D's Bones » Uncategorized

Yellow Banks—July, 1984

David Stallings — Fri, 23 May 2003 19:52:52 +0000

In the summer, when we camp
along the coast,
the girls find good and evil
in the way over the rocks.
Grogon’s Lagoon leads to the cave
of the Evil Witch, dripping and dark.
There, she raises a poisonous poppy,
which only looks like miner’s lettuce.
The Good Witch’s grotto is open and light,
and the girls say she has sea anemones
from the Mermaid’s Lagoon.

This place is more alive
than I’d known!

Years later, I can still feel the combination of being a watchful parent, while at the same time absorbing the sense of utter mystery present in childrens’ fantastical explorations of “good and evil.”

Island Commute Notes, 4/14 – 4/18

David Stallings — Thu, 01 May 2003 23:17:35 +0000

Nothing can restrain the light.
Spring billows along the shore,
the roar of the sap
races in my ears.

Dark clouds to the north
and in my chest.
Wherever I look,
sadness and doubt.

Numbing tiredness.
The thrumming of ferry pistons
promises my exhaustion
a lovely short nap.

Misty morning bike ride,
spray on my pant leg.
No bother,
it will dry
and brush off.

Gray sky, water, air,
dull green wash along the shore.
We slip into a fog bank.
There, only
the pattern of the water
and a sentinel cormorant.

Morning poems collected on the way to Seattle.

Inexpiable

David Stallings — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 15:52:54 +0000

U.S. Plans Lightning Strikes;
Terrorism Alert Raised to ‘High.’

Our weekly
compassionate listening circle
takes in this small room,
where I lie next
to a young German man,
holding his hand.
He sobs and chatters
through Holocaust guilt,
his father’s silence,
and the sense that his people
are flawed, cracked.
He believes that evil
may emerge at any time,
sucking him into
a violent darkness.

A son of the American South,
I listen.

This is a reposting, after I contacted the young man mentioned in the poem, now back in Germany. I was concerned about confidentiality, but he assures me there is no problem.

Days into this awful war in Iraq, replete with the imagery of war horror, it is clearer than ever that war wounds last for generations.

Frames of Horror

David Stallings — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 20:27:50 +0000

The camera angle clarifies.
The Gaza landscape is open.
There are only these things:
a young woman wearing
a bright orange jacket,
her bullhorn,
the protected Israeli soldier-operator
of the huge US-supplied bulldozer,
And fear.

Down with the demonstrator!
Down with the house!
Down with life!

Down.

My daughter advised not looking at the photos snapped during the “accidental” death of Rachel Corrie, the young woman from Olympia who was protesting Israeli destruction of a Palestinian home. Of course, I did look at the photos and was horrified and fascinated by the beauty of Gaza, the simple plainess of a death. Why do people stand in front of tanks and bulldozers, often paying the price of life? I bow to that quality in humanity.

Island

David Stallings — Thu, 06 Mar 2003 00:13:36 +0000

Our log home is small and simple-
We host no elegant affairs.
Some summer mornings my daughter and I
pick huckleberries for pancakes.
A sniff of the cedar air
braces me for my job in the city,
and during the ferry crossing I read a book
from the stack in the bedroom.

This morning I had coffee with my friend Henry, who told me of going through a box of photos of past relationships. He threw a few away, kept a few, and talked to his wife about the whole thing. One form of wisdom has to do with how we cherish the old and precious in a way that nourishes the vastly different now.

Han-Shan’s poem:

A thatched hut is home for a country man;
Horse or carriage seldom pass my gate:
Forests so still all the birds come to roost,
Broad valley streams always full of fish.
I pick wild fruit in hand with my child,
Till the hillside fields with my wife.
And in my house what do I have?
Only a bed piled high with books.

(translated by Burton Watson)

Why Bureaucrats Rise Earlier Than Log Truck Drivers

David Stallings — Sun, 23 Feb 2003 23:54:16 +0000

Recently I heard of an old fellow,
a lawyer, who worked until he was
almost 100 years old.
Then he had an accident, a fall.
He died during his convalescence.
They say the cause of death
was unspecific; that most likely
he died of a broken
routine.

There is no other life.

(With apologies to Gary Snyder.)

I make my living as a minor bureaucrat. Oh, yes, it’s good work, coming up with public transportation solutions, but it has its costs.