Juniper Hills and a Sagely Brush

When you build your house on babel, before long, all your friends are gone. And none spoke your language anymore. Then, whether mystery or history come knocking at your door, open. To a world most musical at dusks and dawns, alighting and rising as the butterfly's song. Quick, silver as mercurial pools, your eyes flicker and flit in lovely apprehension. Touch, and you'll ripple the lake-heart of calm, pierce the surface tension. Dainty the dawn, dulcet the dusk, halcyon the heavens between. Patient the whisper, shy as the fawn, the susurrus of wind new life brings.


Driving into the mountains last friday, the sun began to set. The steep cones of central oregon appear as shadow jaws against the horizon, and the ghastly remnants of trees are ashen memories of forest fires, crowding the hills like whispering ghosts, dull-eyed and plaintive. Charcoal lines of distant slopes form a sinister skyline underneath the golden moon, low and heavy over the treetops. The grasping trees stoop over the road, and I feel both protected or assaulted by their leaning limbs.
A chill on the air smells of winter, carrying a biting breathlessness and a hint of juniper, intoxicating as gin on the wind, greeting our entrance into Bend, the high desert.
Where man began and nature ends, I know not. Perhaps man's is a tentative hold on that sagebrush land, rugged lovely standoff against those volcanic sisters whose tempers may erupt on a slight. Patience, I'll linger not long. I'll miss the leaves and trees of my land, though this sweet juice of juniper pacifies my soul and imparts its wisdom - a brush with sage.

Turn my glass soul upside-down, gentle snow comes falling down
a bus, a school, a one house town
a child skips 'long an empty street,
snow builds high around his feet
before a while my crystal soul, is silent
silent
and winter full
place me down and soon I'll be, a dust reminder of frozen things
timeless attic memories, a photo treasure
misplaced mysteries

Where are you going?

It's a question I hear a lot lately, whether internally or from concerned friends. Not that my life's direction appears disastrous, but due to the uncertainty found in a definitive lack of roommates in the upcoming year. Will I stay in Oregon? Will I retreat into Washington, or explore the world, or find new roommates, or buy a house? Just because everyone will be married does not mean my friends have removed themselves from my life, nor I from theirs. But my location is in question.
Still, the quietude, an ambiance not unfamiliar, is daunting, frightful. Part of me greatly desires living alone, knowing that I might accomplish much on silent nights. Another part of me understands that it may destroy me. Where am I going? Where do I go?
I think these questions assault me on these nights with a chill and empty sky, covered with blank clouds, when no one is home and the house is full of dead noise and electronic burrs. Once, twice a week, when silence sounds the gongs inside the wasteland.

I'd live in a log cabin if I could, in a forest by a stream. I'd live in a tiny house with a loft, skylight singing in the rain. I'd live in an abbey on a mountain, a cloister on the river bend, a yurt in the forest, a homestead in the hills. I just want to be with those I love, I guess. For now, that's here I think. Though I would like to see the rest of the world. I suppose I even have the means.

Tiny Houses

It's P and L's fault that I'm entranced with tinyhouses. Early this spring, P and L visited my house and we made dinner, walked through the orchards, watched the sunset, and pored over countless blogs of tiny houses. How easily was I swayed! Originally, I thought a nice tinyhouse on the cliffs of scotland, but realized how unlikely that dream might be.

I was born and raised in the country, so woods, mountains, streams, and gardens speak more of home to me than buildings and clustered community. I love community, I love fellowship, I love people and all my fantastic friends. I also love natural beauty and its serenity. I do not for an instant believe I must suffer a solitude of nature, but if nature experience is solitary, I suffer it gladly.
Tinyhouses always seemed ideal. I don't own many things. My "bed" is a mattress on the floor. I have three bookcases (four sorta), a desk, clothes, blankets, a guitar, and my work computer things. What else? I have some knick-knacks of course, artwork, gifts, and items valuable to me, but I can easily store everything in such a house. Only two best friends remain, and both will, likely, be married by next summer.

Now, instead of writing, I've spent about half an hour looking at tinyhouse blogs. My favorites are the ones like log cabins. Subsistence farming from a tiny house? Sounds like I'm turning into a Wendell Berry.

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry

Three Thunderstorms, Rosh Hashanah, Home to Home

Last night, another thunderstorm crossed over the hills where my parents live, this one by far the most frighteningly awe-inspiring. There is that edge, I think, to beauty sometimes. The beauty of the canyon, staring down over the precipice; the beauty of the spider or the panther, elegant in their predation; and  in the volcano and depths of the ocean. The tension of safety and magnificence snatches our lungs and squeezes, and even in the thunderstorms, I felt a little of such. There was lightning like I've not seen since my childhood, too numerous for even calculating seconds between strikes, most of the time. One bolt struck not far uphill, less than a soccer field's distance away from my house, temporarily knocking out a street lamp. A fright possessed me, sitting with my nose to the screen and watching the cracks in the skyline. What if someone's house was struck? What if someone was hurt? I stayed up many hours, watching the lightning crackle and the thunder rumble, and listening to the rain tumbling down. I slept little and enjoyed myself immensely in the cradle of the valley, in the nook of the night.

Rosh Hashanah is the feast of trumpets and the Jewish new year. Rarely is a year's beginning so early in the Gregorian calendar. Unfortunately, I was in the wrong state to feast with friends, but I'll probably celebrate it in some capacity, regardless. (Matthew why you leave the country? Phil, why you at work?) I like the Jewish holy days. Especially the high holy days. Most people, often even Jews included, do not celebrate many of the Jewish holy days anymore (a land and temple thing, but also a parting from belief that the holy days are sacred). I'm not religiously Jewish, but I really appreciate the value in the appointments God prepared. Plus, they are always an occasion for a special celebration. A special appointment holy-day celebration ordained by God? Please and thank you.

And now, after a fantastic visit home, it is time to go home. With slightly more laden packs filled with new books, my heart is light and my drive looming. Goodbye beautiful forest backyard with its large maples and droopy pines, its jolly firs and wild blueberries, its garden and hills. I'll miss the nightly games, family dinners, and my charming closet of a room. Hasta luego, Redmond.

A day in the hills

I climbed my little mount yesterday, and meandered through the hills. I took a few lousy pictures. Turns out, I may be the lousiest photographer. I also completely forgot my pen, so I could not make any sketches or write any stories. Maybe I'll climb again Wednesday, weather permitting.
Even if these are not the best of pictures, it was the most beautiful of days (even with a grey-ish haze to the sky that made it, at times, more faded than blue)

The birds that stole my sandwich when I recently went were not as prevalent.  The chipmunks, however, were out in force. Nearing the top, it was readily apparent that the plants thrived on short seasons, and the trees were all stinted pines, though near the top, there were actually a surprising amount of mountain raspberries. I saw no mountain blue jays, and only a few camp robbers (grey jays) on the mountain top.

New Shoes and Clicking Heels - I'm Home.

A rather shoddily shot picture of my parent's backyard. Yeah, we live in a forest. The maples look positively gorgeous in the late afternoon sunlight. We also live in a valley (which makes running tricky, since I have to go somewhere so I'm not constantly running at 30 degrees up) I'd blame the camera for this shot, but it was actually my fault. I got excited and took the picture as I walked under a fir and quickly scrambled to capture the moment. I did not capture the moment, but at least I captured - for me anyway - something. The apple trees are looking splendid, the pines, firs, maples, birches, all the trees in the backyard are so amazingly beautiful. I needed this vacation. I went and bought running shoes with the mother, had dinner with the family, and then we started playing bananagrams. Turns out, my dad is a secret champ, mother is a bit slow, Sam makes up words, and Phil gets to be a combination of Sam and mother. I think my dad is also siphoning me terrible letters every game (or just not mixing them). Then we played quiddler (rummy with words), and Mother won the first game, Phil the second. It's so good to be home, almost moves me to poetry. I can wait until sunny-tomorrow for that, though. I really wish I had come home earlier in the summer season for more of this. I miss the Redmond (Carnation) country-scape so very much: the valleys, the mountains, the rich greens, the smells of pine and rich soil, the bears trampling our apple trees (just once I think. But he knocked over the whole tree to get apples. Gluttonous bear), the windy hills leading home, the waterfalls and mountains less than an hour away, the half-price books. I admit, the first place I went to was not home, but in fact the bookstore. And half-price books was having a 20% off sale! (2/5's price books?)

It all makes me want to weep with joy, write stories all night long, drink all the apple juice and chips and salsa and oatmeal raisin cookies that my parents treated me. And I want to climb that mountain. I also have a strong desire to see mount rainier.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Mount_Rainier_from_west.jpg

I have a feeling the clouds are rolling in. By Wednesday (my mid-week fun day), I think it might even be too rainy for a good view of the mountain. We'll see.

Several summers ago, when I worked at camp, I was not given much warning or information on what to bring (I only knew I was working at camp for a day before I flew out). One of the (many) things I forgot was a good pair of shoes. I brought old shoes that were almost worn out, and camp destroyed them. Because I did not have time for a lifeguard certification, I did only field activities for the kids: baseball, archery, soccer, running around, and so on. My shoes almost immediately fell apart. Especially since at the start of summer there was still quite a bit of snow (7000 feet up in the mountains?), and it shortly switched to over 100 degree days, I'm fairly certain my shoes just gave up on life. Shoes falling apart was a big deal. The second biggest problem I faced was that there was no cell service for an hour in any direction. Everyone brought calling cards with them so they could use the camp phone. I didn't know about the calling card setup, and had no calling card. I thought about writing a letter - no stamps. That was the easier of the problems, but writing a letter to ask the parents to ship you shoes? (because it was 3 hours to a location that sold shoes as far as I could find out. I had no car). The turn-around time on that is intimidating.

Instead, I borrowed a calling card, and quickly called my parents and asked them to send me shoes. This is where I made another mistake. I forgot to tell them my shoe size. I simply stated, as quickly as possible, that basketball shoes should work just fine. Apparently my parents believe me a clown, and they bought me 10.5 men's shoes. I'm not a short person, but I'm a bit below the national average for males (a little over 5'9"). My foot size, however, is not 10.5. When I got home, I bought some 9.5 sambas, which turned out to be too big also, but lasted me almost 4 years. Two years ago, I bought my current pair of shoes, another pair of sambas that are 8.5s. Today, I finally bought the first pair of shoes that I think truly fits my feet. They are 8s. Yep, 2.5 sizes smaller than my parents believed. I even have some extra wiggle room at the end for my toes.

Tilikum - Canoeing

The sky was sunny Sunday noon
Three friends we went to Tilikum
Alongside fields and vineyards still
Green forests bright and rivers full
Came we at last upon a glade
Where sunlight on lake's mirror played

Canoes soon drifting over blue
The trees sweet singing anthems true
The birds high trilling good af'ernoon
Our boat and paddles swish in tune
Moored we our boat onto the bridge
Consumed our bread and climbed the ridge

To giant swings between the trees
Swing through the breeze and brush the leaves
stare to the sky, pines canopy
The wind, the earth, hea'ens panoply
Then down the path along the shores
Unhitch the boat on twilight's doors

The sunset's gaze determined face
In crimson rays the even's grace
A silver moon above our heads
sweet stars goodnight twilight descends


The sunlight stared askance through the trees, bright but not overbearing. It gleamed across the lake's gentle mirror, a sheet sheen, reflecting upside-down firs, pines, maples, and birch in every shade of green surrounding the lake. We paddled slowly, lethargically, watching the newts slither lazily through the gentle ripples and the minnows racing away in our wake. We swam in the golden gleam of afternoon, the water glistening beneath us as a dragon's hoard, and we gliding over its treasure.  The air was still, then breathed, and was still again, sending wafts of pine across the lake. Mooring our boat onto the docks, we vaulted the railing and ate a swift meal of bread, and drank sugary sweet drinks, speaking little as we listened to the world of birds and ripples, wind and faith.
Then we split for the swings. Along a skinny trail, with near invisible gossamer strands of spider silk crossing at intervals (and P swatting them grumpily from his path), we scampered up a hill of roots and packed earth, towards the hill overlooking the lake. Behind some trees, and betwixt two, a giant swing rests, and we took turns on the swing, alternately marveling at the canopy of needles on toothpick trees clambering into the sky, or gazing out over the lake, or peering into the depths of the forest.
Then, when even drew nigh, we scampered back towards our canoe to catch the sunset over the firs and hillsides, and watch as the stars salted the twilight and the moon rose in the east, all silver smiles and patient light. Our canoe dipped slightly, bouncing on the buoyant waves as we simply sat, waiting on nothing, captivated in the dawn of night.

Soul Tea

I've gleaned much this weekend, from restorative fields. Friday stretched on into forever, work demanding concentration I thought long dissipated throughout the week's hectic tumbling. And finally I burst into the clear. I felt like my submarine had imploded beneath the sea. I swam with all my might towards the surface, and the going became tougher and tougher until finally I broke free, the water tension of the surface breaking around me. It was none so difficult, nor so deadly or anxious, but the weekend was a breath of fresh air.

And once it arrived, it arrived with panache. Grey clouds covered the sky, but the sun cracked its way through and a light show danced towards earth, illuminating the cottonwood seeds floating about the sky like pixie dust or summer snow. I ran and ran for soccer, and grew tired and ran some more, through a beautiful sunset of cotton-candy clouds and into the early twilight. Arriving home, I collapsed in bed and wrote and read until I fell asleep. I woke bright and early and skyped with A and S for several hours, smiling and ponderously engaging in the diamonds and coals of life. Then P and guest came over and we explored Newberg, eating burritos and cilantro salsa and kicking around a soccer ball on the turf fields.

Finally, I rested half an hour before heading out to the lake for a bit of canoeing, picnicking, swinging on a giant swing between the trees, wire-walking, sunset canoeing, archery, and, eventually, goodbye hugs. I drove back beneath stars just peeping into being in the heavens. As a child, I remember books like "Chicken Soup for the Soul", and I think this was my chicken soup for my soul. A perfect Sabbath.

One thing I heard about Sabbath once was that God rested on the 7th day, and not the first. God did not rest to prepare for the upcoming week, but to celebrate a week that was good. It is a tiny difference, but one I really appreciate. I had a most excellent week, and celebrating it on the river with cider (they had beer) and bread was the perfect end to a week. Thank you, Lord, for the Soul Tea. I know I'm going to need it.

Blackberry Season

(Ignore the tea, even though the birthday mug is delightful. Also, ignore the waterbottle and the computer cords, and the "everything-that-is-not-a-bowl-of-blackberries")




One of my favorite times of summer is fruit season. Just outside my doors, ripe plums hang from darkly violet (plum-colored, if you will) trees; grapes dangle from vines laced around wires; pear and apple trees lining the streets and in the fields sag under the weight of their ripening loads; figs, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, each bush or tree laden with juicy antioxidants and vitamins (I mean fruit!) bundled in the sweetest of packages. And now blackberries.
Blackberries are my favorite. I think it is the competition with the brier requisite in retrieving the fruit. This morning, sunlight barely peaking over Rex Hill, I snatched the largest bowls I could find (optimistic), and wandered around town to find blackberry plants. First, I tried near the North Valley Friend's Church. Not much luck. The location I'd tried last year was mostly poisoned down (why, Newberg, why?) and after hopping my way between islands of thorny vines, I eventually find myself trapped in a prison of angry blackberries with berries tantalizingly out of grasp. And even the berries I found were dried out, or laced with angry spiders. I managed my escape with only a few handfuls of berries and some bloody ankles. Worth it. I ate most of these.
Next, I tried the river. The entire valley is fertile, but the river region is more so, for obvious reasons. These berries were by no means short on water. The best part was, a private, fenced off region with a barbed wire fence bordered some land, and the blackberries blithely climbed over the fence, allowing for a large quantity of freely given berries that did not require platemail and a broadsword to collect (which is good, because they don't make broadswords like they used to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwibf6t7Scc)

Ta-da, blackberries! I then made a cobbler, went to a wedding, and another. Now, of course, I'm ready to see A and S tomorrow, with gluten free dessert (the cobbler used magic not-flour flour).

Blackberry Poetry Section:
Sylvia Plath: (she always has a... dark side to her poetry. I appreciate it, but if I had been friends with her, I think I would have been worried. Still, it is about blackberries. You're welcome)
I cut off the last portion of the poem because Sylvia Plath got sidetracked from blackberries, and it just would not do. Next time, Plath, stay on the topic of delicious berries. Though, it is actually an interesting end to the poem. So I suggest you go read it anyway (I think here they have it: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178965)

Blackberrying

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks—
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

Legos

Many days, the outdoors captivated my attention: sweet smells of pine, maple and wet earth in the darker seasons; sunlight, hills, and fields of green in the sunny seasons. But, of course, some days were too cold, wintry and with a bone-chilling wind that sliced through any jacket. "Cat in the Hat" days, these were, though the insides of houses contain their own expeditions and adventures: building extravagant blanket forts or racing cars with epic gear-shifting noises, multi-floor golf with ping-pong balls and duplos goals, spider soccer, cards, and, of course, legos.

Downstairs, in a crotchety closet, board games are stacked from floor to ceiling, and, even better, building toys. Linkin logs, duplos, knex, legos, all labelled in their respective bins, bulging with colorful happiness awaiting design. Phil and I would clear space, a great, empty expanse in the floor, and lug out the giant plastic bin of legos, grunting with the effort. Then, all gleeful smiles and excitement, rain pattering at the windows and glupping from the eaves and gutters, we tipped over the bin, dumping all the legos into the clear. Phil would start constructing a racecar, all giant wheels and aerodynamic prospect. I'd daydream a castle, a spaceship, an underwater cavern, or a raid on a dragon's lair - a short story captured in a still of legos, beginning in the heat of battle before broiling to a swift, possibly bloody, resolution.

Today, I would think to myself, I'll build a spaceship. Oh, it would be magnificent! Sharp wings angling backwards like a fly, giving a sleek and speedy design, countless lasers arrayed in a deadly composition, a chaotic design making it difficult to disable all these neon weapons. It would have a glassy pilots den, a steering wheel driving system with several strange joysticks nearby, four giant, metallic engines in the rear, like an x-wing, only closer together, escape pods along the side, dangerous looking pirate-astronauts piloting the ship like true rebels, scoundrels each one.

Then, scarcely as I'd begun imagining, I'd dive into the pile, picking out every piece matching some ideal struct in my spaceship daydream.  This silver triangle might make a magnificent wing or this underwater piece might serve as an excellent escape-pod front-cover, and on and on. The problem was, this didn't stop. I'd find another piece that made the wing design more fantastic, a sleek-black piece more acutely angled and ideal for the shape of my wings, or a different color scheme of lasers that might make an excellent addition to the ship's underbelly, or 5 more possible designs for the escape pods, some with magnets or spinning parts, so the pirate-astronauts might man an escape pod and shoot lasers to ward off enemy fighters, or launch the escape pods as short-term ships in a small dog-fight. And, wow, this piece allows me to swivel my cockpit open in case I want a parachute-escape in space, or in an atmosphere - totally useful! I definitely want that piece. 

This continued until I'd developed quite a stockpile of pieces, all intrinsic portions of a tree of daydreams, branching out into the most epic of spaceships. So what if I built it it would have 10 wings, 50 lasers, a command center, two cockpits, seven engines, and a small fleet of escape pods. It was magnificent. Once I'd gathered all my prospective pieces, I'd glance over them with pride, a happy creator of the greatest spaceship of all time. Magnificent.

Then, I'd calmly place all my pieces back into the pile and be finished, having never built, nor even started, the spaceship at all. Often I might build a racecar with Phil and race away, never once looking back or considering my time wasted or my endeavor a failure. Why would I? I'd constructed the greatest spaceship of all time, even if it only existed within my head.

It was a long time until I discovered I've the same process with writing.  When I was a child, I read everything I could. When we were not playing games as a family, I was holing myself up in a corner under some blankets, listening to the rain and journeying into the worlds of imagination.  As a child, whenever I could, I constructed my own little worlds created from words, and invented phrases different characters might say, or clever plot twists. While every other child wanted to be a sports legend, an astronaut, a mad scientist, I wanted to be an author, right from the beginning. 

My greatest obstacle, which I found out later, was my legos mentality. I imagined all these great worlds, these deep, clever personas, fantastic settings of all types and colors, and even some crazy, unique stories, but I never wrote them down. I didn't have to, right? I knew what the story was, full of surprises and twists and witty repartee. Wrong.

Throughout high school, I wrote almost nothing of creative merit. I wrote my essays, lousy though they were, and never even bothered listening to teacher's criticism on my work. I got A's, didn't I? What could be wrong with my homework if I was still managing A's? It is a common mistake of teachers not granting the grades deserved, or marking down more for consistent errors not fixed, perhaps, but really it was my fault for not trying to improve. I disliked high school, because my preppy, tiny school contained cliques of friendships where I never felt I belonged. I had a few friends, but none I felt strongly attached to on leaving home for college. In fact, I maintained contact with almost none of them save through the barest of technological means. That's a rabbit hole.

So when I got to college, I received a rude awakening: I didn't know how to write. I had a magnificent vocabulary and enough credit from my SAT scores and AP scores to cover all of my general education classes, so I dove right into upper level courses. And got slaughtered on my first essays. "Where is your thesis?" "What is this paragraph structure?" "Where is the constancy in this philosophical assay?"  I had to start from scratch. Fortunately, I had a wealth of knowledge built up, so I wasn't dead in the water, but I was far behind expectations, and already suffering a brutal series of essay grades (B's - grades in this world are ridiculous.. do some professors feel bad about failing students?)

It took some time, but I harnessed my competitive nature and started collecting knowledge. I read every essay I could find, from celebrated authors like Orwell and Twain, or Swift and Nietzche, or Lewis and Thoreau. I read essays from my fellow students, asking them to share with me if they'd received stellar grades, and learning from their styles and patterns of thoughts. I consumed knowledge, and, before long, it paid off. All my essays began receiving exquisite marks, no longer suffering from significant grammar mistakes or syntactic and semantic holes.
Once again, I returned into my legos mentality, this time with a wealth of production knowledge backing it up - now it was useful. Not only could I imagine all the fantastic conceptions I might place into a story, but I could nurture my ideas into fruition. A seed of thought blossomed into a flowering essay, simple and effective. I've a lot of learning to go; I didn't learn everything there was to know in that short period, but at least I was no longer producing literary failures. I still have a long way to go, but I'm learning so many fantastic ways of arranging lego tiles that every new day is enlightening.

Time to invent some spaceships.

Fields, Fruit, and Valleys Full - Dreamy Thursdays

The day started as a Fleet Foxes morning, wobbled its way into a Sufjan Stevens afternoon, and collapsed into a Sigur Ros denouement.  After work it was smiles and Mumford and Sons babbling with me on the drive to drop off A's stuff and pick up my prodigal pillow.

This morning, the early mountain mists sifting into the valley quickly burned off in the summer blaze, droplets tumbling to the ground and turning the grass into opals on the early harp strings of sunlight. Turtledoves chortled, starlings shrieked and dove between the homes before gliding into roof slats, and high above, the hawks soared on the valley's warm updrafts. Plums now sit ripe on trees of like color, and blackberries sneak tendrils across streets, burdened with berries and bees. And figs, even figs, gather along snaking limbs. It's like Tantalus' wonderland, full of fruits within reach, and the river slouching through town. Lazy summer days, even filled with work, are marvel-filled.

I dreamed last night of a cabin in the woods, old-parchment moonlight piercing the canopy and sparkling against the windows. A bubbling burn trickled through the glade, and low rows of herbs and vegetables in the garden behind the home wavered in the gentle breeze. A hart nibbled at the grass at creek's edge, head lowered without fear, while an owl hroo'ed in the branches above, gold-ringed eyes watching the forest entire, hunting instincts prepared.

The door opened into a cool abode, lightly furnished. A rug covered a cedar floor, and paintings of icons covered the walls, replete with halos. A small twin bed built of beech wood occupied the corner opposite the fireplace in which an ember-red fire sparked its last. Books littered the floor, old tomes filled with burnt-marshmallow parchment sitting atop crumbling scrolls. Knobbly, white, wax candles dribbling into bronze saucers were strewn about the floor. The scroll anchored to the floor by piles of tomes read, "There and Back Again... A Hobbit's Tale".
I think the scroll beneath it was a Virginia Woolf (a room of one's own. go figure what that says about my psyche)

Well, sounds pretty idyllic to me. I'd live there.

Weekend Words

I don't know what this weekend was. A beautiful mess? I spent all weekend at a wedding in SoCal for one of my very best of friends. Normally, I find time for writing every day.  This weekend was blessedly chaotic in artful and heart-wrenching ways. I laughed until my sides ached, cried salt towards the sea, regaled fairy tales of chandeliers into A's listening ears, was healed and lent healing, was broken and prayed for God's soothing, loved, lived, listened, thrived.
Words of poetry surrounded me surely as the ocean mighty, whose waves cried against my feet each dawning morning. Burgeoning words blossoming as first flowers after forest fires, violet, gold, and crimson in an efflorescent wildfire. And no time for journaling, for sewing seeds and reaping some glorious paean of writing following a nearly ideal weekend.
I'm bubbling over with words, but I can't even begin placing them down correctly. I'm shy on sleep, my metabolism bristled against my despairing circadian cycle and staunchly refused all food all weekend.  Every night, we stayed up late and shared a desperate joy, a last gift whose spiritual offering was not just for A, but was equally a gifting unto ourselves. I want to write. I want to shout and write poetry and scream and dance and live and run around in circles until I wear silly holes in the floor. My heart is ablaze with love, and where art thou now, brother?
Change is this: an end and a beginning. I craved an important piece of this ending, and an earnest christening of this new beginning (A actually broke a wine bottle in the car and spilled wine everywhere. There is some "christening" pun being made here, certainly, but I'm whistling innocently with measured nonchalance). Hugs and photographic memories, heart-wrenching words that followed me all weekend - I'm full of words and empty. I'll never find time for writing everything this weekend meant to me, and I suspect I couldn't. It meant everything to me, and always will. It was sanctified, a holy communion.
I wrote a couple of poems trying to capture my thoughts, and ended up with 6 broken haikus, 1 sonnet (Elizabethan), 1 free verse, 1-ish metric adventure, and nothing worth repeating that adequately captured my feelings as this weekend captured my heart.

These words have soared with me on my journey into normalcy, whatever that is, as another beautiful exemplar of this weekend. I don't know why I put them here. That's how cognizant I am of my current thought process.

The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.


And I come back, remembering two different worlds. Sagebrush and succulents, a saline seaside where sands and shores mingle, and roll uphill into a tanned and sunny world. Palms and aloes dominate the fauna, gulls, pigeons, turkey vultures, and herons the fowl. Adobe and sun-bleached or sandblaster woods are boxes leading into the hills above the ocean. The worlds as like as green and grey, and colored in like pallet, each in exquisite fashion.  The mightiness of the sea, here, in the southern lands, and the mountains, evergreens and trees, here, in the 45th, a green belt of verdant flora with scarce a pace of dirt between where brush or shrub clamber skyward, greeting the sun's harp strings. I would miss my world, though the greatness of theirs burns brightly in my heart. But when the mists roll in over the mountains, and the dewdrops trickle down tulip petals and along the efflorescent hydrangeas and rhododendrons, and each blade of grass prisms the light into tiny rainbow droplets - I know I am home.