The Way Itself is Bread

The big dipper leans slightly south, a precarious spoon balanced on the horizon, a sort of beckoning, or even begging. West - a mile perhaps, maybe less - two dogs are barking, a raucous tenor I associate with bear coming too close to bird feeders and barns. My own dog circles a corner of the field near bent and frosty cattail, waiting to see if I am going deeper into the forest or only turning back. How sensitive she is! And when I hesitate too long she decides for me: back. That is when I notice the constellations, especially the ladle that since earliest childhood went marked with such care. All the stars are reedy in moonlight whose sheen precedes me in a luminous arc. Who gazes upward stumbles, while who studies his feet goes slow but sometimes wanders. Is there a better way? Those dogs keep up their racket, and I picture the old boar lumbering up the hill away from Watts Brook, unalarmed but still hungry. It is hard to focus on Ursa Major, being so early given to the image of a spoon, yet that bear is finding its way too. I guess we all are, is one way to think of it. Or is it simply that we need a meal? The familiar utensil is empty but oddly I have never starved. Perhaps the way itself is bread? Or maybe what we are in truth is not a point of light at all but rather the darkness in between, making the light possible. How happy I am between all these crumbs, sufficient in my bones and shoes!