the county building.
He bemoans the budget, continued

layoffs, disappearances
of old friends.

Fluffy flakes begin to fall.
I lean to catch one

on my tongue, stop short—
they are down feathers.

We glance up,
spot a peregrine falcon

on a low tree branch.
The raptor clutches

a pigeon in its left talon, rips
flesh with hooked beak.

There are young to fledge
on a tower cornice.

Well, as they say, it’s a jungle out there.

Or, liberally extending M.L. King’s famous comment, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

This, despite underlying patterns that may save our bacons for awhile.  For example, urban peregrines strike more pigeons with black rumps than white.

(No. 67 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Recently I chose to retire from my day job–well, OK, a career of many years in public transportation. Though daunting in some ways, this opportunity provided a chance to reflect deeply on the work and heartfelt sense of community that happens when one is fortunate to pursue “right livelihood” with a collection of bright, soulful people.
Before leaving, I interviewed an array of folks I have worked with for years, came to see more clearly how we have deeply and permanently affected each other. What a gift!

And now, the journey continues–further up and further in.

(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.)

I have an instant crush on
Natasha, the 19-year-old Russian
salad chef. She tells me
Mr. Wadsworth screws
Mr. Graney’s wife
all the time,
and doesn’t bother
to hide it.

Colorado Springs, 1957

A counselor friend talks about the intersection between adolescence and “unmoored knowledge.”  Not completely unfamiliar knowledge, most likely; rather this is the moment when you begin to more personally “get” the knowledge (and it gets you).  There are miles to go, maybe decades, before the “mooring” is very firmly attached, and then, of course, you have to let it go if you want a truly mature relationship!  Anyway, this poem looks at several levels of adolescent introduction to awareness of the complexity and carnality of the world. 

As a so-called quad Scorpio, I’m still coming to terms with this.

Colorado Springs, 1957

Wikipedia will tell you that the Pachuco “youth movement” grew out of Mexico in the 1930s and 40s.  Think zoot suits and a whole life style.  Along the Mexican border, young Hispanics (as Pachucos) defended themselves from some of the white servicemen stationed in that area.  By the mid-fifties the movement had spread all through the Hispanic southwestern U.S.  It evaporated by the early 70s.

In Colorado Springs, us white kids were afraid of Pachucos, or “Chukes” (“They carry knives,” we told each other).  I suspect the local Hispanic kids–who hung together, looked different, and were not all angels–were more “wannabes.”  The homemade, commonly seen “cross and rising sun” hand tattoo was probably more of a cultural referent.  However, among whites, including the local small business community, it was the sure mark of a “trouble maker punk,” or worse.

It was only when I entered the “world of work” at 14 that the vastness, diversity, and often unfairness, of this beautiful, fucked up world began to touch me.

By the way, a “D.A.” was a “duck’s ass”, or “duck tail”, haircut. Long on the sides, coming together in a sort of V part in the back. Hispanics’ wavy dark hair looked just fine in a D.A. Some of the rest of us had less luck with this mid-50s style.

(No. 51 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Beware the demons that are afoot in the early morning hours. However, it seems there is no way to avoid them, and perhaps they are just another hideous form of Pain, the Teacher. The only possible way to deal with them, as far as I know, is to use endlessly available body knowledge, which is not found in the mind. For me, it’s usually in my lower belly or solar plexus (chakras 2 and 3). There, one can suffer exchanges that would worry the mind to illness, but that the belly can handle. A stuffed animal may help.

When the demons exit, they and I are changed.

(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.)

(No. 68 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

I worked with Caitlin for several years, and she became a dear friend. What a lady! She regularly took breaks from our busy government office to work as a cocktail waitress in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Caitlin had grown up in southeastern Washington, down wind from the toxic plume that (unknowingly, at the time) exposed many people to radiation poisoning. The source was the plutonium facility in the Tri-cities area of Washington, which supplied fissionable material for our nation’s first atomic bombs. The most common illness of the “down-winders”, as they have come to be known, is thyroid cancer. Caitlin’s thyroid cancer metastasized, and at 38, she was dead within 16 months of diagnosis.

I learned a great deal about dying from Caitlin. Including the sense, as Steven Levine put it, that there is ultimately no safer act we will ever confront.

(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.)

A work mate has leukemia.

Churning, I must share
this news with a trusted
one. Hesitantly, I speak
in a darkened room.

Soon we will all
know.

(No. 74 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Tough news spreads fast. How can such news, stirred with compassion, assist in healing, if not curing the affected one? And with still more compassion, how do we live with the advice intoned at day’s end of many Zen sesshin:

I beg to urge you everyone,
life and death is a grave matter.
All things pass quickly away.
Each of you must be completely alert,
never neglectful, never indulgent…

(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.)

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.