I lived just up the hill,
and I’d find him whenever I came looking,
on the beach or by his wood stove,
in year ‘round coveralls, sweater, wool hat.
He plied me with questions elders ask,
and I listened to stories of long-ago Iowa winters,
of a large German family, of manhood, marriage.
Of children, learning, teaching,
and the core
of Einstein’s science.

In the summers we’d sit by a beach fire
and sing. When he felt just right,
Schmitty would croon
Sigmund Romberg barbershop tunes.
Often he added the voices of
water-tuned beach bottles,
and, if inspired, would end
with a yodel. I’d laugh, shout, clap my hands.
He’d chuckle, smile.

As Schmitty’s emphysema worsened,
our visits helped free his mind
from laboring lungs.
When alone, he solved
quadratic equations just
to keep breathing.
Then he began telling me about
the curtain. Today,
today, I almost saw beyond
the gossamer curtain.
He spoke of it with increasing knowledge,
yet still the way
eluded him.

One day he told me
he had seen.
At last,
how simple,
how obvious:
The way through the curtain
is with song!
When I pass through
those gossamer folds,
I’m going to circle your place
and sing you a parting song.

I was young, and
couldn’t quite believe it,
any of it.

A few nights later a storm
leaned into Yeomalt Point.
Bushes scrabbled the sides
of my old cabin, maple branches
crashed onto the roof,
and the wind’s voice rose.

In the morning Schmitty’s body sat still
in his favorite chair, his wool hat
cocked over one eye,
a smile on
his creased face.

Here’s the beginning of a poem about Schmitty, an old German who was like an adopted grandfather to me, Therese (my wife at the time), and a selection of hippie flotsam who lived on Bainbridge Island in the mid-70s. It’s hard to overstate how influential he was to this motley crew of young friends. One of my favorite early pictures of Schmitty showed him walking down the beach with Therese (who was playing a recorder). Schmitty maintained that anything which washed up on the beach was a holy offering. He built funky little homes and shelters (the “inner sanctum”, the “round house”, his “wicki,” on the beach) at Yeomalt Point from these relics.

There is so much I could say about this man, but thirty years later, I see he taught me as much about dying as about living. I guess they go together!

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)

The original working title of this piece was “And I have graduate degrees in geography.” There may be a fundamental personality/career truth at work here. Have you ever noticed how the craziest people are often psychiatrists? Functioning sociopaths are social workers? On and on. Well, I have a doctorate in geography, and am spatially challenged. However, based on reactions I’ve gotten to this piece, many others are as well.

The second working title was “Grace.” Grace in the sense of (with age and experience) acceptance of this condition. But also in the sense that there is such insight potential at that moment when the reorienting worlds shift.

(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.)

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)

Today, seven astronauts exploded high in the sky.
Seven skiers perished under Canadian snows.
Thirty-three shoppers burned in a Chinese mall.
While our nation prepared to shock
and awe the people of the Middle East.
All of this makes it difficult
to smile for the camera.
This is not a problem for the children,
riding high on parents’ shoulders.

On 2/2/03, about 1500 people in my community of Bainbridge Island joined a rising wave of local communities who are assembling for “peace portraits”. Old hippies and Republican housewives aplenty–all convinced that our country is preparing to badly screw its karma.