We plunge down steep slopes of Mt. Ellinor
through paintbrush and fields
of late larkspur in fog.
The weather is unexpected—
wind and drizzle chill, weaken us.
Muffled voices of Labor Day hikers swirl in mists.
A girl cries to her mother
I can’t climb any more!
Below the next ridge, a panicked woman
with infant child stumbles,
sobs to her husband.
It grows darker,
rain almost [...]
The kitchen scale confirms a truth
my aging body already knows—
my backpack is too heavy.
I construct a spreadsheet,
detail the weight
of each packed item.
Like a desperate wagoner, I jettison,
repackage, replace.
A 23 ounce tent that works,
its titanium stakes too light to measure!
A 2.5 ounce Gigapower stove!
My spreadsheet neighs like a colt.
Soon I will trek mountains and rivers,
embrace sunny [...]
Ascend miles of Douglas fir, white pine,
zones of Engleman spruce and western larch.
A sunny meadow
lies hinged to the mountain
by the last gnarly spruce.
Springs gurgle amid purple shooting star blossoms
and white-petalled grass of Parnassus.
I nibble Jarlsberg, dried pear,
swirl the soft breeze—
seep into grassy
earth.
(North Fork of the Teannaway, 2005)
(No. 98 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s [...]
Clear and cold,
a bubbly tongue of water speaks
of the pass a thousand feet higher. The way
rises through melting snow, rock grottoes,
basins of nodding avalanche lilies.
Marmot whistles tingle
the thin air.
We climb steep snowdrifts
to grassy ridge tops
southwest of the pass,
lunch over swapped stories
more truthful
because we are
here.
(No. 86 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of [...]
After the sting
I grow intolerant,
spray a deadly stream of Raid Killer 271.
Alien protein throbs my wrist,
my attacker lies in slimed earth.
But here, another paper wasp—
a long dangly proposition,
exotic in articulation, golden pattern,
curved antennae.
It quivers its way along the fascia board, halts.
Though vulnerable on the ladder,
I relax.
We regard each other for a time, poisons
set aside.
(No. 79 [...]
My pack lighter than ever,
the season late,
I haul myself over headlands
to Toleak Point. Near my ocean camp,
cow parsnip that danced
in spring breezes has gone
to seed, its leaves slug-nibbled.
Wild lily of the valley, a once-green carpet,
has grown yellow and wan.
Yet listen as the north wind rustles
the parsnip’s dry pods.
Lower your eyes
to the lily’s quiet fruit—tiny [...]
High on the Big Quil Trail,
I traverse a scree slope
below Buckhorn’s
basalt pinnacles.
At my feet, the season’s final
scarlet paintbrush.
Ahead, yellow cedars drape the way.
I climb above the trail,
cut fragrant branches
to remind me of summer days.
Winter snows arrive
so soon.
(No. 93 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
The Swainson’s thrush
and western tanager have quietly
departed. Only the winter
wren occasionally lights
the somber forest.
If mild weather continues
into the fall, good fortune. But soon
the decline will be more noticeable,
leaving nothing but aching grayness
and cold rain.
It will be
time to lie
down.
(No. 99 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
My mother’s husband,
easily confused,
sat at the restaurant table
in tears,
nerves imploded.
He pleaded with her for help,
to make the conversation
stop.
We acquiesced,
he quieted,
his soul a
corpse-brown
husk.
Twelve years later
he and my mother are both
dead. Last week the family
restaurant where we sat
burned
to the ground.
(No. 65 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Sex,sex,
Oedipus Rex,
Thieves will have a new master
The scroll spoke
in hand printed gothic
on stained cloth.
Abandoned
by the previous occupant
of my new pad
its words meant little.
Fresh from first-year
college dorm,
I hung it on my wall,
tried to live
by its meaning
for a
time.
Boulder, 1961
(No. 47 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Today loneliness
trumps my flair for
solitude, and I ache
while checking e-mails.
Suddenly
a box appears
on the screen.
My daughter
wants to e-chat!
But I’ve
never chatted—
how do I make it work?
I start pushing
buttons.
(No. 60 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
It is impossible
to pedal my bike
through morning air
carrying sadness or anger.
The light is alive,
my knees young
and Queen Anne’s Lace
doilies
the roadside.
(No. 44 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Long out of print, this guide
summons me to the reaches
of Glacier Peak—
through fields of avalanche
lilies, red swirls
of late season blueberries.
The time nears
when memories serve
as better boots.
Shall I present
this trusted companion
to my young friend
who seeks answers
within these
mountains?
Here.
(No. 100 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
My first paper job
was mostly to please my stepfather,
who’d match the five cents I made
from each paper. I was 10, would run
to hawk in early Saturday morning bars,
where old Alaskans drank, many of them lacking
parts of frostbitten noses or ears.
Once, my customers toasted my innocence
to spice resolution of a bar dispute. Did the [...]
In the wild Alaskan yard
of the Muller’s home, I hide
from the other kids. If I
stay very still and will
myself invisible, I won’t be
seen. It works.
But now,
years later,
I can’t
stop.
(No. 52 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
After arguing,
flat, cabin-bound,
we grump the Murden Cove
trail. No homes back then,
just second growth and silence–
now whooshed by raucous wing beats
and bold laughter. Craning
our necks, we spy a flash of red,
black, white, then scandalous
full view.
We laugh and pileate
all the way
home.
(No. 64 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Anasazi watchtower,
cylinder of stone
atop mesa remnant.
Green River meanders
far below. Near the
river, sagging log cabin,
pioneer way-station
for TB patients boated
to sanatorium near Moab.
Overhead, jet
contrails in translucent
sky, hundreds of people bound
for places
unseen.
(No. 87 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Reflections on a subtitled movie seen
in Boulder, 1963
Defeated Japanese soldiers,
abandoned on a small Pacific Island,
argued over what to do,
how to find food. They fought,
killed, eventually ate
each other.
The last one
carried his ragged
childhood doll, like those laced
to kamikaze pilots. He stumbled
to a western bluff where a black
and white sunset oiled calm water.
Sitting on a broad [...]
Long after I left for work
each morning, my housemates
explored groovier, more imaginative
paths. They found me stiff,
uptight. I chafed
as my records were
mishandled, my stereo never
turned off.
When my girlfriend’s old
lover came calling,
I reacted blindly, with swift
passivity.
I stuffed her sneakers into
the fridge.
This desperate act resulted
in my further
ostracism.
Bantry Bay, Bainbridge Island, 1973
(No. 91 in a series [...]
I made my worst mistakes
because I was so afraid
of being alone.
It was unusual for my mother,
then in her 80s, to name a personal
demon.
She sat to my left on the couch,
my grown daughter to the right.
Certain as a strand of DNA,
the named fear snaked through
us. It left the same steely flavor
in our bellies,
and we each [...]
The jelly-like goo
pulls away from my retina.
A light show
flashes and arcs across my left
eye, spilling torn tissue flotsam—
space debris strewn
about my visual universe.
Holy shit.
Score another point for
aging, further need for living
a fierce
grace.
(No. 90 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
My morning exercise
includes repetitively curling a pair
of 20-pound dumbbells.
I stand in my Jockey “Slim Guy”
underwear envisioning myself a tall,
mesomorphic, light-skinned black man.
My muscles don’t bulge
but gracefully arrange themselves
in fluid proportions.
This helps.
Today I curl before the bathroom mirror,
to confirm my long-held image.
Bad move.
Faltering, I quickly step away,
to become the svelte,
cat-like jungle man
who I
am.
(No. 70 in a [...]
Awake from a dream
of failure as a college professor,
I get up to pee.
Settling back into bed warmth,
I find that in my absence
demons slipped in, and they mean
business. Tonight, they employ mind
swirlers and leg tremors,
leaving brain and guts wrenched.
What’ll I do what’ll I do?
Work, relationship, future–all shit.
With effort, I herd them
from mind to belly. [...]
Red-winged blackbird strides across turf,
crimson escutcheons flared. Conk-a-reee!
But here comes a rival,
a bandit at twelve o’clock!
Scritch!
Knocked to his side,
he’s back up, ready
for hot feathered
battle and
love.
Once my ex-wife told me,
You’ll follow your cock anywhere.
Despite my decades of loyalty,
she was, in a way,
right.
Conk-a-reee!
(No. 52 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Scene:
Hotheaded cowboy rides off
to wreak havoc and revenge.
Older friend follows
to protect him.
Friend lassos firebrand,
who falls to ground, furious.
Older man restrains him
until rage is spent,
tears flow.
Enraptured in a front seat of the theater,
half-eaten Three Musketeers bar forgotten,
I feel the snare of the rope, jarring fall,
hot tears on my face.
My body awakens to muscular rage,
the delight of [...]
Thirteen outlaws swung
in the breeze by movie’s end.
At age five, I preferred the hero’s
role, sporting a pair of six-shooters
and Captain Marvel’s cape.
But now death’s mystery
corralled me.
Did they really die? I asked my mother.
Oh, no, the actors don’t die.
It was possible to hang, die,
and still eat dinner.
I found a clothesline rope, fashioned
a noose, climbed an [...]
for Andrea
Swimming laps,
I shared the university men’s pool
with a small child and his dad.
Near the end of the three-meter plank,
the boy confronted an abyss.
Somewhere below, his father treaded
encouragement.
I held to a gutter, resting,
watching.
The boy pulled
at his tiny butt cheeks,
feet churning on the rough surface.
Forty years later
I still feel that splash
as I seek the courage
to love [...]
Caitlin, a down-winder,
lay dying in the hospital.
Who thought of it first?
Let’s do the wedding now!
Scott was there, license
in hand. Witnesses?
Here’s Jan, visiting from our office,
and Caitlin’s oncologist makes two.
I have my Universal Life minister
certificate. Afterward we cried,
but then Scott went out
for a six-pack and we toasted
the newlyweds. No beer for
Caitlin, but she [...]
From a tentative reference
in a tangential discussion
a confidence is taken,
a truth revealed.
A work mate has leukemia.
Churning, I must share
this news with a trusted
one. Hesitantly, I speak
in a darkened room.
Soon we will all
know.
(No. 74 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Round. What is round?
The sun, the moon, breasts, buttocks;
this curve of yearning
in my chest and belly.
I am prone to indiscretion.
Take me to that other shore
where each pore of my skin is a yoni,
thrilled by the breath
of soft air.
Alone with craving,
this old man’s foolishness
must cook within
until it is done,
and the heavenly light
of each breast and [...]
We climb the Townsend Creek trail
through rock and misted colors
of aster, lupine, paintbrush.
High on a grassy bench we rest.
Ariel, a year and a half old,
wrapped in lambskin
she calls Fuzzy,
speaks out loud to no one,
The clouds are the mountain’s
Fuzzy.
(No. 88 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Mindful of the tide,
thoughtful of the dark,
daily schedule patterned,
I avoid accidents
and ecstasy.
Still, I dream,
and know the chaos
of not
knowing.
The sparrow
may sing
at any
moment.
(No. 6 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
From dusky fir
ascends the heart break
of the Swainson’s thrush,
gray-green movement
stirring the summer twilight.
At meadow’s edge my infant daughter
sturdily answers the woodland voice,
La-a-a-a-ahh; alaah!
Again and again.
Soundless tears stream,
my constricting fears
of fatherhood
released.
(Number 4 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Positive
a remembered mountain
lies around this bend in the trail;
more dense forest.
Leaving the theater,
searching for my car,
turning in the wrong
direction.
Driving around my Island
home of thirty years,
shortest routes elude me.
I’ve always been this way.
Each time illusions melt,
chaos,
providing a fresh chance
to see.
(No. 98 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Hike the Upper Dungeness Trail,
then up a ridge west of Camp Handy.
Steep old fisherman’s track
under July afternoon sun.
Thirty steps, gasping stop, thirty more,
my old legs and asthmatic lungs struggling
to keep up.
Admire huge tree boles and lush delphinium
before starting again.
Then Goat Lake at last,
air brilliant and snowmelt bubbly.
Bugs not bad, good night’s sleep.
But say, just how [...]
Climbing on the rocks
love is felt as a tension.
But the danger of a fall is slight,
the cant of face and torso
against the sky,
timelessly sensual.
Always, my love,
The purr of the sea, odors of the tide,
and jutting rocks
will remind me
of this day
and of
You.
(No. 63 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Thirty-five years ago
I visited this rocky coast
with a long-haired hippie woman.
Skagit-eyes filled with the sea,
she ran along the shore,
far to the south.
How long was she gone?
Long enough for me
to become afraid.
Time looped,
anxiety pitted me.
Toward dark she returned, salted, alive,
thanking me again and again
for time given.
I managed a smile,
concealing fears
that shaped me
long after
her final
departure.
La Push, February, [...]
January 4, 2003
The bike trail meanders
through jugglers and rollerbladers,
musicians and hustlers.
Drainage canals host gulls that laugh,
and flowers bloom among the beach grasses.
Pumping my rented fat tire bike,
I watch my daughter ride ahead.
Taking a deep breath of the
sunshine-and-smiles breeze,
I let my shoulders fall.
Relaxed.
(No. 40 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Sometimes friends share the climb
of Cold Mountain.
On a middle slope,
Jack stops to pee—
a large circle in the dusty path.
“If you guys can say something about that,
then let’s go on,” he challenges.
Larry steps into the circle,
sits like a mountain top.
I curtsey to his stone figure.
“If you characters can do that,
we just won’t go on,” Jack asserts.
“What [...]
We drive to the Homeplace,
near the old Enterprise Community,
Gibson County, West Tennessee.
Here Granny and Daddy Joe raised
the kids who lived,
my father the youngest,
and buried the five who didn’t.
Burned by lightening decades ago,
only mounds of brick and
rickety outbuildings remain.
There, the smoke house;
here, a chit box
used to pay hired help.
Forgotten lives quicken,
roused in stories told
by aging cousins,
bent [...]
On my morning commute
I pass a panhandler
who insists,
“Top ‘o the morning to you!”
I hurry by.
Who does he think he is
rudely intruding, jocular,
and hoping to make a buck?
Climb the Big Quil trail often
and you’ll feel the mountain’s moods,
know the flowers’ changing faces.
Today the wind blows clouds in two directions,
and through the fog
old snags seem to have new growth.
At Marmot Pass the mist makes
your whole life shimmer.
Every day is a good day to make the climb.
