They are out there, those rare beings. But, for the most part, they are best left where you find them, like a snake in the wild.
just a sigh
if only
your eyes would swim to me
rest in the cup of my gaze
even for a moment
i would never
snatch you from your world but
merely marvel in the light sensation
of your shimmering presence
As I go back through my old posts revising some of the poems, a lot of the intros, and adding intros to those posts that don’t have any, I find that I can’t quite remember what inspired some of the older poems. Take this one, for instance. Just whose features does this poem describe?
Yet I seem to see my own face in the mirror as I read. Yes, maybe this is a pen-portrait of myself, of all people.
Features
I won’t have time to go over my route until I’m back in Reno, where I’ll spend a few nights at a friend’s before going the rest of the way home. Presently I’m in Frisco, CO. I hope to be in the Grand Junction area before nightfall. Thought I’d sit down with a bagel sandwich and dedicate a few brain cells to the task of tapping up a small poem, see what happens.
Open Road
Your contours lead my thoughts
like slender fingers parting
slightly cracked lips
for a sigh
Your peaks and valleys invite
my earnest exploration
teasing the deepest pits
of my stomach
I’ll never tire of your curves
your long smooth stretches
your heated breath
against my cheeks
At the apex of my trip to Vermont I spent several days in Rutland, where I visited the grave of Julia Dorr. Later, as I reflected upon that visit, I drafted some thoughts that eventually became this poem. First the poem, then the story of how I found her grave.
By Julia C. R. Dorr’s Grave
Friday night—well early Saturday morning—I rolled into Rutland, Vermont, after winding through various small roads of interest in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, New York, and finally Vermont. This took me another three nights of camping and four days of driving. I’ll detail my route for this portion of my trip in a later post, mostly for myself because I know that later I’ll want to remember and reflect on it.
Saturday morning I washed my clothes, dressed decent, and set off to find the grave of one of my poet progenitors, Julia Dorr. This is the whole reason for my drive. At Evergreen Cemetery I parked my rental near the office just inside the front gate, planning on inquiring after the location of Julia’s plot. But the office was closed for the weekend. So I set off walking, through a city of rough-hewn final dwelling places. Shortly up the main road into the cemetery, it forks.
Though I felt her grave would be up the left fork, which went up through a series of vales into a heavily afforested area where the headstones literally disappeared from view among the trees, I chose the right fork, after some hesitation. My feeling was that she’d be up the left fork, but my feeling was also that I should walk up the right fork. Paradoxes like this can lead to moments of indecision that can just about split you in half and have each half hopping along its chosen fork.
A couple hundred feet up the right fork a man drove up behind me, and I turned to flag him down. He stopped and I ask him if he knows the cemetery well. He informed me that he is the current president of the cemetery, and that he knows it pretty well. I gave him Julia’s full name, “Julia Caroline Ripley Dorr”, and he instantly said, “Ah yes, the Ripleys. She’s buried up by General Ripley’s monument.” I vaguely recalled that she was related in some way, perhaps the daughter, of a General Ripley who was involved in the Civil War.
He then told me that he’s both the right person to come to, and the wrong person to ask, because he only remembers the general area of the cemetery owned by the Ripleys. He pointed me in the direction where he felt my search would yield some fruit (back down and up the left fork to a particular area) after giving me a name and number to call on if I failed to locate her grave.
He told me that he remembered the monument which was erected for the Ripleys in memory of the General as being a big monument. But I think it would have helped me considerably if he had remembered that it as the largest and most elaborate monument in the park. I assumed the “monument” was one of the many large family head stones, great big rectangular blocks, some fairly elaborate, that cast their shadows over a series of much smaller headstones. Most such ‘overstones’ had engraved upon them just a single name, the family name, while the smaller headstones had the full names of the dead along with their arrival and departure dates. Some of the smaller blocks were larger, and had one name with its arrival and departure dates carved upon it, while next to that name would be another—with only an entry date, waiting.
During my search I noticed this secluded twenty to twenty-five foot tall limestone monument up a hill and well into the trees, only visible from certain angles as I climbed about the hillsides checking the names on overstones and larger headstones. But I only went to look at it after I spent about two and a half hours looking everywhere else in the area the man had mentioned. I never would have guessed that this large monument would be the one.
It was possibly fifteen feet by fifteen feet, in the shape of a Greek cross, maybe five feet in height along its naves. From the transept rose a pillar into a pair of angel wings holding a globe, which faced the sunrise. On the face of each nave was carved the full names of the parents of a given branch of the Ripley family, and behind these, along the sides of the naves that faced the same direction were the full names of their children, with their arrival and departure dates below. The headstones themselves were small and uniform and had only the abbreviated names embossed atop them, nothing more. Julia’s plot lay beside her husband’s plot. At their feet were buried five of their children.
One thing that struck me as strange was that Julia’s grave was the only one over which the grass was slightly browned. Over the rest of the plots the grass was more uniform in color.
For those of us who are for some reason pre-conditioned to seek out our “other half”—our “soul-mate”—such that we are lonely and miserable without her or him, there is a great and sudden freedom that comes from just letting go of the entire soul-mate paradigm, and all the festering desires and expectations that infest it. The moment you realize and accept that some magical other is not actually the answer to solving the problem of an ever crushing loneliness, you become open to finding other ways to deal with and address it.
This happened for me the night I left the Devil’s Tower National Monument on my way to Vermont as I camped off the beaten path alone in the last range of mountains before dropping down into and across the Great Plains of South Dakota. I have no idea why it happened, it just did. And so I wrote this small note.
note to soul mate
Well, from Evanston, WY, where I posted my previous entry, I went east on I80 to Rock Springs. Then I went north on Hwy 191 to SR (State Route) 28, north east to Hwy 287, north through Lander to SR 798, north east through Riverton up Hwy 26 through Shoshoni, north on Hwy 20 a few miles to Boysen State Park, where I slept the night five feet from the windy waters of Boysen Reservoir.
In the morning I woke and continued up Hwy 20 through Worland, east on Hwy 16 through Buffalo onto I90, east to Hwy 14, north to SR 24, then north a handful of miles to Wyoming’s Devil’s Tower National Monument. Here I walked around the tower, an impressive site, and played my bansuri atop a hill on each side of the tower, facing the four winds, and then at the west facing bouldered base of the tower itself.
Though the park and trail were riddled with tourists, I found myself feeling secluded through my own process. On the east of the tower I played my bansuri in the woods, just out of site of the trail. I tried to play the wind, the trees, the environment. A new song came to me and I’ve been playing with it. I looked up to discover two teenage girls standing six feet from me. They had gone searching through the woods for the source of the music they heard. Faces bright and full of song, they shyly complimented my playing. They seemed to want to stay and talk to me, to find out what sort of creature walks into the woods with a bamboo flute to play for the spirits, but they couldn’t help looking over their shoulders after the sound of their names. And, after some hesitant smiling and wringing of hands, they returned to the trail.
The area was full of lava boulders that had eroded from the tower through the ages. I bounded along them like a mountain goat until I found each of the five spots that seemed right to me, then played for twenty or so minutes. South of the tower I played on a ridge top, standing on a boulder beneath a pine. In the distance a thunderstorm passed an occasional lightning bolt to the earth in complete silence. About when I was ready to leave, I looked up to notice an undecorated leather medicine bag hung from the tree I was under, just over my head. Upon seeing it I felt a tingle run through my body, head to foot. This felt significant.
With an hour of sunlight to spare I left the park and continued north on SR 24 past Hulett where it turned east, looking for a road into the national park there where I could pitch my tent for the night. I found a spot, beautiful, green, peaceful, bustling with insect and animal life. I knew that I’d find nothing of the sort the next day as I went east across South Dakota, so I relished this lush haven.
Before the sun broke free of the ridge top I had my tent collapsed and everything ready to go, and I got back to SR 24 and continued east into South Dakota to Hwy 85, a couple of miles through to the north side of Belle Fourche, where I got a truck stop shower. From here I went east on Hwy 212 through Faith, to Gettysburg, where I stopped to get something to eat. The café owners informed me that Hwy 212 was closed further east, and that there was a 45 minute detour around it. I found a 20 minute detour option. At Lebanon I went north on SR 47 to SR 20, east to SR 37, south back down to Hwy 212 at Dolland. Then east to within 5 miles of Watertown where I camped at Sandy Shore State Recreation Area, a thin strip of campsites hardly off the road.
This morning I woke just as the sun peaked over the flat horizon, large and orange, and packed up to continue my venture, east on Hwy 212 into Minnesota to Montevideo, east on SR 7 over to SR 23, and north to Paynesville, where I found a coffee house to type and post this.
I have an idea where I’ll be going tonight before I camp again, but I’d rather not say. I never know until I go. The road unfolds as I drive, and I choose my way moment by moment. Detailed plans are for people who have no faith in adventure.
One of the poets to reach me as a teen is buried near Rutland, Vermont. Not sure why I have this itch to visit her place of rest, and to walk by the home where she once lived. It’s been nagging at me for a few years now. On Wednesday I begin my long drive to the other coast, where I will pay my respects.
I think I’ll sing a couple of her poems by her plot.
A Strange Anticipation
How is it I feel the slight wind even now,
almost breathing on my thoughts, and
the gentle green resistance of grass
beneath my tennis shoes?
How is it I sense a partial shade
across the hairs of my neck,
cast by the whispering arms of a fir
planted long before my time?
How is it I see through surrounding trees
small white clouds, folding in silent
contrast across clear blue depths, and there
your weather beaten stone?
Though I have yet to pay my respects, I feel
an approaching familiarity.
I don’t know what compels me to drive so far,
just to stand by your grave.
Maybe I hope to find a touch of your presence,
still lingering behind.
Or perhaps some small piece of inspiration,
left twinkling in the grass.
There’s something remarkably freeing about the complete and utter abolition of idealized romance. Disillusionment is only bitter when, for some reason, it is still believed that the original ideal could have or should have been realized. When it’s understood down to the last fiber that it couldn’t have and very likely shouldn’t have been realized, then disillusionment gives rise to a stillness of spirit, peace of heart, and ease of mind.
dishrag
I recently backpacked the Lost Coast Trail in the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park. It was a peaceful, invigorating enterprise that spanned four days and led to new insights about myself and abilities. Upon returning I found myself tapping out some reflections and revising them into this poem.
On the Lost Coast Trail
I’ll walk now, on my own.
My legs are strong,
my back sturdy.
I’ll heave this pack and learn.
The trail ahead is long
but I understand now.
Each day out I’ll greet the dawn,
cook my meal in stainless steal
and drink strong black tea.
The past is over.
Nostalgia is but a hollow wind,
and I a new-grown wood.
My soul was never in your arms,
but in the high up leaves
of swaying alders,
and in a stone moved loose
as I strode to rustle,
roll, and bound from sight.
And again in the call of an eagle,
soaring below as I hiked
into the haze of its canyon.
At night the stars will sing,
and I’ll listen. In time
no thought will come of you.
I feel now my heart purling
down ferny creek beds
to join the widest freedom,
and sifting through branches,
up storied hillsides,
each rooted thing alive.
I’ll never pass your way again,
for I have unlocked my cage,
and the trail unfolds before me.
Up until now It’s always taken someone else to motivate me into going backpacking. This isn’t because this isn’t what I wanted to do. I’m not really sure why this is. Maybe a lack of confidence in my abilities, that I could go out into the wilderness on my own lugging around a heavy pack and actually enjoy myself.
And enjoy myself I did. In fact, I went a lot further and with greater ease than I would have guessed possible for me. It looks like my several walks a week over the past year of no less than 2.5 to 3 miles has changed my biology some. It used to be very difficult for me to hike even two or three level, or soft grade, miles with a pack, but now I find I can hike six rugged up and down miles, pressing through underbrush and crawling under and over fallen trees with relative ease. I’ve changed in the past few years, and until now I couldn’t have grasped how much.
On my first night I stayed at Little Jackass Creek, about six miles in using a fire-road shortcut I know about. Turns out this is a hot spot for week-enders all around. When I got there, there was only one official campsite left (flat with enough cleared ground to safely operate a camp stove without setting everything ablaze). And a few more sets of people showed up after I did. The second night I spent at Wheeler Camp, four plus miles north of Little Jackass. There is a great lookout between Wheeler Camp and Little Jackass from the top of a flying buttress cliff face called Anderson Point that would terrify an acrophobe senseless. From here you can see for miles both up and down the coast, and of course several hundred feet just about straight down to tidal rock reefs below. The third night, about six miles south of Wheeler Camp, I spent at Anderson Creek, which was satisfying because I was the only person in the area that night. And the next morning I hiked the long way back about six miles to Usal Beach.
And so begins a newness of life that I hope will thrive vibrantly even in the face of certain death.
A friend asked me to write her sister a birthday poem. So after getting some information from her about details pertinent to the birthday person in question, this is what manifested.
Front
for Rachel
In the distance clouds amass
thunder rolls faintly through the air
In the fields an apple tree lifts
jeweled leaves anticipating dew
In the afternoon sun a rosebush lifts
buds to greet the coming storm
All around a whisper rises up
as oaks and pines chant the nearing rain
Some women don’t see men as people, but as crops to be harvested or weeds to be destroyed. They don’t see them as companions, partners or even equals, but as assets to be used and ultimately discarded. These are emotionally dangerous creatures who manipulate and undermine honest, loving men who would have done right by them if they didn’t turn out to be callous, backstabbing hos.
cash-crop
Millions of years of biological evolution drives us; the mind rationalizes and justifies this compulsory insanity. Lucky is the soul who somehow finds he or she is at peace without the need of an idealized intimacy.
mirage
