I wrote this piece several years ago (early 1990's) for The Art of Living. Thanks to Finn Bille, editor and publisher for using my work.

Owls of Springtime

            I stand in a patch of moonlight opened by the fall of a live oak that grew in the too soft soil of the island. The moon is pale in comparison to its cousin the sun, so the opening is bathed in shadowy half-light.

            Human eyes adjust remarkably well to this pale luminescence. My trained eye picks out the individual branches of the live oaks and red maples; even the Spanish moss draped over the branches is revealed in the moonlight.

            Night vision is clear but fades to shades of gray, like a black and white photograph. The night world is one of sharpness and clarity, but without color.

            Beyond the island stretches the water and cypress world of Okefenokee swamp. Maps tell me that this water world has boundaries, but my senses tell a different story. My eyes and ears tell me that I could get in a canoe and travel forever, and at the end of that journey the swamp would go on.

            In early March the cypress are already green with new growth. The maples are in bloom with their particular red flowers and the light barely penetrates to the water. American poet James Weldon Johnson used a land much like this as an analogy for the darkness present before the creation of the sun. He referred to that time as “…blacker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp.”

            Out on the swamp no movement is discernable. No bull gators bellow their amorous intentions this late in the spring. No heron is spooked from its roost with such hoarse squawking to make me believe that the ghosts of nearby Billy’s Island have come to life.

            I step back from the clearing, keenly aware of the incomparable alertness of the nighttime creatures. The wondering raccoon needs no flashlight to find the remnants of our evening meal. The owls in the treetop have seen and heard our small party before we even think of looking for them. How many times have I cursed a missing tent stake, despite my good night vision, only to find it beside my tent in the morning, not four inches from the wooden stake I cut from my firewood as a substitute? An owl has no trouble seeing the mouse it searches out for dinner. A fox has no trouble following the trail of a bob white or a rabbit. Humans alone seem limited in their sensory abilities at this time of day.

            The sense that I most associate with nighttime though is hearing. The crickets chirp, the tree frogs trill and the pig frogs grunt. I cup my hands beside my open mouth and softly hoot into the darkness. So my mentor did before me and so his before him. With a low call at first, I imitate the eight syllable call of the barred owl. As I increase the volume, an owl answers in the distance, and then another. The woods are home to a nesting pair, defending their territory from me, the intruder.

            Owls are made that way. They will not tolerate any strangers wandering into their territory. The island has just enough mice, voles, and cotton rats to support them and one year’s progeny. The hoot of an intruder is a query of a traveler looking for a home. The answer is the equivalent of “scram.”

            Later that night I awaken. Something has stirred the owls in the 3:00 AM darkness. Always vigilant, the pair defends their island home.

Rain
Published in The Weekly Avocet

Like a love poem that fills the heart to overflowing

rain covers the mountain just after the New Year.

Murmuring rivulets dampen once dry leaves,

intersect paths and muddy trails,

muddy shoes and trouser legs.

I plunge through fecund mud and leaves,

become a mud man devoted to sylvan gods.

Glen Falls becomes a roaring torrent,

deceives my ears.

Thinking it close, I forge ahead.

The cascade below the fallsa booming choir.

Bases and contraltos reverberate from hickory and oak.

I bow before the splendor,

prepare to endure cold days ahead,

anticipate Equinox rebirth.

Found this in an old notebook.

Taurus

Ray Zimmerman

Taurus, bull of heaven,

Zodiac constellation,

lies on the ecliptic.

Ishtar released the bull.

It was vengeance against Gilgamesh

who refused her affections.

The bull scorched the earth.

Gilgamesh said “Let us go

and kill this bull of heaven.”

Enkidu, his friend, demurred.

“Let us not kill this bull of heaven,”

yet they destroyed the bull.

The land regained its strength.

Ishtar asked her father for revenge.

They have killed the bull of heaven!

Gilgamesh, half divine, was spared.

Mortal Enkidu died, lay in state for seven days.

Flash fiction International

Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman

I usually compare the novel to a mammal, be it wild as a tiger or tame as a cow; the short story to a bird or a fish; the microstory to an insect (iridescent in the best cases). - Louisa Valenzuela

Luisa Valenuzeula’s statement has a certain charm as she compares the very short fiction form, now known as flash fiction, to iridescent insects, but I prefer to liken them to gems, lustrous with beauty and hard as the truths they reveal. The editors of Flash Fiction International selected eighty-six of the best of the best stories in this form. The editors included stories from locations as diverse as The United States, Iraq, Bangladesh, Argentina and Zimbabwe.

A review of all eighty-six stories is not possible, but a sampling serves to illustrate the diversity of voices in this collection drawn from world wide sources:

In “The Waterfall,” Alberto Chimal of Mexico describes a ritual which combines christening and baptism, in which the drops of consecrated water are likened to the souls of the dead, each hoping that his (or her) name will be preserved, that their name will be the one given to the young child.  Will the selected name be Guglielmo, Terencio, Jason, Emil, or some other

In “Prisoner of War,” by Mune Fadhill of Iraq, a man returns home after eighteen years in an Iranian prison to see his now deceased wife’s likeness in the face of a grown daughter. He withdraws into his own world of repairing technology. He is changed and the world around him is changed.

In “Eating Bone” by Shabian Nadiya of Bangladesh describes a wife threated with divorce after ten years of a childless marriage. She asserts herself in a surprising way. Meanwhile, Natalie Diaz of the United States portrays a legless veteran who takes to his wheelchair and cruises the dancefloor of “The Injun Who Could,” intoxicated female tourists.

Although many of the stories are new works by contemporary writers, some very short classics have made their way into this collection. “The Young Widow,” by the Roman author Petronius joins “Appointment in Samarra” (W. Sommerset Maugham) and “An Imperial Message” (Franz Kaufka).

These brief narratives range from one to three pages, and each is a complete story in itself. This collection is as bright as a star field on a dark winter night.

MUSIC AND STORYTELLING FOR ALL AGES

November 7 & 8

Cloudland Canyon State Park

Ray Zimmerman Master of Ceremonies

For information on other aspects of this event see http://mountainartsandcraftcelebration.com/... or https://www.facebook.com/FOCCSP

Saturday - November 7

ê 10:35 to 11:35 (Music) No Till Drillers

ê 12:00 to 1:00 (Music) Scarlett Stitch

ê 1:30 to 1:55 Amber Lanier Nagel

ê 2:00 to 2:25 Finn Bille

ê 2:45 to 3:45 (Music) Rising Fawn Social Club

Sunday  - November 8

ê 10:00 to 11:00 (Music) Brian Henry

ê 11:15 to 12:15 (Music) Scarlett Stitch

ê 12:45 to 1:10  Ray Zimmerman

ê 1:15 to 1:40 Michael Gray

ê 2:15 to 3:00 (Music) Jerome Arnold

ê 3:30 to 4:30 (Music) Organized Kaos

Place Based Writing

This piece previously appeared in the Dade County Sentinel and the Chattanoogan.com.

As I sit at a picnic table overlooking the Tennessee River, just below the Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant, the ripples of the river exude power. The ridge on the far side is marked by two cliffs, one above the other, which run most of the length. Each is tall and clearly visible above the trees. The river is quite deep here, with Nickajack dam not far below, but this flooded valley was once home to a much shallower river with rapids and shoals.

I cannot write much of that flooded valley, short of a time machine to go back and visit it. I know that boats leaving Chattanooga encountered “The Suck,” a place where the river narrowed and objects, sometimes even people, were pulled into the water below.  Submerged objects came to the surface further downstream at “The Pot,” where water bubbled up to the surface from those deeps. Further down, an obstacle known as “The Frying Pan,” caused more havoc for river traffic. To tell the full story of this section of river though, I would have to have visited it.

Years ago, Kentucky author Wendell Berry fully explored a place before writing of it. He hiked, canoed, and waded the Red River Gorge, and wrote a book titled The Unforeseen Wilderness.

The Army Corps of Engineers planned to flood this gorge, displacing a few scattered farmers and ending its natural state. Ironically, the dam which would flood the valley was proposed in the name of “Flood Control.”

Berry visited a farm only accessible by foot path or tractor during high water, and recorded the people’s connection to the land. He also recorded the beauty of the landscape with the insight and acumen his readers have come to expect in his writings about his rural homeland. He spent five years on the project, and may have originated the term “place based writing.” His words, and the photographs by Gene Meatyard, tell a story of incredible beauty.

I may someday visit the Red River Gorge, which remains without submersion, thanks to its designated status under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Protection of the gorge was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Even if I visit, I cannot write its story, for this land is not mine. I would write as a man who viewed the gorge as scenery, or photograph it as one who stops at a scenic overlook and takes a snapshot. Berry warns of the dangers of scenery in his book.

My own experience of place based writing came about with a poem titled “Glen Falls Trail.” Glen Falls is near my current residence on the side of Lookout Mountain. I have lived in this area for years, and hiked the trail numerous times. One day I noticed the graffiti, “George Loves Lisa,” painted on the rock face in an archway above the falls. I wrote my poem about the beauty of this place, but included a speculation on the various possibilities of that relationship:

I wonder, did he ever tell her?

Did she know or think of him at all,

raise a brood of screaming children?

Did they kiss near wild ginger

above the stony apse?

The poem won a prize from the Tennessee Writers Alliance, including a substantial (to me at least) cash award. It was later included in the Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume VI, Tennessee (University of Texas Press).

I am convinced to this day that the success of this particular poem resulted from my association with the place where it is based. I am no Wendell Berry, nowhere near his phenomenal success of more than fifty books in print, but I agree with his belief that the best writing is placed based.

Ray Zimmerman is the Senior Editor of the anthology Southern Light: Twelve Contemporary Southern Poets, and author of the Poetry Chapbook, First Days. His poetry, nonfiction, and photography have appeared in regional and national publications. He has appeared as a storyteller and a performance poet in numerous Chattanooga area events. He is particularly pleased that his poem “Glen Falls Trail” received an award from the Tennessee Writers Alliance and appeared in The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume VI, Tennessee (University of Texas Press).

The full text of the poem “Glen Falls Trail” appears At http://rayzimmerman.weebly.com

A Fish Tale

When Aldo Leopold included a chapter on fishing in his book A Sand County Almanac, he spoke to generations of conservationists and sportsmen on the beauty of small places. “The Alder Fork” described in his July chapter was not big in volume or rapids or in the size of the trout it yielded. It was big in its unique beauty and in the chance that it yielded fish on a hot July day. Leopold admitted that none of the trout had to be folded double or beheaded to fit the creel.

The story brought to mind an event from my college days, spent in my home town as a commuter student. I knew trout were nowhere to be found in the Ohio waters I fished, but I remembered stories of Todd’s Fork, a branch of the Little Miami River, and reputed home to smallmouth bass. I also remembered a sign which read “Fishing, but no Hunting or Camping.” It proclaimed its message where a back road passed near the fabled creek.

I had caught Largemouth Bass before in the nearby lakes, but it was only from photos that I knew the look of one of those “bronze backs.” Wishing to experience them for myself, I picked up a friend with his fishing gear and we headed for the spot. When we arrived, the pull off accommodated our car and left room for one more, though that second spot was never taken. We hiked a dirt road through a cornfield, and we were at a bridge overlooking Todd’s Fork. 

My friend unhooked his spinning rod and eyed the creek with disdain. It was narrow, but looked to my eye as though it held deep pools with some promise. As he complained about time spent on a “Wild Goose Chase,” I pulled out a few feet of level fly line and attached a leader and a red and white deer hair fly. Not exactly a Royal Coachman, but close.

On my second upstream cast a fish hit and I landed it after a short fight.  I noticed the dark bronze color, checked the size of the mouth, and discovered it did not extend behind the eye. Smallmouth Bass!  My friend looked at the fish and watched me release it, only slightly the worse for wear. I usually ate the fish I caught, but this one was too small for the frying pan.

Three more casts and I had another, slightly larger fish, but my friend was unimpressed. He didn’t see any fish that would make the pages of an angler’s newspaper, and was now anxious to leave. I don’t believe he ever cast a line.

I haven’t spoken to that friend in years, and don’t know if his opinion of our fishing adventure has changed. As for myself, I left with my heart full of a pleasant morning fishing a creek I had never before explored. For me, the morning’s adventure was not in the fish, but the fishing.

The events I describe here took place in the mid 1970’s. I later learned that the really good fishing was further downstream, and that I was actually fishing a small branch of Todd’s Fork. The main stream has since become noteworthy as a canoeing destination and continues to be known as a great spot to fish for Smallmouth Bass.