This isn't about spoons. It's about holding something, and letting go.
It was a simple thing really. I was gathering wood for my winter solstice bonfire. It was going to be one humdinger of a showcase of light, a push fire as I called it - the fire in the post-solstice moments pushing the light-tendencies from behind rather than the "pulling" of a pre-solstice fire... Pretty much equal halves of the longest night and shortest day balance with that exact moment when the sun is at its farthest point from the North Pole, which this year in the area I'm in was a little past 11 am.
At 4pm I got the fire going, and after about an hour of burning I decided to load more wood on - my barn was full of old scraps of wood, rotten beams, old boards, planks full of nails that would be a nightmare to cut through to make proper lengths of bona fide "firewood". So I started to gather armloads together and carry them to the fire.
Being that it was about 5pm at that time it was pitch-black and I was using my headlamp to light my way along the snowy path and in the barn.
The light happened upon two poles resting upright in a far corner of the barn. I walked over to them and let the headlamp's light move upon their surfaces. They were about six feet in length, fairly round and straight, about a wrist's thickness and both had ends that were cut in somewhat square shapes. Along the whole length there was faded green cloth that had some sort of thin black leather strips tacked along the cloth.
They seemed to be handles of an old army stretcher.
I paused before them, wondering all sorts of whys and whens and wheres and whos but then my mind began seeing a world around the poles when the stretcher cloth was intact, hands holding the square-cut ends, bodies upon the cloth being carried endless distances, pain, cries, blood, sleep and death flowing through the wood. I thought not to burn them - to leave them there to rest, to be part of some lingering reality of something that was long, long ago, but then I thought about the rest of letting go, the respect in the letting go, letting the wood and what it carried get on towards its next iteration of existence, in flames, in ashes towards new soil for seeds and roots of trees and I picked up the sticks and carried them to the fire and laid them gently on the flames and watched the fire lick around them and slowly take them into its embrace, and I let go, thinking of wars that implied the need for things like stretchers, and the war so many years ago on that same date when the Finnish army was steadfastly dismantling the Soviet belief in easy victory, persevering through harsh cold, weighing down stretchers. It didn't matter when the stretcher was created or where it was used - it had me think once again about the many sacrifices people in this country made for their independence, for good and right and light over darkness, and the fire burned towards our world of more light.
It was a simple thing really. I was gathering wood for my winter solstice bonfire. It was going to be one humdinger of a showcase of light, a push fire as I called it - the fire in the post-solstice moments pushing the light-tendencies from behind rather than the "pulling" of a pre-solstice fire... Pretty much equal halves of the longest night and shortest day balance with that exact moment when the sun is at its farthest point from the North Pole, which this year in the area I'm in was a little past 11 am.
At 4pm I got the fire going, and after about an hour of burning I decided to load more wood on - my barn was full of old scraps of wood, rotten beams, old boards, planks full of nails that would be a nightmare to cut through to make proper lengths of bona fide "firewood". So I started to gather armloads together and carry them to the fire.
Being that it was about 5pm at that time it was pitch-black and I was using my headlamp to light my way along the snowy path and in the barn.
The light happened upon two poles resting upright in a far corner of the barn. I walked over to them and let the headlamp's light move upon their surfaces. They were about six feet in length, fairly round and straight, about a wrist's thickness and both had ends that were cut in somewhat square shapes. Along the whole length there was faded green cloth that had some sort of thin black leather strips tacked along the cloth.
They seemed to be handles of an old army stretcher.
I paused before them, wondering all sorts of whys and whens and wheres and whos but then my mind began seeing a world around the poles when the stretcher cloth was intact, hands holding the square-cut ends, bodies upon the cloth being carried endless distances, pain, cries, blood, sleep and death flowing through the wood. I thought not to burn them - to leave them there to rest, to be part of some lingering reality of something that was long, long ago, but then I thought about the rest of letting go, the respect in the letting go, letting the wood and what it carried get on towards its next iteration of existence, in flames, in ashes towards new soil for seeds and roots of trees and I picked up the sticks and carried them to the fire and laid them gently on the flames and watched the fire lick around them and slowly take them into its embrace, and I let go, thinking of wars that implied the need for things like stretchers, and the war so many years ago on that same date when the Finnish army was steadfastly dismantling the Soviet belief in easy victory, persevering through harsh cold, weighing down stretchers. It didn't matter when the stretcher was created or where it was used - it had me think once again about the many sacrifices people in this country made for their independence, for good and right and light over darkness, and the fire burned towards our world of more light.
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