writing since when...

hear then

their language not mine

 

now

night

first

snow

 

 

zuihitsu

Frayed twigs and sharpened sticks, used as brushes, awaken narratives. Using these tools, I like sketching dawn to dusk, mimicking traditions of burnt chert, flaked tools, and history inside the earth. I find fossils in the stones surrounding buildings - the footprint of a bird, a fish, a coral shell as tightly furrowed as spring bud.

 

A knawed willow sometimes smells of wintergreen. Trees perceive us, alter their behavior.

I have seen you, tree, looking at me. Someone's dressed your wound with paint and sand.

 

Warned, I avoid brownfields and clearcut, parks at night, and open, lonely spaces.

 

I don’t own a gun, but can shoot one. My brother-in-law's elk hide on the wash line, hung next to a pink bath mat. I think, uncle, said my niece, you shot that mat too?

 

You must ask questions. 

 

Could I kill for meat? I eat fish instead.

 

In this dream, a cave contains cedar planks and charcoal ink.  Sooty roof rock falls over time, becomes more floor.  

 

I climbed canyon walls into a cliff dwelling, was surprised to find a Korean family. We ate oranges together.

 

What is brought in is taken out. Blue-green shadows. White firs smelling of citrus. 

 

In Goyang is a cave containing 153 souls. My student in Guro was a mudang. She spoke to the dead. Brush your hair 100 times to make it shine, mother said. Avoid ghosts. I consent, absorb her social distancing.

 

 

Pray for mountains and seasons. I don't eat meat. The aroma of chicken wings, of charcoal and fat, seeps from the corner tavern.

 

 

Truth and Reconciliation.

 

 

Corona vitae is a toxic terror. The number of masks we have discarded kills. Will we always carry carnivore hearts? My mother forgave the disease that ate her. 

 

 

Whale fall. 

 

Quiets rooms, this quiet mind, which has become so important, so valuable. 

 

 

   

 

  

 

for kevin

 At this time every year I miss you. Our life together seems a dream. Today I light incense, pray,

"Stay a little longer near the surface of my heart."

 

Neronian

Mousterian

axes out

but then again 

a tiny bird point

kills a deer

we're wondering

what is it we've made clear?

and then

a wren.

common

We have names

many

who knew

 us

 names too

an old pine, christmas

                                                                                

Dawn. Set wings among your branches, bracken at your feet.

 

Draw needles through nests, root deeper, shadow breasts. 

 Fields have spread. 

Duff muffed, shed winds, remain refuge, a manger.

 

The moon rises midday. Darkness swells at half past four.

More snow.  Warm hearts slowed sleep deeply. 

 

 Midnight leans in,

shims winter boughs, makes space for a slate-coloured child, 

not a god,

and stars.

 

 

 

praying

digits conjoined

pulled apart

old cold's

right -

winter's in

the heart

wrong obrigada arigato

about obrigada

(obligātus, obligō)

obligare

 

arigatai

arigatogozaimasu

 

 

Sonhe 夢 (yume)

 

夢

 

It is 1543. I see a storm begins.

Tanegashima, Kagoshima, Kyushu.

デウス (Deusu)

Births will follow wombs

oceans

wounds.

Lúcio De Sousa, The Portuguese Slave Trade in Early Modern Japan: Merchants, Jesuits and Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Slaves, Leiden: Brill, 2019, 594 pp. ISBN 9789004388079. $217.00.

Whereas partus sequitur ventrem ("the birth follows the womb") laws and their effects on the lives of enslaved women and their children are well understood in the Atlantic context, they remain entirely unstudied in the case of the slave trade in Asia, in particular Portuguese Asia, the string of entrepôts between India and Japan.  McManus, Stuart 

Slavery in Medieval Japan Thomas Nelson Monumenta NipponicaVol. 59, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), pp. 463-492 (30 pages) Published by: Sophia University

 

https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12499

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/751144

conto de peixe fish tale

roupa velha, farrapo velho.
caras de bacalau
‘punheta’

explicar

Mas nossos ouvidos estão frios.

explicar

Marinheiros
punheta à la bacalhau

elogiar peixes

 

old clothes, old rag.
bacalau guys
‘Wank’ off

explain 

But our ears are cold.

explain

Seamen
jerk off to cod

to praise fish

 Far from home

why not go farther?

3

 1

knawed 

black willow

smells of mint

2

sky blue

branches

black

that

red sumac

3

noise

tapping

teeth

journey

 

 

your old burled hands

buried in cursive, 

looking for work.

 

Do something with yourself.

 

blue books

 

 also consider the 5 Blue Zones of health and happiness

 

BLUE BOOK

A blue book or bluebook is an almanac, buyer's guide or other compilation of statistics and information. The term dates back to the 15th century, when large blue velvet-covered books were used for record-keeping by the Parliament of England. The Oxford English Dictionary first records such a usage in 1633.

 USA

belloq's storyville 1898-1917

https://64parishes.org/entry/new-orleans-blue-books

 

blue book tests 1920's Indiana

A blue book is literally a book with about 20 lined pages that college, graduate, and sometimes high school students use to answer test questions. More specifically, a blue book refers to the type of exams that require students to use these books to complete the test.

In practice, this means that you should be able to write a good solid paragraph (say, 200-250 words) which should fill one page in your Blue Book.

Kelley's New and Used Car Blue Book

 

The Blue Book

Debbie Strayer and Susan Simpson     Common Sense Press      20 March 2018

The Learning Language Arts Through Literature series begins with The Blue Book. This complete beginning phonics and language arts program artfully integrates phonics instruction with all of the other areas of language arts that need to be covered at first grade level: reading skills, spelling, handwriting, and grammar. The course also teaches more higher-order thinking skills than do many other first grade programs.

Based on Dr. Ruth Beechick's ideas about learning, the course does not assume that children learned to read in kindergarten. However, children should be able to identify letters, and it would be very helpful if they know some or most of the primary sounds of the letters. Early in the course, the first group of letters—a, n, r, and t—is introduced. In this same lesson, students learn about consonants and vowels as well as blending letters to form words. This progression will likely be too fast for children who do not already know letters and sounds.

INDIA

“Your face is blue, madam. Like that of Krishna,” the taxi driver said affably, as he took me back to my hotel.

In Hinduism there are three main deities: Brahma the creator, Shiva the destroyer and Vishnu the preserver. Vishnu spends eternity sleeping, until when called upon in a crisis, he wakes and like the most powerful of superheroes saves the world. 

One name for him is Nilakantha, the blue-necked one, because of a story that he drank a pot of poison to save creation. So blue is a reminder that evil exists but can be contained, through courage and right actions. 

Krishna is a manifestation of Vishnu. His name means “dark,” and like Vishnu he is portrayed with blue skin. 

In addition to being associated with the gods, blue—through the indigo dye—is also historically linked with India. In the first century a. d. the Roman historian Pliny the Elder wrote about “indicum, a production of India,” which “yields a marvelous combination of purple and cerulean [sky blue].”

He suggested that the dye was a kind of slime sticking to the scum on river reeds. It actually comes from a bush with small green leaves that when dried and fermented in a dye vat look pretty scummy, which explains the misunderstanding. 

In Pliny’s time, indigo would probably be shipped to the Roman port of Ostia in the form of hard cakes. It was valuable enough to fake: Pliny reports people selling “indigo cakes” made from dried pigeon dung, stained with just enough genuine dye to pass as real.

Indigo is intensive to process, and has historically been cultivated where labor is cheap. It had a brief heyday on slave plantations in the Caribbean and South Carolina in the 18th century, pricing the Indian plantations out of the market. But when slavery was abolished, the British planted indigo again in Bengal, where weather conditions are ideal. 

Because laborers were subject to abuse, there were two “blue mutinies”—one in 1860 and another in 1917. The second was initiated by the 47-year-old Hindu lawyer Mohandas (later known as Mahatma) Gandhi, as one of his first acts of peaceful civil disobedience against British rule, which finally led to Indian independence in 1947.

AFRICA

 Indigo in Africa

“Indigo grows wild in almost every part of the African Coast … Besides the Indigo, there is another plant which the natives use as a blue dye, which appears to impart a more indelible color, and which, should it stand the test of experiment, might also be cultivated.”

–British Report of the Committee of the African Institution: West African Produce, 25 March 1808
Africans have used indigo for centuries as symbol of wealth and fertility. Indigo-dyed cotton cloth excavated from caves in Mali date to the 11th century and many of the designs are still used by modern West Africans. The Tauregs, “blue men” of the Sahara, are famous for their indigo robes, turbans, and veils that rub blue pigment into their skin. Yoruba dyers of Nigeria produce indigo cloth called adire alesso using both tie-and-dye and resist dye techniques, while honoring Iya Mapo, as the patron god of their exacting craft. Dyers of the Kanuri (Cameroon and Nigeria) and Fulani (modern Niger and Burkina-Faso) ethnic groups popularized indigo near Lake Chad and through portions of West Africa.

Most African dyers are women including among the Yoruba, the Malike and Dogan of Mali, and the Soninke of Senegal. Dyeing is also performed by men among the Mossi (Burkina-Faso) and the Hausa, who have produced indigo-dyed textiles in the ancient city of Kano (Northern Nigeria) since the 15th century.

 

 

houses

 

Corbin Boyd  Brickmason born a slave freedman specialised in chimneys N.C. 1817 -1917

 https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000151

 

 

 

dream equations

garden room

 dokudami 

朝顔     asagao

つばき   tsubaki

タンポポ  tanpopo

あじさい  ajisai

ローズ

菊 kiku

桜の花 sakura no hana

Rocky Mountain Parnassia (K.D. Koenig)

Himalayan Clematis

Clematis Montana

ranunculae

5 petaled large white Buttercup

Lespedeza Japanese clover

unknown - four petaled, white fingered

Mochringia laterflora

Blackthorn or sloe

Prunus spinose   seiyosumono 

Lantana

Iris

Asclepias verticillata  Whorled Milkweed 

Galinsoga

Greater beggar's tick

prostrate camomile

tridax procumbens (L.) L compositae Coatbuttons

bidens alba/ pilosa L. Shepherd's needle, common beggar's tick

Bidens bipinnata L. compositae  Spanish needles

Perityle emoryi Tom. compositae Emory's rock daisy

Asteracae

White Marsh Marigold 

 

 

entopic phenomena - my year of repair

Entoptic phenomena are visual effects whose source is within the eye itself. In Helmholtz's words: "Under suitable conditions light falling on the eye may render visible certain objects within the eye itself. These perceptions are called entoptical."

 

this my year of repair

where I indoctrinated

break open

see 

that a tree 

is not a tree

but a psychic space

of greed and grief

power and sorrow

history's witnesses

Love them.

n o t e s

 tanka

31 syllables

a single unbroken line

_______________________

wheezing 

inhaler 

albuterol 

write these 3 in cuneiform clay

bake and break

_________________________

 Why did I, Richard Mayhew, 

think so much of you that I wrote your name without a nudge

of a note to remember you by?

Oh yes

these trees

these places of 

these spaces of

https://hyperallergic.com/588448/richard-mayhew-transcendence/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlYbStrFOuc 

 

write Richard Mayhew in seeds

water and grow

know he's 96 years

on this earth

a Sequoyah

____________________________________________

 

 

 grace not competition

 consider candling the egg

my biofog

walking the river

On either side,

punctured

shores

urge colder, colder.

Warmer water

refuses,

slipping

under the quick quake

submergence

of 

crusts,

shouts

past

frozen

ledges,

unbroken.

Black and bottle green

boil pale,

resist

linear impulses,

stagger through 

swag wash or

shrub carr.

Converging

channels

reach forward, 

hover shelf ice,

disappear.

Below

thick 

river 

snow

a roar,

unquieted,

defiant.

 

 

 

 walk

Issa said

Ikkyu did

one tanka

two

or you

zuihitsu

 

Great Black Swamp

 

Great Black Swamp near Bowling Green, Ohio

Great Dismal Swamp

 

Rebecca Wynn/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Moscow Nights

 Речка движется и не движется
Вся из лунного серебра
Песня слышится и не слышится
В эти тихие вечера

Rechka dvizhetsya i ne dvizhetsya
Vsya iz lunnogo serebra
Pesnya slyshitsya i ne slyshitsya
V eti tikhiye vechera

The river moves and does not move
All of moon silver
The song is heard and not heard
On these quiet evenings

- from Moscow Nights  

composer Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi and poet Mikhail Matusovsky 

wrote the song in 1955 with the title "Leningradskie Vechera" 

first snow

9 am

 

Undercover Kitty - Neko no Minūsu (pun)

 

ダメ　「ダめ」  name  - an imperative - not allowed

えさ  esa - animal +

やん  suffix "yan" - familiar animal

ネコの  neko no - my cat

 

 

 ネコのミヌース (映画)

 

   

      Neko no Minūsu

 

Neko no Minūsu - Undercover Kitty (film)​ 

Undercover Kitty is a 2001 Dutch film, 

based on the children's novel Minoes by Annie M.G. Schmidt.

https://jisho.org/word/518696c9d5dda7b2c604590f

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I think how relieved the world must be that we live such short lives.

metal god

 

Amenomahitotsu no Kami (天目一箇神)

Amenomahitotsu no Kami is a Shinto god of iron manufacture and blacksmiths who appears in Japanese mythology. He appears in the "Kogoshui" (History of the Inbe Clan), the "Nihonshoki" (Chronicles of Japan), and the "Harimanokuni Fudoki" (Records of the Culture and Geography of Harima Province). He is also known as Amenomahitotsune no Mikoto and Amenokushimahitotsu no Mikoto. He has something to do with Daidara-bocchi (a giant in Japanese mythology).

Summary

According to the "Kogoshui," Amenomahitotsu no Kami is a child of Amatsuhikone no Mikoto. He made swords, axes, and bronze bells during the 'iwato-gakure,' when Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess, hid herself in a cave after a fight with her brother. He worked as a blacksmith to make the necessary items when the god Omononushi was enshrined. The document also says that during the reign of Emperor Sujin, a descendant of Amenomahitotsu no Kami and a descendant of Ishikoridome (the ancestral goddess of mirror makers) recast the sacred mirror. In the "Nihonshoki," the second issho (addendum) in the section on the pacification of Ashihara no Nakatsukuni (the Central Land of Reed Plains) says that Takamimusubi (one of the three creator gods of Japanese mythology) designated Amenomahitotsu no Kami as the blacksmith when they enshrined the gods of Izumo. In the "Kogoshui," he is described as the ancestor of the Inbe Clans in Tsukushi Province and Ise Province, and it also mentions some relationship to Futodama (another ancestral deity of the Inbe Clan).

He is a god of blacksmithing and is thought to be the same god as Amatsumara, who is described as a smith in the iwato-gakure section of the "Kojiki" (the Records of Ancient Matters). The 'mahitotsu' part of his name means 'one eye,' and it is said this was derived from the fact that blacksmiths closed one eye to judge the temperature of iron from its color, or another story that blacksmiths had an industrial disease which made one eye blind. The same thing can be said about Amatsumara because the 'mara' in 'Amatsumara' is derived from the word 'meura,' which also means 'one eye'.

Amenomahitotsu no Kami appears under the name of Amenomahitotsu no Mikoto in the section on the Takanokori region in the "Harimanokuni Fudoki" (the topography of Harima Province). The story has it that Michinushihime no Mikoto, the local guardian goddess, gave birth to a child whose father was unknown, but when she let the child choose which god out of the many he would pour ukeizake (sake which is offered to a deity to ask his or her will) for and the child chose Amenomahitotsu no Mikoto, she realized that Amenomahitotsu no Mikoto was the father. It is believed that this myth represents a close relationship between agricultural people and metalworkers. Amenomahitotsu no Kami is enshrined at Amenomahitotsu-jinja Shrine (Ogi-cho, Nishiwaki City, Hyogo Prefecture (formerly Ogi, Hino Village, Taka District), the current shrine building is a reconstruction), where he was worshipped as a god of iron manufacturing.

Ichimokuren

Although Ichimokuren, also known as Hitotsume no Muraji, is thought to be the same as the Amenomahitotsu no Kami enshrined at Ichimokuren-jinja Shrine, which is an annex shrine of Tado Taisha Shrine (Tado-cho, Kuwana City, Mie Prefecture), this deity was originally a dragon which had lost one eye and this led people to eventually identify him with Amenomahitotsu no Kami.

Ichimokuren is regarded as a god who controls the weather and, in the Edo period, people frequently prayed to him for rain and for protection against shipwrecks in Ise Bay. Kunio YANAGIDA concludes that this belief originated in sailors at sea on Ise Bay using the appearance of Mt. Tado to predict changes in the weather. Mt. Tado, which is at the southern tip of the Yoro Mountains, must have been a good mountain for predicting the weather because, of the mountains to the north of Ise Bay, it is the closest to the bay and changes in the weather, such as fog on the mountain, can easily be seen.

The section on 'umi no okase' (whirlwind) in the "Wakan Sansai Zue" (an encyclopedia compiled in the Edo period) says 'Well, unexpected windstorms sometimes occur in Sei-shu (Ise Province), Bi-shu (Owari Province), No-shu (Mino Province), and Tan-shu (Hida Province), and such storms are generally called Ichimokuren and considered as a divine wind. Once this wind blows, it destroys everything: it pulls out trees, makes big rocks fall, and breaks houses. However, this occurs just along a narrow corridor and it does not damage any other places. A shrine for Ichimokuren is located on Mt. Tado, in Kuwana District, Sei-shu.'
According to a legend from Ise, Owari, Mino, and Hida Provinces, a windstorm occurred when Ichimokuren left the shrine and ran wild, and it is believed that the description in the encyclopedia was derived from this folklore. The main building of Ichimokuren-jinja Shrine does not have a door, and it is said this is to enable Ichimokuren to go in and out of the shrine anytime he wants in order to show his divine power. 

https://japanese-wiki-corpus.github.io/Shinto/Amenomahitotsu%20no%20Kami.html

 

relic

 This is a WWll rosary ring ring made from an artillery shell case. I find it a very disturbing object.

the hen

 

Called you.

Talked about your friend,  a hen.

Three years old, this friend!

You worried when

you saw her stumble 

and the pet peacock, close,

began pecking at her eyes

(surprised at such cruelty).

You rescued her, unharmed,

made a hay bed in the barn,

where she lay all night.

She died.

You cried.

After our talk,

you'll bury her.

 

What kind of alliances do I wish for, build?

Do I transact or transform? 

 

Remember to keep 

compassion

at the center

of....

small acts

 1

Along the river,

wrote "vote"

(cursive)

with a finger in the sky.

2

I've learned 

that weeks of

hoaxes coax

the worst from us.

Told jokes because

extremism lacks them.

3

Somewhere someone's

burning books -

I salvage one in my mind,

a  justice manual ,

look up "resistance".

Ramana Maharshi

 

EIGHT POINTS

 

1. Turn the mind inward and rest in your own Self.

2. Mind is the cause of bondage.

3. Give up one thing after another and rest in peace.

4. What we get, we shall lose, so desire not.

5. There are two kinds of meditation. The first is to be practised by advanced aspirants — nirguna dhyana — where one seeks to know the Meditator himself. The second kind is to be practised by those less advanced — a some what round about course — saguna dhyana — where the meditator, meditation and the object of meditation get merged ultimately into one.

6. When I come to know that I was never born, I shall never die. Death is for one who is born. I was never born. I have no body and so I shall never die. I am everywhere; where am I to go and where am I to come?

7. When a man’s mind is dead, he will not die again.

8. Attain the sushupti (state of sleep) in the jagrat (waking) state, and you become a jnani.

 

Recorded in June 1918 By C.V. Subramania Aiyer

 

"Everybody knew that Sri Ramana was very careful with everything, particularly with food, and never wasted anything. This was, of course, especially noticeable in the kitchen. When once some mustard seeds fell on the floor, the cooks took no notice, but Ramana picked them up one by one with his fingernails and placed them in a small bowl.

Raja Iyer reports that Ramana had shown him how to use the ladle in such a way as to avoid a single morsel of food falling on the floor, how to pour without spilling anything and how to make a fire with only a few drops of kerosene.

For each vegetable Ramana knew a special kind of preparation.

Nothing was thrown away. If he cut spinach, he separated the leaves, the stalks and the roots. With the leaves he made the curry,

the stalks were bound together, cooked and put into the sambar and the roots were washed carefully, squeezed and their juice put into the rasam. Any orange peel or apple peel was put into the chutney. The leftovers from the previous day were warmed up and served at the following breakfast, along with the iddlies. If there was any soup or vegetables left, they were put into the sambar. This was against the caste rules of the Brahmins, according to which leftovers may not be used the following day. But Ramana insisted that the avoidance of waste was more important than anything else. To give the leftovers to beggars was also not practicable, as they had to have the same as everyone else and not be given poor quality food.

One evening Ramana had cut spinach and brinjal (aubergines) and laid aside the pieces which he could not use so as to make use of them the following day. The next morning, when he came into the kitchen as usual and asked for the pieces he had put aside, he was told that they had already been thrown away. He therefore went outside, found them, cleaned them, cut them into smaller pieces and used them.

Sampurnamma recounted another story along the same lines,

“Once a feast was being prepared for his birthday. Devotees sent food in large quantities: some sent rice, some sugar, some fruits.

Someone sent a huge load of brinjals and we ate brinjals day after day. The stalks alone made a big heap which was lying in a corner.

Bhagavan asked us to cook them as a curry! I was stunned, for even cattle would refuse to eat such useless stalks. Bhagavan insisted that the stalks were edible, and we put them in a pot to boil along with dry peas. After six hours of boiling they were as hard as ever. We were at a loss what to do, yet we did not dare to disturb Bhagavan. But he always knew when he was needed in the kitchen and he would leave the Hall even in the middle of a discussion. A casual visitor would think that his mind was all on cooking. …

‘How is the curry getting on?’ he asked.

‘Is it a curry we are cooking? We are boiling steel nails!’ I exclaimed, laughing.

He stirred the stalks with the ladle and went away without saying anything.

Soon after we found them quite tender. The dish was simply delicious and everybody was asking for a second helping. Bhagavan challenged the diners to guess what vegetable they were eating.

Everybody praised the curry and the cook, except Bhagavan. He swallowed the little he was served in one mouth-full like a medicine and refused a second helping. I was very disappointed, for I had taken so much trouble to cook his stalks and he would not even taste them properly.

The next day he was telling somebody, ‘Sampurnam was distressed that I did not eat her wonderful curry. Can she not see that every-one who eats is myself? And what does it matter who eats the food?

It is the cooking that matters, not the cook or the eater. A thing done well, with love and devotion, is its own reward. What happens to it later matters little, for it is out of our hands.”

 

- Ramana Maharshi: His Life

 

things

1

not alone

stone in water

tree in sea

 

 2

bird (s)

verb

noun

sound  

of river

lessons

Bull and cow elk make a whistle (descending) and a whistle roar (clear your throat)

Kaixo (kigh show) is hello in Euskara

Tony's grandmother was mugged

Paul gives excellent advice

Tim has more work

Travis the poodle visits even if I don't give him eggs

My sister Maureen gives 150% of herself to her family

I couldn't call Gyongyi but we'll talk next week

The squirrels are very fat now

I think I saw a beaver marks on a felled tree along the river greenway

 

 

What bird represents hope to you? To me, it is the slate-colored junco. I found a nearly mature fledgling hopping about on the greenway path along the river. I thought it hurt, but discovered juncos build their nests on the ground. I caused the poor thing such a fright it sighed and went limp. I thought I had killed it! Yet its heart said no. I put it near the ground, off the path, in a safer place. Came later to find it gone! Trickster! You gave me grief and joy, taught me to not underestimate the wit and wiles of small things.!

 

Time to focus on the last green things of the season, and small, dark birds. Words and images. Hope.

 

Let's say the weekend proper starts on Thursday during the pandemic.  I am going to do a bit of magical thinking on this, and declare it so. Three sabbaths and an eve. How Abrahamic of me!

Amabie アマビエ

 

 アマビエ

Give illness a face,

frightening and funny,

a strong-smelling

charm of the

sea.

 

 

We wanted

a faith healer,

a gatekeeper, 

but got instead what we forgot - how to live with death.

Between

sickness and health,

island wisdom

still rises from the sea.

Amabie 

meets spirits and earth,

dives

into

hope,

lives underneath

this epidemic,

in  our dreams.

Seems she's especially 

seen in hard times.

Why not?

We always  welcome

a storyteller

who makes

fun of our

scared  faces,

our races for cures.

 Peak and trough -

sit still,

give it time.

peace cage

 

 from Louise Glück (All Hallows):

toothed moon

seeds

and the soul creeps out of the tree

quill

 main tail or wing things

hollow feathers, sharp spines or a bird-birthed pen, 

yet again an old word for pan pipes, or the weaver's spindle

fabric in cylindrical folds molded

or old porcupine spines finely hand-worked

into boxes

a beautiful and appeasing thing 

can spring

from a word 

fixed on 

flight and protection

connected

deeply

to creating

as 

some words

are

quote verse

 quote verse (poem made of heard quotes, those in italics)

 

a period of liminality

where

a committment to memory

overwhelms numbness

becomes

restorative

initiates a

reimagining of place

 

 

 

 

 When did it first arrive

this feeling

that whatever happens

won't be enough

 dreams

heavy as lead

on this

The

Day

of the 

Dead

 

 quiet 

driven 

riven 

sieved

hours

So many people sick and dying.

I am in the moderate risk group.

30X more likely to contract the virus.

I had a panic attack Monday night.

I decided not to work the polls.

27 people will. 

27!

That is in a precinct with 3,000

registered,

40% of whom have already 

voted.

 beautiful gloom

 

 ventifacts - things made by the wind

stine - human purposed

Rock - not

 sleepless night

breathing not good

should call the nurse

cancelled poll working

would like sleep

desire deep peace

instead, dread, a panic

all apace

run with this body

that hasn't forgiven this epidemic 

even if the mind believes otherwise

Thought

 The Galaxies, planets, continents adrift, sailing

 in my sweater pocket

a brown mamorated stink bug

american prayer

Save us from temptation.

Deliver us from evil

and

bad teeth.

dreams

 Saw numbers as symbol manipulators

orchestrate the departure of indifference.

Saw flowers, news, phone calls, books.

Saints are resting

under the elms and next to yard signs.

Is this what

indeterminacy looks like?

Afterward,

pelagic thoughts.

Ought to write them down, but don't.

Mind overwhelmed by

"wash hands"

and

"vote".

 

 1

Roots

have been

killed -

fill,

patch,

caulk.

After,

walk

in

water,

wearing

new

shoes.

 

2

 

She

(sometimes)

bridges

interstices.

 

3

Copper

culture

altered

water.

 

4

Nemotodes?

Neem and toads?

Nemophila?

Nem szabad!

All the while,

a

dog begs.

 

5

K2

you

lie

underneath

two

mountains

a dry valley

and Huron's 

ice age

ledges.

 

6

wrote

"vote"

got a manual

labored

through it

wrote

note

"return

library books"

had coffee with...

then worked on...

Debated with myself -

" What will you do if ...."

 

 

 " To go  in search of what once was is to postpone the difficulty of living with what is."

Lopez, Horizon, p.400

 

A rosary 

of wallabies - in Walpiri a rufous hare-wallaby (Lagorchestes hirsutus) is a mala.

Lopez, Horizon, 403 

 

Malas and songlines

"...in interviews with Western field biologists  over the years, I've found that the issue of local extinction is, for many of them, not entirely clear. There are to many cases of animals being declared locally extinct only to have them turn up again. "singing" an animal back into existence is a metaphorical expression for some as-yet-umplumbed biological process of restoration, quaint only in the minds of those who believe they already know, or can discover, precisely how the world is hinged."

Lopez, Horizon, p.406

 

 

 

The need for greed contrition (Horizon)

 "The modern urge to turn a landscape into "what it once was", to make it "better" by eliminating "pests", to rid it of plants and animals that, because they didn't co-evolve with the environment, have a special capacity to devastate it, is a complex desire to appease - biologically, ethically, and practically. It is impossible, biologically, truly to "restore" any landscape. The reintroduction of plants and animals to a place suggests that though human engineering of one sort or another has "destroyed" a place, human engineering can bring it back, a bold but wrongheaded notion: humans aren't able to reverse the direction of evolution, to darn a landscape back together like a sweater that has unraveled. Restoration privileges some animals and plants over others, and therefore presents ethical problems identical to those one faces in examining any project of social engineering or any country's policies of  racial and ethnic discrimination. Finally, it is not possible to restore the soil chemistry of lands turned nearly lifeless by decades of irrigation, chemical fertilizers, and overgrazing.

Lopez, Horizon, pp396-397

"In every corner of the world there was such resplendent life, unexpected, integrated, anonymous."

Barry Lopez, Horizon, p.263 

 

Remember Lopez' habit of using a navigational map to chart notes, memories of site

experiences.

 

Perspective: 

Light as solar, otherworldly, light as underwater, submerged, limninal.  

 indeterminancy

 Bob said

doing your work during this time

is a kind of protest.

Bells

knell deep

in the cool air

where

a plane

and a sparrow

narrow

space

that

soon

isn't enough

for the wind

or a car.

_______

Hear

a river

widen,

course

west.

Locks open. 

Voices,

doors

shudder.

____________

A

thrush

shows 

how,

with just a flicker,

she quickens

time,

opens

it

again.

 w i d e     a t t e n t i o n

return to

the old ways of sleeping

the old ways of dreaming

My country under construction.

Early sounds of hammering, hollow as a bell, or striking thick like a log.

The sounds accompany troubled dreams.

I wonder as I wake up,

what we've become.

The hammering, as in bells, fists, clubs, clasping

hands.

The hammering bands round

the heart, round as beads, rosary recitations.

Empathic or fanatic?

We control the breath, the praying sounds.

And then, slowly, the hands, arms, our bodies smacking

to the ground around us.

The knees. The pleas.

My chest constricts.

The hammering, as in the voices of interruption,

the threats, the scenes of confusion, the violent memes.

What lies are within us? 

What lies are before us?

 

 

 

 

 

t

 the sun

one day"s spent

in bed

then

again

looking

 w  i  d  e 

 

attention

more

 

 

doors

open

 Eternal inflation predicts that time will end
Raphael Bousso a;b;c, Ben Freivogeld, Stefan Leichenauera; b and Vladimir
Rosenhaus a;b 

a Center for Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7300, U.S.A.
b Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720-8162, U.S.A.
c Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwa-no-Ha, Kashiwa City, Chiba 277-8568, Japan
d Center for Theoretical Physics and Laboratory for Nuclear Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.
 

Abstract:

 

Present treatments of eternal inflation regulate infinities 

by imposing a geometric cutoff. 

We point out that some matter systems 

reach the cutoff in finite time.

 

This implies 

a nonzero probability 

for a novel type of catastrophe.

 

According to the most successful measure proposals, 

our galaxy 

is likely to encounter the cutoff

within the next 5 billion years.

 

 

 sick

spent a day in bed

tightness spread

across chest

 

I get tested Friday morning.

 notes to myself:

(pink notes):

 

Think,

execute,

respond,

review.

 

You, the fruit

the airborne

Prunus spinosa

 

a winged thing

without wings

believe in

regeneration.

 

It starts like this -

you,

a fish

out of water

alter

your

fins,

begin

to grow 

legs,

to walk,

or take root,

and so

become

the  loaves

and fields

that feed 

what you need.

 

I too am

on fire 

in California.

Best to remember

as I do, 

that we all fall

through time,

and change -

you, me, 

sea fish, tree.

 

Nothing lasts,

not even ash.

Think link.

It's 

this I see

that's

eternity.

 

 

__________________

It's now or never,

sever links

from....

(finish this sentence)

 

__________________

 

(blue notes)

 

a celestial

terrestrial -

thrush

warbler

creeper

 

(blew)

 

Blown

off course!

I've always known

you'd hurt them,

me, again.

See?

I've given 

too much time

to your (wind) 風 Kaze.

_________________________

(wind) άνεμος  ánemos

Who stole your brave heart?

Aren't you longing

for your pain to end?

Hah.

You'll be the last to know,

though you've

been

again and again

mindworked,

psyche culled.

It's

still all 

inside

as it ever is,

always was.

I stay afloat

by pushing my boat

into deeper seas,

when

terror

returns,

churns sand,

reveals

old stones.

Flaked chert 

hurts,

but somehow not as much 

in open water.

___________________________

Me too.

I'm through with weaponized empathy.

 ___________________________

 

The snow collector,

whorled milkweed,

requires clay

to flourish,

flowers summerlong.

 

Asclepias verticillata -

does no harm,

whispers to snakes,

makes me

monarch strong.

Milkweed,

are you ready

for our long voyage 

to the end?

_______________________________