Tom Stock

Poet, Essayist, Photographer, Naturalist

“In Everything You Recognize Yourself”

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On May 13, 2016

In Short Essays

“There is not a single thing different inside of everything than is in each of us. We’re all made of the same stuff. It’s the construction that’s different. That construction has a long period – going back some fifteen billion years to the beginning. We are left with construction plans in our DNA and genes that contain blueprints of all those earlier construction projects.”

Albert Sweitzer said these words in a lecture in 1913. He wanted us to see our connection to the big picture. Who, for example, recognizes themselves in their pet dog? There is no physical resemblance, but there is reciprocal love. We recognize ourselves by the dog’s love because we love. We see the dog having the same functions we have.

How do we recognize ourselves in a dragonfly? Again, common functions provide the answer. What is important is the reason why we should look for similarities in all things. All is sacred. Every single smidge of matter, no matter how tiny or how huge, no matter how complex or how simple, offers us a looking glass to reflect. Communion of all different matter each with its own individuality is the key to understanding the reason for the universe. All things in the universe have three characteristics. They are interconnected, they are differentiated from one another, and they each have their own individuality.

If we recognize ourselves in the humblest of creatures, such as a caterpillar crossing a road, is there not the possibility that we will treat that caterpillar with respect and dignity?

Behind the endless diversity of life and non-life, we seek to recognize a spiritual creator that participates in everything. Seeing God in all creation is a good way to respect, treasure, and preserve.

Isolation Walk

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On May 13, 2016

In Medium Length Essays

Mark and I spent a few hours walking from Sound Avenue truck noise, to Long Island Sound’s faint lap- lap of wavelets on the shore. We reached a beach that is isolated. Only a few houses perched on the top of a 140 foot bluff and no beach access close by. One has two walk two miles in either direction to reach this beach. We were headed for a point on the bluff called Friars Head. It is a blowout surrounded by dwarf beech trees that looks like a monk with a bald head with a ring of hair surrounding it.

Our path was a roughly rectangular-shaped. Mark parked in the lot of a new Riverhead Town Park. Just to the left is the access road for the Dorothy Flint Nassau County Girl Scout Camp. The road also serves three private houses.

We followed the hilly road till we came to a fork. Left fork, private home, right fork, Long Island Butterfly Reserve. Professor Paul Adams stays here all summer raising butterfly-friendly flowers. We skirted his property finding a small valley to descend to the beach. It wasn’t an easy descent. Trees, brush, poor footing but finally we slid on sand off the bluff to the beach.

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Taste Oxygen – Manorville Hills Hike

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On May 3, 2016

In Medium Length Essays

It felt good to step off at the start of our six mile hike. We chose Manorville Hills County Park just east of Route 111, the core of the NYS Pine Barrens Forest Reserve. We have 35,000 acres of trails, hills, forest, and meadow to explore.

Mark, John, and I have hiked before. Mark named us the Armageddon Hikers Club because two of our previous hikes occurred after natural disasters, the big forest fire last spring, and super storm Sandy. Today, we stretched the mission. The only disaster in these hills is the erosive “destruction” due to ATV’s and dirt bikes. We met in the parking lot in the morning. John suggested bright red clothing…it is hunting season. We had a sunny, mild day.

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Nature In A Cemetery

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On May 2, 2016

In Medium Length Essays

What was it about that cemetery that drew me to visit? A killdeer calls from above. In the unkempt section, sweet vernal grass sports its tassels. Lots of clumps of Star of Bethlehem wildflowers bloomes were scattered around the perimeter. Along with the commemorations of the lives of people, there are signs of life. I recently explored Lakeside Cemetery in Patchogue.

avestones so weathered from a century of wear that many of the epitaphs are unreadable. Some marble stones are covered with black splotchy lichens. I find pieces of white marble from broken head stones scattered around. A sprawling yucca plant obscured one stone. Many are toppled, pushed over by vandals, perhaps even natural forces of gravity.

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A Walk In Edgewood Preserve

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On May 2, 2016

In Poetry

In late summer, the transition into fall
at the blue-blazed trail south of the entrance
tawny brown bracken fern
I am awakened by wet, cool weather
mushrooms along the path from
spawn in thin humus and topsoil
an odd pitch pine tree slumped over
a new trunk reaches upward, throws off thin branches
like a hunchback, here is a place to sit and rest
into an open savanna of tall dead pines
burst out of shade
aftermath of a fire

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Notes From the Farm – A Weekly Report

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On May 2, 2016

In Short Essays

Homecoming Farm is a three acre organic farm located on the grounds of the Dominican Sisters Motherhouse in North Amityville. My wife Nancy and I have a work-share. We work four hours a week and take home our weekly share of fresh vegetables. Starting in May and ending in Mid November, the farm is abuzz with activity.

Don, the farmer, asked for help planting Kale on our first day back. Don prepared a bed with the tractor. There are fifty 200 foot long beds that have to be tilled to prepared he soil for planting. The beds are put to rest in late November. Don adds compost to the beds and they lie fallow over the winter.

Don had planted Siberian Kale seeds over a month ago in flats with 128 cells. The flats are set up in the hoop house tunnel to germinate. The tight, white roots made it necessary to push them out of each cell. Many of the cells had two plants which had to be separated. Don set up three strings the length of the beds and laid a 100 foot measuring tape along the edge. “Plant the kale plugs a foot apart.”

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Advice From A Weed

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On April 30, 2016

In Poetry

I see you on hands and knees
Wearing gloves and grunting
Give it up folks
Trying to rid us muggers
Is useless. We are here for good
Mugwort has landed
Go ahead, yank us
I guarantee we’ll be back
Along with cypress spurge,
Black cherry, tall bush clover
We are an army you’ll never defeat
You can’t get all our roots
Pull us out, we survive
Those little bits of roots you miss
We always leave a little bit of us behind
You’ll have to sift every square inch of soil
To evict us.
We’re smarter than you are
Because we have a plan
Grow and spread
And it’s working out real good
You can’t mug us, we’ve mugged you
Our sheer numbers should convince you
Give up it’s, a lost cause

For Don Cimino – farmer at Homecoming Farm

A Sampawams Indian Story

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On April 30, 2016

In Sampawams Creek

A Neck of land that extended out into the bay was bounded by two streams that flowed down from the hills up north. These two streams ran straight with no meanders. The neck became known for the chief of a small clan of people who called themselves the Sampawams which means walks- straight- as- an- arrow. Living on the neck, the two creeks guided the people to hunting grounds. All they had to do was follow the water and they would never become lost because the stream led them back to their shelter.

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Three Hundred and Sixty – Homecoming Farm

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On April 30, 2016

In Poetry

Smack in the center
Of fifty growing beds
I make a slow clockwise turn
Looking and listening.

The remnants of last seasons’ leeks and kale
An open landscape with sky and trees
A water tower where ravens hang
A tall brick building on the west
Small aircraft drone overhead
Granite gravestones just beyond the compost pile
A double line of Norway maples
Beyond that, the Dominican cemetery
The hoop house, tool shed, garlic building
The port a potty, the processing station
The utility shed and distribution tent

What is all this without the people?
Farmer Don, Director Elizabeth
The interns, work/ share holders
In a collaborative symphony
Of grace, friendship, and cooperation
All part of a great turning
Of a world integrated
Alive, relevant, and intelligent
And most of all, one person
A Dominican nun
Who invites us to come home
And we have.

In The Herb Garden – Homecoming Farm

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On April 30, 2016

In Poetry

Lots happening in mid July
Perfect timing for insects and herbs
It’s as if they were waiting for this moment
Heat, growth, water, all converge
Who is attracting whom?
Cabbage butterflies congregate in lavender
One thinks food, the other continuity
This frenzy at midday
Essential oil aerosols and manic wasps
On bee balm flower heads
Flies, bees, beetles
It’s a carnival, a feast
A homecoming medicine cabinet

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