By David Stallings © 2008
I click the latest international news
documenting my daughter’s public recovery
from Internet obsession—
il Repubblica, NYT, Today Show:
“52 Nights Unplugged!”
“A Secular Sabbath!”
Blogs aflame, the Zeitgeist twitters, senses
an addictive flaw—
and need for new web sites
to explore the malady.
Outside my window
a varied thrush, dressed
for upland migration,
beckons. I step onto the porch,
hear a spotted towhee as it shuffles […]
By David Stallings © 2007
It looks like a forget-me-not
my daughter, Ariel, ponders,
but how could that be—
here, at over 5000 feet
in the eastern Cascades?
On our descent I pluck one,
examine its five blue petals and hairy stem,
stash it in my shirt pocket.
Hours later I resuscitate and key it—
an Okanogan stickseed.
I email Air the news,
make the stickseed comfortable
in the rich, sea level […]
By David Stallings © 2007
I nod at a pair of slouched graybeards
by the entrance to a Denver Starbucks.
Coupla’ owlhoots, I growl.
Ariel, my daughter, raises her eyebrows—Say what?
You know—sort of like Yosemite Sam’s ‘varmint.’
Waiting for her chai, faster than a gunslinger,
she draws her Sidekick,
checks Dictionary.com
Nada.
Uh-oh, have I made this up?
More clicks, before Google opines
this may be a western regional term
rooted […]
By David Stallings © 2006
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)
By David Stallings © 2006
Near Mount Cruiser
we abandon trail,
camp among creamy bistort
under the teeth of
Henderson ridge—
gateway to backcountry.
Exhilarated, we
join our bodies.
At this exact
moment
Ariel Meadow
steps through silent
vast, crosses
trackless snow,
into our lives
forever.
By David Stallings © 2004
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)
By David Stallings © 2004
Most nights we read aloud,
sloped against each other on the
afghan covered couch.
Through Narnia and Earthsea
we cheered Good’s
endless battles with Evil.
One night, when it was time,
we placed Air’s homemade
super kiss bookmark at
chapter’s end.
She climbed up to her bed
built over drawers and low closet.
A guardian angel looked down
from the low ceiling,
and glow-in-the-dark stars absorbed light
for their upcoming […]
By David Stallings © 2003
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)
By David Stallings © 2003
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 […]
By David Stallings © 2003
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)
