In Memory of Our Friend Joy Craddick

She is a bead of rainwater at the top of the ridge pendulous on the new branch of green sprouting maple

She is the cloud rising or falling who can tell there in the canyon making love to the creek as it rushes through dancing over under and against the granite boulders still lodged happily where flood left them

She is the sentinel crow mounted atop live oak as we descend into the switchback

She is the lilac burgeoning in faint purple clusters in the wet fragile bushes of the town

She is the smoke on the cheek of the woman on her porch coffee in hand phone pressed to her ear

She is the broad dark span of wings outstretched as the great blue heron soars over the quiet road

She is the laughter of the a small girl in the corner of an eye in the curve of a bridge in a sudden step of the curb in the sleight of hand of the clown on the plaza

She is the release of an audience into the afternoon their applause clinging and singing in their clothes the wool the modern fibers the leather feather weave and braid button and belt

She is the teeth crowded into the smile of an old woman on a bicycle bent into the hill

She is the railroad tie thickening underfoot

She is the long endless reach of the stainless steel rail how the spikes pin the incongruous together and invite the journey into the open passage through mountains where the emigrant fell to his knees by the spring and cried out in despair

She is the hand touching your arm as the breath leans into you

She is Medicine Buddha

She is Christ's smile

She is Muhammad's fierce gift

She is prayer flags unrolled and tied up into the wind on the most auspicious morning

She is the circle of women remembering their grandmother's stories as the long braid is cut and the head shaved before the surgeon's cut

She is the daughter wielding the scissors

She is the youngest one crying for the first time

She is the last cry and the birth of a sigh at midnight

She is the fire in the hearth before it is set

She is the snow in the gap in that brief wink of sunlight

She is the shovel left in the ground and the thrush gripping the handle

She is the worm working the onion peel the coffee grounds the green trimmings and castaway grains of rice soaked in shoyu

She is a hollow vibration slipping into the second chamber of the black walnut flute in the key of G or was it F sharp?

She is the voice of my father embedded in an oak tree

She is the ballerina without points liberated from the wings last seen tiptoeing like a ring-necked dove over the rooftops

She is the wheel the rim the spokes and whirring mile the spinning question

She is an opening and the memory of a door

She is the alpha wave trading places with the beta wave

She is the gift of the ocean and the emptiness of a boy's pocket

She is the key turning in the lock

She is the dust on the page a list undoing itself punctuation pretending to be invisible

She is pain trembling for its very existence a vial of truth in the hesitation that comes between breaths

She is the palm of your hand passing over the forehead clearing a second thought to make way for every first thought

She is the quiet battle in the vast plain

She is the small heart in the humming wire

She is the preoccupied mind occupied with suffering in the motel they call this life

She is a window cleaner a waitress the man snaking his hose from an air compressor to your flat tire

She is the scent of pure joy on the wrists the twist of sage and the allure of the tattooed bic lighter

She is the light that is left that was always here and never left

She is a soft footstep heard overhead a gentle greeting

She is two eyes widening with love and compassion

She is a small furry creature curled into a cushion made by the first woman

She is a slight shift in the way you stand an inclination of the head

She is the grief you take out of your purse at the end of the day

She is the relief the release the repeating syllables of prayer snapping and cracking in the cast iron stove the recognition of this life in the mirror the fingertips against the temple walls the permission the flight from the garden the illusion and the descent of painted scenery when you least expect it

She is the living treasure weeping on the edge of the stage and the fox leaping into the piano

She is the word now appearing like dregs at the bottom of your glass

Sylvia Beach Hotel—A journal entry

Sylvia Beach Hotel, Newport, Oregon, May 20th, 2011
http://www.sylviabeachhotel.com/

One of my regrets would be that I will never again have the pleasure of sneaking into a cafe, any cafe I like, sitting down and diving into my world and no one knowing what I am doing and no one bothering about me and being totally anonymous, that was fantastic.

J. K. ROWLING, BBC News, Jul. 17, 2005

The photography group left at 4:30 this morning to work at Seal Rock at sunrise. All of Hogwarts tumbling downstairs in the dark it seemed. I joined them late at breakfast—passed on the cooked and went for raw fruit—Panini Café Americano in hand—and told them I was wakeful anyway. Jane Austen's room occupant told me I could expect a comfy bed when I switched rooms later.

Gryffindor's four-poster seemed all right but my back was tweaking. Today will stretch and walk much more. Outside street lights bright all night. First night in six I didn't take a sleeping pill. Might have to reconsider that. I was extremely groggy waking up. Mind you, half a bottle of King Estate pinot noir followed much later by the obligatory shot of single malt (Redbreast) in Nana's Irish pub probably  wasn't doing me any favors. Well tonight I booked myself a table at April's across the street so there will be no party of shutter bugs—though meeting them was informative and amusing.

I think the loft is my favorite space in the house. Banquet table pushed against the east wall, ceiling slope overhead. The six plus feet wide poster of the Oregon coast pinned to the slope is quite intimidating—so what must the real thing be like? That's a great example of an abstraction taking on greater dimension with greater impact on the psyche than direct experience. The long drive will of course affect me directly physiologically and in the long term psychologically—such big nickel words—but the map does serve to give me a literal heads up regarding tomorrow's drive, from here to Brookings. In other words, if I don't start out early, I won't be in Brookings till dark. And there won't be a lot of opportunities to stop.

Today, having said all that, I may take a nostalgic trip north to Depoe Bay, not far, to flesh out my recollections of that summer with Pam and David.

Last night's restlessness and wakefulness was visited by dreams of elaborate bullying and intimidation—in one case someone rather well-off and possibly gay throwing lighted matches at me one by one. I kicked the box of matches remaining away which angered him. He threatened to use his influence to blackball me and my family from any institution in Stinson Beach of all places. I woke up and lay there remembering a weasly asshole in Arlington High daily teasing me, seeking me out, and my adamant refusal to "step outside" which only added fuel. Looking back I think I somehow knew—or reasoned, is perhaps a better way of saying it—that getting physical, that is, hitting him, would not help. And yet, how many instances of teenage altercation do we see that seem to illustrate the opposite? What if I had gone home and asked my experienced boxer father to guide me in some nifty punching techniques? I probably would have gone to Vietnam from college. Instead I rationalized my way to a life of non-violence. I still do not believe that damaging or destroying the other helps anyone. Regarding the Hitler question, he was allowed to go too far first by the German people and then by the European "community" as he invaded and bullied one country after another. Too many aristocrats and industrialists were waiting and watching—even joining in—for Adolph to be thwarted. Allowing him to rise up in Germany and then proceed towards empire building was not a series of nonviolent acts. Of course, nothing I just said has much substance or credibility for obvious reasons.

To continue with last night. My wakeful thoughts turned to other fears such as my being here on the—have you heard? It's on all the billboards—fateful day—Saturday the 21st—the last day of the world. Well yes. I even felt the hotel trembling and thought how ironic I decide to travel the greater length of Oregon coastline the day it falls into the ocean. Hell, even Highway 20 from Corvallis to Newport is officially closed today, the Friday before, the penultimate day! Okay. There was a distinct braiding of fear and amusement but I sedated triple warmer anyway and calmed down. Soon enough, my thoughts turned to Harry Potter's milieu since I was of course meaningfully assigned Rowling's room. I thought of opening the owl's cage—at least opening the window—but I did settle on the world of magic as thematic until I fell back to sleep. In my descent into slumber my admiration for Rowling grew, particularly how she highlighted teenage bullying and intimidation. Harry had his circle of friends and his "good" house for safety. I had Janie Beck—who taught me always wear black socks—and others, plus the "safety" of good rapport with several teachers, notably Feldman who taught Latin, and my own cousin Holmes who ran the audio-visual department.

As for magic, I know Rowling's on the record as nonbeliever, but we do need it. Not need "it" so much as an understanding of our own powers and an understanding of great force at large in the world. Rowling and Tolkien among others tap into this beautifully. One only has to consider our friend Joy's "gentle intention"—beginning with the thermometer attached to the fingertip to illustrate how we can raise or lower our own body temperature, and leading to my wife's changing her own brainwaves—to grasp that we really do have tremendous powers and we need them to learn how to use them. That's what school should be about for these things do not go away nor diminish. But that's not a focus here, so much.

For now I need to accept the truth of this for myself and act accordingly—finding meaning in and bringing meaning to this journey.

Why did we wait for anything?—Why not seize the pleasure at once?—How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

JANE AUSTEN, Emma 1815

Sweet Life Patisserie

Looking for meaning we are interrupted
by a small girl asking four basic questions
dancing on and off the chair opposite.

Two tables over her father feeds baby brother.
What are you eating? she asks first.
Quiche, I say. Made of eggs. Like a pie.

Clock? she says, tapping my watch.
Yes indeed it has a small clock face.
What's that? moving closer, touching

the point of my pen. That's a pen, I say
but now her small index finger arches
emphatically down onto my open journal

and I start to answer but she runs away
leaving me with my list for the day.
Eat. Look at the time. Take my pen. Write.

Stopping by the Smith River

Stopping by to see the Smith River
it's been awhile we both lay down
put our heads together and talked
the current state of affairs running
right through our toes fingers hair
till I grew silent but she babbled on
incessant with no punctuation no
pause to her stream of consciousness
unless you call that beautiful laughing
water dancing marks of exclamation
I don't know I couldn't interrupt
once she'd started once she
recognized me by voice or impressions
made on her over the years by my
two daughters son and wife this life
she'd start to say this life what a gift
right? From high up in the mountains
all the way downstream to great mother
ocean and everything between
take that willow there thickening
under stones so smooth from being held
touched rolled so many times how
the willow branches show us the way
things tend to lean new buds on their
stripped down story of how things went
last winter yeah I finally managed to say
I know and looking up saw the great trees
leaning in eavesdropping
like it was all news

For Arika the Seeing Eye Dog

The paws twitch
the fleas itch
can you imagine the vast reaches
the ridges the gulches the long lashes
not to mention the wilderness of the tail
where follicle to follicle and strand to strand
through the dense fur of the seeing eye dog on
her side how the opportunistic flea
makes its way in that clawtooth ingrown
toenail sort of way that ectoskeletal inside
out dastardly impish trollish out
from under a rock in a dark don't
put your finger in there sort of way
only to find a landscape washed and treated
for invasive species of all walks and hops
just read the label flea! Your days are done!
Meantime in dreamtime the hostess
with the harness vibrates at rest with
the memory of long sun-baked walks down
open highway say Akoni Pule where
one scent can take you through the green
overgrowth into the shadowy leafy
undergrowth in pursuit of mongoose
rat chicken dog or best yet cat
but remember ah remember this
all in a dream-haze because out there
in wakefulness reason hath overtaken
instinct long since and the wildness tamed
like exquisite calligraphy of the soul
to flourish in two worlds the world of dog
dreams and the world of eyes
for the mistress both concurrently
till, that is, one is in recline
when one is allowed to dream

the road to Foster's place

The road to Foster's place is 2.4 miles 8 minutes with traffic. But he's not there anymore. He's here. One of the things I wanted to do while passing through Eugene was look up David Foster, emeritus professor of art at U of O, because of his influence in my life. I remember visiting David on my way back from taking the professional knowledge test in Portland, just after moving here from England. I was the first person at Southern Oregon offered this quick method of proving you were qualified to teach. They weren't set up for the test in Ashland yet, so I had to drive the six hours north. Now I'm hesitating because I can't remember how it turned out we went to breakfast together...and he paid, which I appreciated, living on substitute teacher pay and my wife's three part time jobs at the coffee shop, the used clothing store and the bagel shop. On the way to breakfast David was talking non-stop about opportunities, how I was like a prairie dog sticking his head up through the surface and looking around. Things looked good. While he was talking I remember thinking about Ezekiel sticking his head through the clouds and discovering heaven's machinery, the gears and cogs and how everything worked. David was like that, as curious and fearless as a child, with all the wisdom of someone who'd been through the war and trained up with the Bauhaus movement, to name a couple. We crossed the street, first waiting for the crosswalk sign to illuminate. Nothing was sacred or really you could say the opposite of David, everything was sacred. I said Aren't you alarmed at these modern judgement saving devices, or words to that effect. Like being told when it was all right to cross a road, whether there was traffic in the street or not. He looked at me and said, I pick and choose, and that's one I can live with. I'm okay with that. I'll be happy to wait for the all clear. There's other things I do where I make my own judgements, but this is one I'm fine leaving to the city.

When I first met him he came literally vibrating with quiet energy and force into our small college. I saw him right away as my revered teachers' mentor. He ran a film class in the evenings and it was well attended. He began with hand-painted frames, moved through Fritz Lang and Orson Welles and on from there. I'm not a film buff in any way, but he gave me a grasp on film's antecedents. Elsewhere on campus he supervised the building of the dark room where I would later spend hours alone stirring Russell Kaine's photographs around for the yearbook.

David had a sort of Hemingway appearance, with the teacher's shrewd eye, turning everything you said or did into an opportunity to learn. He was I would say swarthy, a working artist. Back at his house after breakfast, I noticed the lights went on each time we entered a room, and went out when the last person exited. Typical David. His house was basically fully packed with computer gear and art project materials, a printing press in the basement.

Over the years we exchanged Christmas cards. His were always homemade. A piece of wisdom along with one of his fascinating sketches. He was internationally known for taking his modified VW van out into the wild and running photographs through his computer and then to a kind of sketch pad he devised. It was like a marriage of what he'd seen and what he wanted to illustrate. He had a kind of Chinese landscape sense of economy and his work was beautiful, frame-able. And of course I was honored to be included in his mailing list, which must have been vast.

The thing is I can't remember when I stopped hearing from David. We moved states and I attributed not hearing from him to that break. So now I'm hear and he's on my list. I touch his address in my contact application and the journey to his house looks like a brush stroke with some angularity reaching into the east. But for some reason before setting out I enter his name in Google to discover that David G. Foster died in 2003, on the shortest day of the year. He was 78.

He was killed crossing the street.

I'm heading out of town now, over to the coast where I'm going to do some writing and some walking. Maybe I'll take out my iPad and do some sketching in David's honor. I'm just sticking my head up through the surface and looking around. It's a beautiful day and you're never too old to cry for an old friend, but would they want that? Time to move on, glad I knew him.

Getting the Rooster

My God! My God! Has it always been so?
Walking to the kitchen for a drink of water
and coming back with fish tagine leftovers.
Take the other day. I went down to the fenceline
swearing under my breath I'd get that rooster.
Every morning the call to prayers at four dark
by that feathered tin trumpeter in the guava.
How many times I stood clear of his backside
hands on my hips like my old grandmother
muttering promises to cut his scratchy warbling
and dismantle the acoustic tunnel that amplifies
his broken serenade right up to our own bedroom window
and other post-neolithic thoughts on hunting
for reasons other than food. So I reach the scene
bend under the weeping bamboo and behold
the makings of the male of the species who on seeing me
tries to run through the small squares of the cage
by defining the inner dimensions of the rectangular cuboid
with his feathery mass and some rather potent instincts
potent because instinct caromed off my own instinct
while captor and captive eyed each other
as if the horizons hadn't been stitched together
with telephone poles and sagging wires quite yet
and the background roar was not really a motorcycle
but a rather greater point of view who might
quickly reverse the situation with me suddenly
defining other sorts of dimensions and so on
but I was not interested in the kill certainly not.
Did he know this? If so he had a strange way
of showing his understanding of relocation
by speeding up till he became a brown blur
with a bit of red in it.
There was a moment when I hesitated I must say
as I studied his diminutive crest and asked him
are you a chicken or da kine? which is local for
"really annoying rooster who crows at godawful hours of day or night"
when to my horror—I do have some left after a lifetime
of intermittent exposure to American television—
I saw the zebra dove belly-up on the floor of the trap.
If I needed further proof I had my man this was it.
I promptly loaded my victim and his victim
into the back of my black pickup though in a pang
strapped the cage down for the ride
and high-tailed it up to Pu'u Hue—a nearby deserted mountainscape
well known to catch-and-release volunteers like myself.
The shabby counterfeit of Chanticleer and I gave each other hard looks
before I set one end of the trap against the wide gate
slid open Freedom's door of twisted wire, watched and listened
as the creature threw caution and dignity to the wind
and waddled furiously in the straightest line
I've ever seen taken by a bird on foot, almost to the horizon
clucking and hiccupping from clump to clump of thick grass
and I stood there marveling awhile at high cirrus clouds above,
painted bark eucalyptus lounging on their elbows below.
The air seemed pure and clean. My conscience likewise.
I turned for home key in hand sensing a sharp pang
as if the absence would never replace the palpability
of direct experience as if I had sown the seeds of separation
and now all there was left was what? The post mortem
wondering if I'd gotten the right guy? How would I know
until I lay awake that very night listening for something
to return? Unless something had never left.
But the cage was not empty yet.
I shook out the dove. Getting down on one knee
I noted the surgical hole over the heart.
Even if that wasn't the right guy
I'm glad I got him. Or was I? Or did I?
It was me lured them both in the trap with scratch from Takata's Store.
I cast the innocent victim into the long grass
and went down the road without looking back.