D's Bones » coast

Shortcut (48)

David Stallings — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:06:11 +0000

My wife and I pack our open canoe
after five nights of camping, head back
to Lund in a rising wind.
We dodge whirlpools, ferry across
currents, break out of eddies. Far ahead
through white caps and heavy swell,
is the rocky point
we must round.
Portage Gap is closer, offers an easy land haul
to a quiet inner bay.
We’ve heard the owner of this old homestead
is testy, cusses canoeists and kayakers.
We pull ashore, I walk to his cottage, knock.
Through a window I see
an empty bottle of Jim Beam
lying on a table.
A bleary figure stalks
from the back room, cracks the door.
He silently listens to my request,
nods his head with effort:
Quietly, quietly.

Desolation Sound, British Columbia, 1978

(No. 48 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Sometimes the context in which you must ask, “What way from here?” moves fast, may sometimes entail choosing among competing dangers or unknowns. You just act. And there is life, right in that moment. When everyday time resumes, that moment may be followed by a big smile, the shakes, or just a heartfelt, “Thanks!”

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Erotism

David Stallings — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:25:45 +0000

The plumose anemone is a sensual
invertebrate, lovely and pink.
It can reproduce on its own
but seems to most enjoy releasing eggs
or sperm from its mouth.
With my new sweety and her sailing friends,
we come across a bordello
of Metridium cached under a rock
during minus tide. Trumpet flares
retracted, shafts detumescent, they hang
like bull balls. In the presence
of such raw sexuality, the four of us
grow closer, more honest.
We stroke the sacs gently,
and the world sways.

Sucia, San Juan Islands, Washington

Viewing the natural world through a sexual lens is horny, humbling, unifying. I’ve spent trips to the Southwest pursuing the Ultimate Yoni at the distant head of a desert stream, and had tantrically satisfying sexual experiences surrounded by fornicating frogs. I hope you have, also.

Sometimes the experience catches me off guard, as it did on the occasion reported here. Then, it has the power to cut through to the chthonic, and we stand revealed in our animal nature.

Wife to Be (5)

David Stallings — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:33:21 +0000

She wandered with Pazanne,
her German shepherd;
tended secret campfires
along the Olympic coast,
dipped naked into Cascade lakes,
opened to the datura mazes
of Southwestern canyon land.
Along the road she gathered songs,
traded them for rides.

She would come calling
when her path brought
her back to Seattle.
Late one night I returned
to my befuddled cabin
after a starry walk along the Sound.
Curled in my bed, she smiled hello—
I’ll stay the night.

By morning the bed sheets smelled
of firewood smoke
and the sea.

West Seattle, 1971

(No. 5 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

When I recently read this poem at a workshop, a young woman quietly included the following among her written comments: “I did this–this is how I got together with my husband.” Well, I wish her the depth of experience we had on our journey over the next 25 years–including raising a wonderful daughter, building a home together, wandering many mountains and rivers. And though there came a time when we chose to remove our rings and go separate ways, we remain dear friends and share an extended family.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Scott’s Creek Camp, August 8 (38)

David Stallings — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:15:58 +0000

I’ve searched backcountry ridges,
studied tides along rainy shores,
consumed two sets of black cushions
sitting zazen.
Still, only glimpses
of Cold Mountain, unless
this is it—here,
on this spruce-edged beach
along a tannin creek,
with this dark woman
and her two kids.

Olympic Wilderness Coast, 2002

(No. 38 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

As Gary Snyder once observed, “when Han-shan talks about Cold Mountain, he means himself, his home, his state of mind.” Or, as Han-shan himself put it (in Red Pine’s translation of No. 82):

People ask the way to Cold Mountain
but roads don’t reach Cold Mountain
in summer the ice doesn’t melt
and the morning fog is too dense
how did someone like me arrive
our minds are not the same
if they were the same
you would be here

Snyder renders those last two lines as:

If your heart was like mine
You’d get it and be right here.

Right where, did he say?

Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Nearing 65 (71)

David Stallings — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:39:31 +0000

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 green planets
with maroon continents.

(No. 71 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Toleak Point lies south of La Push on the Olympic wilderness coast in northwest Washington State. I have regularly visited this coastline for many years, usually backpacking alone.

As the Heart Sutra clarifies, there is “no old age and death, and also no ending of old age and death.” Just so.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Return

David Stallings — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 19:58:46 +0000

A smile rides home
with me
after five days
of coastal backpacking
with old friends
and family.
I approach my single
man’s cottage,
know loneliness
is near,
nearer.

Is now.

What vast sweep
this feeling has,
how rich with fear!
I let the waves tumble
and tumble
me into the sand.
Finally,
cast ashore,
I rise
naked
in the sun.

Anyone having the opportunity to body surf quickly discovers that the way to deal with a botched ride is to relax into the wave. I initially found this counterintuitive, tending to keep my neck and back stiff, head above water–resulting in my being repeatedly smacked against the bottom, breath knocked out or worse. This experience rapidly improves one’s technique, and yields a metaphor of value in surfing other waves.

Always something of a slow learner, it took me a long while to realize that the direct, sensory experience of suffering is a safe, sure portal to the soul.

Currents

David Stallings — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:04:42 +0000

For decades
I’ve returned
to this rocky outpost,
sat beside this lodgepole pine,
gazed across Rosario Strait.
With wife, daughter,
subsequent lover—
now with only
this borrowed dog.
Sun blurs my tears
into star flies
that moisten lichen,
and call forth a trumpet
of Canada geese.
Somehow
it all makes
sense.

Orcas Island

It took me dedades to discover the cleansing, transforming value of tears. Not the tears of self-referential pain, but rather those stemming from sure knowledgde of the pain I have caused others, and myself. With time, this seems to lead to a grace of genuine sorrow.

Convention

David Stallings — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 22:33:16 +0000

First a twitter
from out by the breakers.
Fresh from clouds,
a south-surging mass
traces tiny glyphs
in the wet sand.

Flap your
elbows,
flutter your
fingers.

They’ll
let you
join them–
one proud
peep
among a zillion.

Copalis Beach, Washington

It was a blustery November morning on the southwest Washington coast. Large flocks of peep (mostly sanderlings on this day) were coursing south, sometimes looking like airborne venetian blinds, then landing to scurry along the water’s edge, feeding.
How wonderful to be alone on this vast, flat beach. Here, because I was free to be a fool, I was privileged to become an honorary sanderling for a while.

Sepia Moment (63)

David Stallings — Sat, 28 Jun 2003 20:51:57 +0000

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)

I was enjoying an extended personal retreat, camping on the Olympic coast. Among the few other people I saw were a young couple, as enchanted with each other as with the coast. Why distinguish? I felt a pure, authentic joy coming from them, and I took this mental picture of them climbing one of the sea stacks.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

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.”