the first third of March, fifteen inches in our town of Quincy. Those fortification-like snowbanks once more lining the streets of the neighborhood. The snowed-in, street-parked cars. The heavy coatings of wet snow melting with thumps off all the branches of all the trees, and sliding off the roofs, days later, with brief avalanche-like frenzies. 

               This is the snow (pictured in the second and third photos above) we found in the Blue Hills Reservation, where we walked last weekend through boot-trodden trails of slush-heavy snow. It had already melted some by then, but you can see it covering the entirely of the broad plain of Houghton's Pond, and on the untouched snowfields where the tree boles and their long straight shadows cross-hatch the earth's white floors. 

               This week 'seasonable' temperatures melted back most of the snowbanks; and a rainy night decreased them further still.

               The birds (as pictured below) accommodated themselves to a snowy floor and looked for the uneaten seeds spilled from the feeder. And the skies grew rich with the deep blue of the fast-approaching equinox.

           This week, I think, we will see some of those green sprouts. When it comes, this long-awaited deliverance, the change is always sudden. (Photos below are now-and-then moments from various stages of snow and melt delivered by the stop-and-start seasons of March.)

 

Tall Story Time: Two Stories, Two Journals, Two Days

        My short story "Post No Bull" begins this way:

Our first stop, of course, is Charlie’s.

“Do you remember when we used to come here?” she asks, as we contemplate the glass front of Charlie’s Cheap Eats & Saloon.

“No, we didn’t,” I say. “You must be thinking of someone else.”...

She laughs and swats me lightly. “It wasn’t somebody else. I don’t know what you think of me.”

           The story is up on the online journal "Carpe Bloom," which has just published its "Issue 7/ Paperguts"

           Written a few years ago, "Post No Bull" is a mostly funny story about what happens when a couple of youthful hipsters look for places to put up posters for their free music festival. It's wholly fictional. I am not guilty of any of the offenses recorded therein (though most of them were in my heart). 

            The story was written originally to be part of something much (much) longer, a novel about the follies, and aspirations, of being young. I thought I had to try to capture some of the currents, self-inventions, and ways of living peculiar to a period in every life that leaves its mark, though it passes so quickly -- while, that is, I could still remember something about it.  

           That novel of the inspirations (and perspirations) of youth is still around, and I've lately gone back to reworking pieces. 

            Here is the link to "Issue 7/ Paperguts" below. https://carpebloom.com/issue7paperguts/

            My story is the THIRD STORY story down.


Today, March 13, the Potato Soup Journal published another of my short fictions. Titled "Two of Us," this fiction is about as different as can be from "Post No Bull." In that story, the characters were very young, dealing with young people issues -- drugs, nonconformity, building relationships. In "Two of Us," the characters are dealing with the passage of time and looking at eternity.
            Again, as in "Post No Bull," none of the events depicted in "Two of Us" took place in my own experience. I have certainly to at least one of these settings, the 'hospital,' and most everyone has been on an 'airplane,' but happily my situation did not resemble that of the male character in this story.... I wrote this story some four or five years ago. Enough time to allow me to see this story from a distance and feel for the characters.
             Here's a brief excerpt from the section called "The Hospital."
 He stares at the clock over the reception desk. The line moves. An older man approaches the desk accompanied by a young woman with thick dark hair, who proves to be his translator.
        It’s more like ten minutes now.
        You wanted this, Scott. You wanted me to push you to do this.
        I know you believe that. Facing straight ahead, not looking at her. 
        I believe it because it’s true.
        He frowns.
        How are you feeling? Is it happening? 
        Don’t ask. He shakes his head. 
        She whispers. I know you’re suffering. 


You can find the whole story (it's not long; neither of these stories is) at this link:
http://potatosoupjournal.com/two-of-us-by-robert-knox/
 

 

Garden of Verse: Songs Without Music, plus Notes on Where to Hear the Inspiration

 My three poems in March's issue of Verse-Virtual are gathered under the theme "Songs Without the Music." They come from my practice of scribbling possible lyrics while listening to favorite songs (then massaging them later). 
         I've also supplied links to YouTube performances of these songs, in case you'd like to try listening to the music while you read the poems. Or just listen to the (wordless) songs. Or just read the poems. 
         You can find the poems at http://www.verse-virtual.com/robert-knox-2019-march.html

         Here's one of them.



Asleep Beneath the Moon*
           

How sweet is that?
Where else would you wish to sleep?
In the sun? You get burned.
Beneath the stars? Sure --
     though lacking something, wouldn't you say, of the personal touch
given those astronomical distances?
But that big round face glowing with a mysterious and
perhaps even slightly creepy interest
in your petty human affairs here below? --
That could be nobody but the moon.
The moon has music.
It keeps coming, pouring,
flowing from the endless chain of mysterious
receding and persistent rebirths
(like a plant with thirteen annual springs)
defined by the astrophysical commands and
functional attentions --
explained in poems written many moons ago by Isaac Newton --
its darker moods always kept private
from our perverse, even morbid curiosity.
            But look! Its enigmatic smile!
its off-center shadowy eye,
its intense ability to feature in pretty much
every mood and emotion
we call on it to express.
            What is not lunar?
Its effect pure lunacy --
of attraction to distraction
(or the other way around)
but in its sweetest moments,
also, perhaps, the most summery,
another of its mysteries,
like first love --
            It's the siren of sleep,
this marvel of a companionable moon --
we sing of in songs of love and loss
and, who knows,
perhaps even, in dreams, murmur its secret name
 
Where else would I choose to
            burrow into unconsciousness, but
softly, safely, sensually,
(and quite often connubially)
beneath the moon?
 
*After the song by John Fluker; music at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK0lbDFAtfQ 

        You can find my poems and all the fine poems in the March issue at  
http://www.verse-virtual.com/poems-and-articles.html 

The Garden of History: A Late Black History Month Salute for Black Soldiers in the American Revolution

It's the last days of February, also known as Black History Month, and maybe if the month ran a few days longer, this contribution to the monthly theme wouldn't seem so last minute. But February, as Spike Lee pointed out at the Academy Awards presentation last Sunday, "is the shortest month of the year." And black filmmakers like himself seem regularly to be getting the short end of the stick.

          Nevertheless, the best picture controversy reminded me of a recent email I received from historian Harry Schenawolf, who writes articles and edits the "Revolutionary War Journal" website. A retired teacher and professor, historian and novelist, Schenawolf directed me to an article on the site titled "Black Presence in the American Revolutionary Army was Much Larger than What We've Thought or Been Told." 

           His essay argues that the black contribution has been largely written off as an insignificant percentage of the total number of soldiers who for fought American independence, approximately 300,000. Black participation has been estimated at 5,000, or about 1.6 percent.

[See http://www.revolutionarywarjournal.com/arm-negroes-to-the-principles-of-liberty-never-to-be-lost-in-a-contest-for-liberty-the-black-presence-in-the-american-revolutionary-army-was-much-larger-than-what-weve-tho/ ]

               But the true impact of black participation in the American War of Independence was considerably greater, Schenawolf contends, because of the differing life circumstances blacks and whites faced during that period. Many soldiers enlisted for only 30 or 90 days. When their time was up they went home to take care of their families or harvest crops, or avoid spending horrendous winters with an army that lacked the resources to house, clothe and feed them properly in encampments such as the infamous Valley Forge.

            But black enlistees stayed longer, many serving through the whole war, enduring winter camps and helping the Army to maintain a minimal strength because in many cases they had few or no other options. Many had no families or homes of their own to return to. Some, especially in Northern states, were African slaves who had been released from servitude for the express purpose of serving as fighters to prop up the cause of American independence.

            Citing the scholarly research of others, Schenawolf's article reports that contemporary observers placed the percentage of black soldiers at Valley Forge to 10 percent of the total number, even as the Army's size dropped to a mere 7,000. His article reproduces a full regiment by regiment accounting of the active duty rosters at Valley Forge during the winter to back up this estimate.

            As in most areas of African American participation in American institutions, the story of black participation in the Revolutionary War is a varied tale.

            Opposed at the start by everyone from Washington to state governors and plantation owners, the practical demand for more soldiers to replace those who quit the fight when their enrollment was up, deserted, or were lost as casualties to battle or disease, found generals and governors searching for ways to produce new enrollments.

            "Shortly after General Washington took command of the army at Cambridge" in the war's first year, Schenawolf writes, "he issued orders to recruiting officers prohibiting the enlistment of any African Americans." But this ideological stance "was soon to erode by necessity and the fact that African American soldiers performed far beyond biased and preconceived prejudices."

            American leaders had initially banned and discouraged black participation in part because of fears their appearance in the uniforms of the War for Independence would weaken the institution of slavery, a source of great wealth to some of the movement's important backers and to the colonies as a whole.

            When bodies are desperately needed, however, Schenawolf's research tells us, black bodies prove acceptable.

            Another reason to recruit blacks to the cause of independence was that the British were desperately seeking to fill their own ranks with deserting slaves. If you desert your rebel masters, British commander Henry Clinton urged the enslaved, you will find a home with us.

            In response, independence leaders encouraged Colonial slave owners to free their slaves for military service by offering enrollment bounties to their masters.

            The argument for this policy -- freedom in reward for service -- was expressed with characteristic eloquence (as quoted in Schenawolf's article) by Alexander Hamilton, who wrote that by “the dictates of humanity and true policy, slaves should be given their freedom with the swords to secure their fidelity, animate their courage, and influence those remaining in bondage by opening a door to their emancipation.”

            Emancipation for the cause of independence proved a tough sell in the deep South, but some Northern states embraced it. Rhode Island enrolled a full regiment of black soldiers who "proved themselves admirably in action, particularly during the Battles of Rhode Island and Yorktown," Schenawolf writes. "New Hampshire enlisted African Americans and gave to those who served three years the same bounty offered others."

            Constitution Framer James Madison highlighted the ideological connection between a war founded on a declaration of freedom and equality to the offer of liberation to enslaved Africans. Schenawolf states:

            James Madison succinctly suggested that the slaves be liberated and armed. “It would certainly be consonant to the principles of liberty,” he said, “which ought never to be lost sight of in a contest for liberty.”

            Black soldiers took part valiantly, sometimes heroically, in major battles. At the Battle of Bunker Hill, when some British attackers survived a withering fire from American lines, the appearance of a saber-wielding British officer on top their redoubt demanding they surrender threw American soldiers into confusion. Had their position been overrun? Was resistance suddenly hopeless?

            Their indecision ended when African American soldier Peter Salem stepped forward and fired his musket into the chest of the British major, restoring the courage of the American defenders.              While Georgia would not emancipate slaves to allow them to fight, the state did permit a slave named Austin Dabney to enlist as his master's substitute. He proved to be such a gallant fighter as an artilleryman that after a gunshot wound left him crippled for life, the state awarded him a pension.

            The all-black Rhode Island First Regiment saved American forces from a shattering defeat in the Battle of Rhode Island when they protected the rear of the American army retreating from the abandoned siege of British forces in Newport, according to witnesses. A Doctor Harris reported: 

          "Had they been unfaithful or even given away before the enemy all would have been lost. Three times in succession they were attacked with more desperate valor and fury by well disciplined and veteran troops, and three times did they successfully repel the assault and thus preserved our army from capture.”

            While Massachusetts, home to its share of African slaves, dithered on the question of forming a black regiment or inducing slaves to enlist, first-hand accounts noted the "number of Negroes” in its regiments. British historian Bancroft wrote that "more than 700 black men fought side by side with the white”at the crucial battle of Monmouth, where Washington's army held its own against a superior British force.

            The American use of black troops in its War of Independence also established a pattern for participation of African Americans in the future country's wars. Schenawolf cites Benjamin Quarles’ study, The Negro in the American Revolution:

              "From colonial times until the twentieth century, the Negro would be bypassed in the early stages of conflict. But as the struggle grew arduous, civilian authorities and military commanders would turn to the one great remaining manpower pool, and the Negro would emerge from his status as a rejected inferior to become a comrade in arms.”

            Recent research also has given us more detailed information on the identities of black soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Research conducted by the Daughters of the American Revolution (as part of a settlement of a suit against the organization) was able to name some 5,000 black soldiers.

            In a story I wrote for the Boston Globe eight years ago, I reported that local historians in Plymouth County, Mass., after combing the DAR research, were able to identify 135 names from communities south of Boston. Bridgewater (a township that then encompassed what is now Brockton) had the highest total with 40. Twenty-six were from Plymouth, 10 from Middleborough, 10 from Scituate, 9 from ­Braintree, 8 from Hanover, and 5 each from ­Dedham and Stoughton.

            The sources I spoke to for this story also told me that they thought a proposal for a a national ­memorial for African-Americans who fought for American independence had merit.

            “I think it’s an excellent idea,” said Jermain Corbin, an African-American who taught African-American history in a Boston exam school. "Something that’s forgotten is that more than 5,000 black soldiers participated in the American Revolution."

            After reading Schenawolf's article and others on the American Revolution Journal website, I think there may even be material here for a good movie. 

            It's unlikely, however, to win the Best Picture Oscar.