There’s a former golf course in Haydenville I passed by today, now kept in conservation with The Trustees of Reservations. The once carefully manicured greens and fairways, kept cropped just so and always green, now sport tall grasses turned brown in the dry heat of August.
I thought: “There’s metaphor somewhere in this lovely picture.” Isn’t a golf course a fine showcase for man’s temporary and illusionary dominance over nature, in this case to provide a playing field on which he might wrestle with his demons, often a failed and silly endeavor, with many a golf club hurled into the pond in frustration?
The scene spoke of surrender to me.
I spent a little time in an emergency room recently. Another story, not to worry, thank you. One of the denizens of the busy space was a beautiful little girl of maybe two, with her pigtails and pretty smile. She and her parents seemed fine, not sure why she was there, but I think I can speak for the rest of the passengers in vouching for varying degrees of pain and concern.
At one point she sent a little wave over to a woman sitting across from her. The gesture was gratefully returned and somehow her tiny hand had soothed some of the suffering and smiles washed over the room. Reluctantly, at first, but irrepressibly.
That kind of surrender.
Spinning around on this big blue ball, it’s hard to tell exactly where we might be in time and space, but today brown grasses and pigtails have brought me hope.
Good night, patriarchy. Sleep very, very long and well.
Dennis Carr
Cummington