After my stepfather’s sporting goods
store went bust in ‘55, my mother’s
school teacher salary barely supported us.
Dick finally found a bookkeeper job
at the territorial TB sanitarium,
north of Seward.
We moved from our trailer and shed
into a cramped staff apartment—
the arguments and shouting
never stopped.

My room was a closet
with a door
I’d close at night.
Radio to ear,
I’d listen
to Frankie Laine, Teresa Brewer, The Platters,
until the town’s only station
signed off before midnight
with a choral rendition
of the territorial song—
“The blue of the sea, the evening sky,
The mountain lakes, and the flow’rs nearby—“

I’d sing along, fly
amid delta clouds
of widgeons and pintails,
climb high ridges
to whistle with marmots,
nod off in fields of glacier lilies
lupine, paintbrush.

I journeyed back to Seward a few years ago, hiked down Fourth Avenue to the Alaska Shop, bought the souvenir mug I use daily–deep blue, Big Dipper and Polaris pointing true.

To that young man lying in the closet, I can only say, life got a whole lot better–but it took awhile.  Hang on, keep moving with the Arctic terns.

to help
my classmates decide
which candy bar to eat first,
I suggest, Eeny, meeny miney moe,
catch a nigger by the toe…

What’s that?
No one has heard the word.

My accent quickly disappears.
I soon learn to feel
smarter than the tough native
kids with parents in the TB sanitarium.

Seward, 1953

_______________________________________________

Here, thanks to  childhood relocation from Tennessee to Alaska,  the process of prejudice (and the role language plays) is crystallized, but not stymied.  Our deeply ingrained tendency to (mostly unconsciously) define “us vs. them” often displays a distressing  resilience, evolving right along with greater consciousness and sensitivity to diversity.  In this long-ago instance, it effortlessly made a localized “adjustment.”

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.)

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.

The scroll spoke
in hand printed gothic
on stained cloth.
Abandoned
by the previous occupant
of my new pad
its words meant little.
Fresh from first-year
college dorm,
I hung it on my wall,
tried to live
by its meaning
for a
time.

Boulder, 1961

(No. 47 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

I was seeking hard for something to live by, and for a while, just about anything mysterious would do. Fortunately, Alan Watts fell into my life a few months later.

(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.)

The only other passenger
on the San Bus was Howard
Rhudy, a maintenance
man at the TB sanitarium.
Everyone knew Howard
wrote poetry and was
scholarly.
Howard saw me
absorbing words
copied from The Platters’ latest
hit. I handed him the page
when he asked to see it.
He finally rasped,
Did you write this?

Oh, no, it’s from the radio.
I was thrilled
that he would think me
capable
of writing these words.
Frightened,
that someday
I might
have these feelings
for real.

Seward, Alaska, 1956

Here was one of those relatively rare moments of encouragement (and to write, of all things) from an older person as I was growing up.

Of course, popular music has long served as a training manual for adolescents figuring out how to feel. In most cases the lesson was, and is, “I can’t live without you,” an emotionally fused, utterly inadequate and immature way to approach intimate relationship. I took the hook, as most of us did, and have spent a very long time growing beyond that approach.

Seward, 1953

Here, at an intersection of nature and nurture, can be observed the origin of good, clean warfare. All ironically superimposed on the the remnants of a global war that we knew of through old war movies and the stories of our parents. This was fun, but within two years, the same group of friends would be unconsciously swayed by Cold War rhetoric and begin worrying and childishly preparing for the Commies to invade our Alaskan home.

The old facilities around Seward were never used to repel an actual Japanese invasion, but with war activities so near (e.g. in the Aleutian Islands), there must have been enough concern to fortify the place. The “prisoner of war” camp never housed any foreign soldiers, but was occasionally used as a brig.

Here.

(No. 100 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Routes and Rocks, an early publication of The Mountaineers, was a marvel. Crafted by two zany (and ballsy) USGS field geologists, it is a soulful work of art, and a great guide to three quadrangles worth of the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area in the North Cascades. This is one of those sacred places of endless beauty that hones your soul. Having climbed into this vastness many times, I have exquisite memories of the place, many of which are fine candidates for my dying thought.

(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. 53 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

You know that place inside, where you want to be invisible sometimes? That day in the Muller’s yard over 50 years ago is still fresh in my mind. It really did work. Now I’m working hard to reappear.

(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.)