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 [...]
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 [...]
My young self drives an old Volvo
up Fourth Avenue for the first time,
just below Yesler overpass
near where I work.
He has left his Colorado home forever,
bound for graduate school in Seattle.
I will hail him as I often do,
reach for words
of confidence
and fathering he has long
missed.
But not today.
Fuck it.
I am old and lonely.
This time, it is he [...]
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)
An elderly Asian man
finds a seat near me
on the Route 550 to Bellevue.
About every third breath,
he emits a deep Buhhhh
from low in his throat.
This eruption shivers me,
though less than I might
have expected. He is not
so much older than I.
By the time we cross
Lake Washington, I quietly
try on a sympathetic
Buhhhh, about every
third breath. It’s not
so bad [...]
A man sits at attention,
suspended in a rotating
crystal with no top or bottom.
Each facet of the crystal mediates
his thoughts and feelings
about himself, family, others.
He surveys the zeitgeist,
adjusts his attitudes,
offers a palette of caring
colors to relieve
the stress of others.
He believes this makes
the world a better
place.
Although the prospect
of death is worrisome,
his vague sense of Buddhism
and healthy constitution
allow [...]
Coming out of upper Cameron Basin,
then along Lillian Ridge where
mountain wizards craft energy candies
in rock grottoes under
full moons.
Beyond attention, effortless airy
shadow inspects rock slides,
stubby grasses, dried
bluebells and asters.
Marmot monks,
stationed like signal fires,
rip the silence, lump
toward burrow holes.
Raptor vision,
swift shadow,
echoing whistles bring an urgent
scale to the land.
Forget pain in knees,
long day, heavy pack.
Breathe the distances,
find a [...]
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)
The tape on my right arm
protects the needle hole from invasion.
Still warm, my blood’s en-tubed within the clinic.
I sit across the street,
deliberating over coffee and scone.
Good thoughts, good friends, diet and exercise
can’t save me from
an errant thyroid,
a rebellious prostate gland,
and other debilitations.
Days will pass, this purgatory will end.
Results will wash up with other data.
I will [...]
