I lived just up the hill,
and I’d find him whenever I came looking,
on the beach or by his wood stove,
in year ‘round coveralls, sweater, wool hat.
He plied me with questions elders ask,
and I listened to stories of long-ago Iowa winters,
of a large German family, of manhood, marriage.
Of children, learning, teaching,
and the core
of Einstein’s science.

In the summers we’d sit by a beach fire
and sing. When he felt just right,
Schmitty would croon
Sigmund Romberg barbershop tunes.
Often he added the voices of
water-tuned beach bottles,
and, if inspired, would end
with a yodel. I’d laugh, shout, clap my hands.
He’d chuckle, smile.

As Schmitty’s emphysema worsened,
our visits helped free his mind
from laboring lungs.
When alone, he solved
quadratic equations just
to keep breathing.
Then he began telling me about
the curtain. Today,
today, I almost saw beyond
the gossamer curtain.
He spoke of it with increasing knowledge,
yet still the way
eluded him.

One day he told me
he had seen.
At last,
how simple,
how obvious:
The way through the curtain
is with song!
When I pass through
those gossamer folds,
I’m going to circle your place
and sing you a parting song.

I was young, and
couldn’t quite believe it,
any of it.

A few nights later a storm
leaned into Yeomalt Point.
Bushes scrabbled the sides
of my old cabin, maple branches
crashed onto the roof,
and the wind’s voice rose.

In the morning Schmitty’s body sat still
in his favorite chair, his wool hat
cocked over one eye,
a smile on
his creased face.

Here’s the beginning of a poem about Schmitty, an old German who was like an adopted grandfather to me, Therese (my wife at the time), and a selection of hippie flotsam who lived on Bainbridge Island in the mid-70s. It’s hard to overstate how influential he was to this motley crew of young friends. One of my favorite early pictures of Schmitty showed him walking down the beach with Therese (who was playing a recorder). Schmitty maintained that anything which washed up on the beach was a holy offering. He built funky little homes and shelters (the “inner sanctum”, the “round house”, his “wicki,” on the beach) at Yeomalt Point from these relics.

There is so much I could say about this man, but thirty years later, I see he taught me as much about dying as about living. I guess they go together!

When above and below the heavens,
only I am the world-honored one,
having nothing to do with myself;

When flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtle dove is heard
in our land;

And when the time I am most attracted
to my mate is when
she is loving
herself;

Then, at last, I make haste to
my beloved,
and am like a gazelle
or young stag
upon the mountains
of spice.

Not to set the bar too high, but it seems to me that a healthy relationship has more to do with developed skill and spiritual development than with “love”, good sex, or any number of other things.

My daughter (still young, I might note) tells me she is tiring of aging/mortality poems. And then out pops this one. Oh, well, it’s this stuff that makes the flower’s smell (and time with my daughter) so precious.

In Iraq a new orphan,
both arms blown off,
knows life will never be
the same.

What a world.

Today, seven astronauts exploded high in the sky.
Seven skiers perished under Canadian snows.
Thirty-three shoppers burned in a Chinese mall.
While our nation prepared to shock
and awe the people of the Middle East.
All of this makes it difficult
to smile for the camera.
This is not a problem for the children,
riding high on parents’ shoulders.

On 2/2/03, about 1500 people in my community of Bainbridge Island joined a rising wave of local communities who are assembling for “peace portraits”. Old hippies and Republican housewives aplenty–all convinced that our country is preparing to badly screw its karma.

Around one corner a palapas set, built for a movie,
Over there jugglers and musicians perform.
No muscle beach, the bodies are normal and flawed.
A red-billed, black-legged gull
reigns over it all,
laughing.

1/10/03
Daughter Ariel is living near the Venice boardwalk. Recently, she and I took a bike ride along this marvel of Southern California diversity. Later, we went to the Venice Library to determine that we’d been treated to the perspective of a Heermann’s gull.

Left behind is my city job,
the softness of a woman at dawn.
Worries swirl
as I ascend through mist.
I cough a blaze onto the snow–
a shock of redness.
My sarcoid lungs may be the end of me.

Route finding now, I enter a different land.
Unseen across the slopes
A golden burble beckons,
draws me upward.

On the bright summit
I stroke my dog’s ears,
gaze through tears
over endless lowland clouds.

A few readers have wondered if this is a drug poem. No, it is not.