Some of the Projects and Quotes from the Winter Study course with students from Williams College
Mike Vercillo is a member of William’s acapala group Eph Flats and wrote a song inspired by time at Mountain Deer Taxidermy.
Listen here to: We’ll Always Have the Land
Siobhan Harrity wrote four poems inspired by the week
It starts as a promise
in the late October air.
The low violet sunsets
grow icy and weak, and
the red-gold abandon of the hills
is leached away by pale skies.
Fall’s glory burns itself up
quicker than birch bark.
Go slow now, down to the brook,
running crooked through
the cold glow of slender beech,
clothed proudly in bronze
though all their neighbors are bare.
Over and up to the
dark fir ridge and there,
as the horizon blurs and
the mute tingle begins to grow,
from all sides at once
in silent concert
come the dry, dainty flakes
of the season’s first snow.
The best we can ask for
is a daily layer of new snow.
All footprints are covered
and the land looks peaceful
under unbroken white.
But when the days get too warm
and the clean veneer melts away,
frantic mouse tunnels criss-cross
the fields, from fallen fir cone
to forgotten grain.
Their industriousness impresses,
but the fierceness of their need repels,
so we turn our eyes back skyward
and wish for a fresh fall
of beautiful ignorance.
Each year used to sink unnoticed
into all the ones that came before.
Cold, inertial winter mornings,
the body’s joyous ache in spring.
But now they seem to pile up,
precarious towers of eroding stone.
Another quiet treachery of the land revealed,
another finger lost as proof of burden.
Eyes that once held the firmament
become shadowy lacunae in ashy faces.
But a fog-choked twilight
makes the years a mere vanity,
and as time hangs suspended
in the wet mountain air,
closer than the sound of the
not-so-distant highway
comes the muffled crunch of a passing stoic,
who has either never asked herself
why she is here,
or else never thinks
of anything but.
Awakened
to the blue planet spinning in black space
to the creaking and groaning of the tectonic plates
to the snow-muffled call of a chickadee
to the bruise spreading on her pale left knee
Remade
every day in the image of a tree
by the urgent song of a thawing stream
by the thin, rocky soil of the northern land
by digging and hauling with uncalloused hands.
Lyrics to We’ll Always Have the Land
Listen here to: We’ll Always Have the Land
A simple life, not much for want / On that small farm in Vermont
My great-great granddad, long ago, stood where I used to stand
Beside my momma, gazing at our land
My dad would hunt, he taught me how / A true and solemn vow
To love the things that give us life, the life that we all share
I held his rifle, although I was scared
He said “son you’ve got him in your sights now, do not be afraid
Your own daddy cried a tear the first shot that he made
But son when it’s all over, you will grow in to a man
We’ll always have the land, we’ll always have the land”
But as I grew, I came to see / The life ahead of me
That sturdy barn I’d always known began to fall apart
I couldn’t watch, it broke my daddy’s heart
I thought I had to walk away / To live another day
To find the outside world and walk a mile in new shoes
I told my momma what I had to do
She said “son you’ve got it in your sights now, do not be afraid
Your daddy, he may cry a tear when you go away
But son when it’s all over you will grow in to a man
We’ll always have the land, we’ll always have the land”
I found a job, I found a wife / Tried to move on with my life
But that city turned out colder than any winter’s snow
That old barn was all I’d ever known
I said “Dad, I’ve got it in my sights now I am not afraid
Those years ago I cried my eyes out when I drove away
And now that it’s all over I have grown in to a man
We’ll always have the land, we’ll always have the land”
A simple life, not much for want / Back on that old farm in Vermont
My boy picks up the rifle that I held so long ago
I look at him I smile and I know
I said “son you’ve got him in your sights now, do not be afraid
Your own daddy cried a tear the first shot that he made
But son when it’s all over, you will grow in to a man
We’ll always have the land, we’ll always have the land”