THE BARK OF THE SENTRY

"In this pleasing contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not and see it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are." 
-Ralph Waldo Emerson.  


So at 1AM last evening, awakened,and then dragging and pulling myself from the sheet and quilts of the back bedroom and then next stepping into door-side, slip-on shoes I make my way half-naked outdoors to where 'CASSIDY' my Pyrenees Mountain Dog is going off in a canine tirade of leaps and bounds and barks. In between it all can be heard the baritone growls of his revved up being. He is at the fence in the front yard before the darkness of the dirt road wishing he could snap the metal and plastic leash that is his tether and make his way 'through' the damn wire and wood of the barrier before him and pursue whatever it is that has him in such a condition. I am in a 'catatonic' state of sleep and aching limbs and neck muscles. I've carried with me the flash light from the night stand but as I shine it above the fencing toward the direction of Cassidy's fury I can see nothing more but gravel, illuminated vegetation sweeping in the breezy periphery of the enveloping darkness and the opaque, ribbon-like continuance of the county road to my left and right. My large white dog is smelling the air with muzzle raised as he growls and one can be sure that whatever it was he saw or sensed must have startled the hell out of him as he stretched sound-asleep on his 'doggy-cot' located within the cement/wood enclosure that is the front porch of the farmhouse. It may have been a deer or possum or raccoon but my better instincts tell me otherwise. I have never seen my dog more animated than he is at the moment. I try to calm him and call to him draping my arm around him as I beam the light of the hand-held device into the bleak, foggy, balmy air of the southern night. He remains in a 'tizzy'. I move past him and walk along towards the corner posts of the front yard. I do not see a single thing! Cassidy continues to sniff the air and growl. I know it must have been a coyote. There can be no mistake about it. Earlier, the fellow must have made his way up the banks of the creek and decided to continue his hunting for small game along the darkness of the county road away from the night-light of the farmhouse front. What he had not counted on was a sleeping one-hundred pound dog awakening after his being sensed! Cassidy must have risen his large head and thick mane and peered over the formation of the cement porch walls and discovered him. Then the ruckus had begun. I knew that this particular coyote was in a different zip code by now having taken one look at Cassidy and decided that there were better places to search for food rather than along this creek and farm land. All I could do was return to Cassidy and pet him and praise him and tell him, "Good boy! Good job done. Good boy, Cassi-Bear!" A moment later I returned to bed after he had calmed down only to return a couple more times that evening outdoors. Cassidy would not be silenced! He was not done! The only chance I had to regain any sleep that night was to take hold of him and bring him into the house. There we both managed to crawl up together onto the living room couch for a few hours of sleep. I was tired but it is really all worth it. 
Cassidy is a natural-born sentry. Great Pyrenees Mountain dogs were bred by both the ancient French and Spanish in an area and a mountain range (The Pyrenees) that borders both countries. They were bred to guard and protect both livestock and people. Cassidy was simply doing what he and his thousand-year-ago ancestors were meant to do. In summary; he slept on one end of the couch, paws dangling over and snoring like a bear. And I slept on the other end of it unable to straighten my legs fully at any given point. At least he kept me warm on such a damp and breezy late summer's night as it was.


-RSC 

(a post-mention to this journal entry; a wildlife camera in a nearby hollow by Bridges Creek here in Elijah, Missouri  caught an American Black Bear passing through. Thus, Cassidy had smelled and sensed not a coyote but a bear.)

SMALL SQUARE BALES OF BLUESTEM

The best way to continue forward is to 'continue forward'. The weather is grand and the sun plays on the afternoon grass like a vibrant gentle brush stroke. September stalls these days in languid summery-display pushing back the oncoming Autumnal season. One wants to sit in the warm green grass like an ancient monk and appreciate all that is left of the pleasant moments of these days. I have returned from a small town south-east of my farm house to purchase and pick-up bales of hay. I carted my little, stout, green trailer (pulled by my Jeep Wrangler) from here to there and stacking a half-dozen or so square bales returned to the confines of this small farm. Now, I type at the laptop, looking every once in a while outdoors to where the picture of the day is showing its color and vivid beauty through the screen of the window before me. I have buried a favorite dog this week and 'doctored' the rest of my family of beloved pets. It has been stress piled on top of stress but I believe the storm (or canine plague) may be finally over. I can only move on with regret and hopeful promise for the future. It is what we all call life and learning. Sometimes it is f....cking hell. Life moves onward and we all carry different wounds and regrets and panaceas for the better knowing of it all. There is no sword but the sword of the saint as opposed to the sword of the criminal. But, just watch the news any night or day and try to imagine that there is a difference or any kind of justification in the knowledge of any of it. It is what John Lennon once called it, -"The spinning gem of life". It is also what Emerson wrote, - 'Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world with their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus.' The way I see it is, - all that we can hope to do is cascade along with the current of the winds and the rivers and try to grab hold of what is hopefully 'true'. Truth, however, is a definition of the mind and the individual. The heart should lead and the mind should decide in unison with it. Of course, not everyone executes this kind of approach. The world is made up of many kinds. Each believes that their way of thinking is correct. The best thing to do sometimes is to stand back and take notice. Make notes! The notes will either enlighten you or confuse you and cause you frustration, but no matter, do not dispair; you can always file them away and use them later to write a 'great American novel' or an 'epic poem'. Meanwhile, I dance with the muse, put on a little Mozart in the barn for the animals, and read Jack Kerouac and Cape Cod poets. I lift square bales from my little green trailer as well. My horse and llamas appreciate this. Life on the farm.... yes, indeed...

-RSC {Elijah, Mo.}

SLEEP AND WITH IT, - PEACE

I rolled up the foamy-cushion mattress and stuffed it into the nearby closet. With it went the steel fold-up bed which I rolled across the room and into the storage area behind the doors. The sheets and quilt were taken into the laundry room to be washed. I swept the floor and rearranged the few items of furniture that remained in the room to my liking. I repositioned my writing table before the curtained window. I would then be able to write, and with the curtains drawn, every now and then, look up to see the side patio and the grass of the side yard outdoors. I positioned my wire-shelf stand to my left, keeping my immediate reference material nearby, Cape Cod maps and books, an occasional novel or two, and boxes of past writings dabbled of my own mind and hand, - prose, poetry, short-stories, novel start-ups (and stops), and every other scrap of scribbled or typed paper kept and collected over the many years. I stepped back a few paces and looked things over and decided I liked the new set up. "It would work!', I said aloud to myself. "Just maybe I would actually get 'serious' again about my writing projects still left 'undone'. Well, we'd see." I returned to the front porch and pulled from the cooler, left out on the cement floor of it, a cold beer. Then I returned to the writing table and the laptop in the small room before the sun-filled window. I sat down in the chair before it and snapped open the beer can. It was only then that I wondered if I would begin to cry again.

I had taken down the fold-away bed and re-done the room because I did not want to have a single thing to do with the bed for a very long time. My Yorkshire Terrier and best friend 'Jake' had died on the blankets of it just yesterday afternoon. I had held him in my hands kneeling to the surface of the mattress strewn with terri-cloth towels and felt the last warmth of his small body shudder and then release its grip on this living world. I had begged him to stay with me. He had struggled but he could not hold out any longer. The illness had taken him. The sick, dark, dirty, fucking illness that had come to him for two days had bested him. I had administered every known possible medication and electrolyte formula into him to save him. Jake had just had enough and could not ward off the ugly disease that must have found its savage way to his heart. There is no explaining the feeling. There is no way to describe the tears and the frustration. I was 'as' broken as a man 'can' be broken. And my little 'Jakie-Jakie' was gone. He had left me for sleep and peace and heaven. He was safe now and free but I was broken. As I write this, I am still broken. One may watch the horrible news everyday on the television and the Internet and compare my loss to the large human losses broadcasted constantly (it seems) but I say there is 'NO' loss and sadness felt like that of a trusted, loved and innocent being (as a pet) that loves you, and that is then, very suddenly taken away. I tore at my own heart and logic wondering if there was MORE that I could have done. I held him and cried. I closed his eye lids and kissed him and knew he was gone from me. He was my best pal 'Elijah's' first born son. He was our 'Eleanor's' first son. I felt as though I had let them down. Jake had struggled and fought and then found sleep and with it peace. I buried him beside a stone wall in the prettiest area of our flowered patio beside our beloved 'Yellow Cat' who died just a few months earlier. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. I was numb and without true sensibility. Life is here beside you and then it is snatched away from you. I was without the power to stop the spark of the living from being snuffed out. I was helpless. When it comes to this subject we are all helpless. I write this for my little friend and brother 'JAKE'. He sleeps now and is with love, God and peace. Goodbye little 'Jakie-Jakie'. I will love you and miss you forever. -RSC. Elijah, Missouri