Summer Heat and Hogan Life Poem

By Dennis Lantz

When it is warm in the woods, it is sweltering out in the open. July was oppressively hot and dry in 1995. People in the cities were dying from the heat. At the hogan we didn’t do much. We read, wrote journal entries, essays or poetry… and did some watercolor painting.

As far as I remember, I only wrote one poem that summer. In this post, I will share that with you.

I remember folding paper fans to cool ourselves. A couple of days we went to the air conditioned trailer and watched movies

7/13 – This morning Mark said, “so much for the heatwave…” as it was not so hot outside. Later we would laugh at his thought because it was a scorcher.

7/14 – Dear Lord it is hot! I am not feeling well. We woke to an already warm day. After dunking in the creek we sat around wondering what we should do. It was so hot we didn’t want to do much. Finally decided to watch The Fire Next Time, a television miniseries I taped dealing with global warming and heat. We watched it in an air conditioned trailer. Nearly four hours’ worth.  After the movie we got water paints and supplies from the house and came to the hogan to paint.

John Hunter, Steve Cole and Mike Patterson were fishing at Hilliker’s pond so we stopped and talked with them a while. Then we went to the hogan and painted. It was fun. Mark’s painting ended up being modern art swirls and blotches. Mine was a pond scene with fishermen… not my best work. 

We dunked in the creek near dark because it is still VERY hot.

7/15 - We dug a shallow hole for the shitter. We must dig it deeper sometime when it is not so hot. I haven’t written about the major drought that is going on. There was frequent rain in the early part of the summer, but that hasn’t been the case over much of country. Even here it has been dry lately. The sprinkles aren’t enough to keep things moist. Here in Gentlewood it is usually damp, but now it is not. Our first swim/bathing hole is down at least two feet. We have to go farther upstream to a deeper hole and even that is substantially smaller.

From the heat there have been upward of twenty deaths across the nation. I am sure there have been more that are directly connected. The temperature has been in the low 100s in several major cities. I do not complain about the weather for I cannot change it. I can go inside a house with fans or air conditioning and Mark and I did this again today. We went to the trailer and watched the movie Pollyanna. That wasn’t our choice as Joyce, Vivian, Regina and Wendy were watching it. But it was a fun movie. Oddly, found some good insight about positive examples and living a happy life.

We went and got water at the spring. I poured the remnants of a jug on the floor of the hogan and declared, “You can’t do that at home!” and for some reason it struck me funny and I rolled back on my bed laughing. Mark laughed too. It was as if I had done something very irrational.

We did little today except lived and I am not disappointed for my knowledge and happiness were increased though my physical labors were few. Living in the ‘now’ is a very powerful message. I am finding that concept in many writings.

…

7/22/2020 - I have said before that I am not a poet. Knowing how to scramble eggs doesn’t make one a chef… writing some verses doesn’t make me a poet.

Even so, I labored many hours over the Hogan Life poem. I sat on my bed scribbling lines and trying to rhyme the last lines of each verse.

I am sharing the poem because it is mostly unread. Only three or four people have ever seen it. I realize that it is not my best work, but it ‘paints’ a picture of the hogan and our stay in the woods.

Just so you know… Chanunpa is the Sioux language name for the sacred, ceremonial pipe. We borrowed it.    

HOGAN LIFE

Damp earth beneath my feet and in my soul –

Home is made of logs, old hay and many labors,

A different life it seems, another builder who sturdied

Up the walls and filled the holes with mud to shape the dream.

My hands toiled not, so are my ears sealed to the praise

That some other life, or another lifetime should receive,

It is the spirit of the home that merits all acclaim

So I fashion with my pen these words to share its fame.

Large flame flickers citronella across the way

Where Mark is diligent on his latest masterpiece,

The wall piled high with books, but not just mere books,

Memories, inspirations and the key to the doorway of life.

My bed is high, so I look down upon the darkened womb

Where earthcraft lies with piles of clothes and shoes,

A cardboard box holds the essentials of life

While on a braided rope, close at hand, is my knife.

Below the books, to contradict the earthly knowledge

And the skills of survival that are writ upon each page,

Are cans of food that connect us to that other world.

The lower shelves are made of displaced hemlock logs

That did not stack neatly because they were unplaned,

A blessing the builder could not have foreseen.

On the floor there’s a trunk for when the heavens cry

Where the books are quickly stashed to keep them dry.

Chanunpa hangs in golden sheath above a stump

Where candles, pens and lighters, for ease of access,

Give hemlock, pine and locust a heartbeat, its soul

Is glued with spider webs and mud, its voice mosquito song.

Above, way up. The sun, the moon and father sky

Shine down through plastic glass to ease the burden

Of the lantern and of the candles when at night we read-

Or talk, or sing or play music on the flute for all to heed.

Outside at break of day I step into the glorious realm of Sun,

Outside I see that home is like an enormous pile of hay

With sticks and logs and boughs to hold it all in place.

Outside I bathe in streams kept chilled by forest shade,

Rejoice, reborn, into the wind I dry myself and dress.

I walk upon the flesh of the land as silent as a whisper

And leave no scars, nor lack for food, my fill I take,

But nothing more, for my children and grandchildren’s sake.

I drink, I eat, I play, I live… that life

Which is the grandest waking vision of every moment.

I rest down long upon the earth and she supports me,

Here I watch and listen to the birds and do not worry

What species plays the note, but that the note is played.

And when the last drop of golden sunlight has faded

Like a dream unto the morning, I creep back into my den

To think, to read, to laugh and live the day again.

I ponder aloud my ruminations as we smoke the pipe

Or laugh at Mark’s hysterics when the little mice invade-

From his bed he leaps as if in his covers lay a hot coal,

But it is good that he is here for it is far less worrisome

Than if I was expounding all my theories to the walls!

… I pray to God above, within, without and through all things,

I thank Him for his mercy; for the fruits that I may reap,

And lie down upon my bed and close my eyes to sleep.

Until next time,

Read, Learn, Live

Dry creekbed. The same now as it was in July 1995.