Sunrise over Lake Sunapee and Mt. Kearsarge, by Susan AuBuchon
Welcome to “Dear Daybreak”, a weekly Daybreak column. It features short vignettes about life in the Upper Valley: an encounter, a wry exchange, a poem or anecdote or reflection… Anything that happened in this region or relates to it and that might strike us all as interesting or funny or poignant.
Want to submit your own Dear Daybreak item? Just go here!
Dear Daybreak:
This is the time of year when my morning walks with the dog take on a bigger mission.
As I walk him through our pasture, instead of looking out into the forest or to the hills beyond, I'm keeping my eyes downward, looking for the bright white of the stray milkweed seeds that have fallen on the mown path. I gently pick them up, making sure not to separate the flaky brown seed from its white puff, and move them gently over to the side of the path, where, if they grow next year, they won't be mowed down.
Some frosty mornings, the white puff is stiff as I release it, and it falls straight down among the meadow plants (then again, I am also stiff some of these colder days).
Some clear mornings after release, the gossamer parachutes fly upward, journeying farther than I can spy, merging into the blue sky as they rise. I lovingly call them my "pasture-nauts" and wish them safe travels.
The dog doesn't understand why I'm so slow, but as I carefully (and sometimes tediously) pick them up, I am suddenly reminded of a story my dad told me long ago, about a man walking along a beach after a high tide, picking up the stranded starfish and throwing them back into the sea, knowing that it made a difference to this particular starfish even if he can't save them all. Dad told us the tale in a cautionary tone—not to be overwhelmed when there was so little you could do, but instead to systematically do the things you could to make the world a better place.
I walk onwards to the next seed, a land-locked beachcomber, giving my pasture-nauts the opportunity for another year.
— Katharine Lea, E. Corinth
Dear Daybreak:
Impatiently I watch and wait through the dusty window,
afraid that I might be too late and lose my chance to go.
A chance untold, a plan unseen, for now that chance is just a dream.
Night now falls, the sun goes down, the cows come in and the moon goes around.
Darkness fills my window, just the street light shining in.
I sit there by my window wondering when I will begin.
Autumns calling, snow is falling, seasons ride away, my window turns to spring now, I wait from day to day.
A curse has kept me waiting, a spell won’t let me go.
I search escape, I crave a path to travel and to grow.
A year was burned a lesson learned, my circle was completed.
But by my window still I wait, to find myself defeated.
Get up you wasteful woman leave your window seat alone.
Your chances will fly by you,
and then you’ll find you've grown.
Get up you wasteful woman
Move to the music now.
Stop living your life like the seasons
and the planets
and the cows.
— Susan Arnold, Thetford
Dear Daybreak:
This afternoon I went out to my garden, in the misty light rain, and discovered a nice plump cabbage hiding in a pileup of wilting nasturtiums. I cut the head from the stem and held the heavy round thing in one hand while I pulled messy stuff off the bottom. Suddenly, my hand was jolted with a weird small thunk as the cabbage jumped in my hand. This was a new experience for me - - my very first spontaneously shattered vegetable!
— Sara Ferguson, Wilder