daily notes in the old snail log

haiku of change 

on insight timer

daily notes in the old snail log

scattered leaves on the 

pond of consciousness 

meandering past the bodhi tree

golden trout giggle 

while the big fish slumbers 

I am a fish swiming to the sea 

dissolving in the waves 

wondering if the atoms of us

ever drift to space

will our star dust escape this place?

or are we bound by Newton 

to the third planet from our small sun?

Wilderness Lost

Do you remember the naked desert?

time flowed to rock 

Do you recall when this rock was better than that rock?

When the wine was so foul we watered the sand with Gallo red?

You left a clay figure of hopeless to melt

abandoned in the cold of winter desert

old Saab sliding up hill and down 

building momentum to crest the summit to Saline valley

opening up to  

sky and  rock

to the soulless cold of desert night

to Death Valley in winter 

Our journeys into the darkness were ways to find the light

So often we went from alone together to just alone

You on the path out... me on the path to wildness 

The long high hike alone, with Tolstoy for company

The high ledge and million star sky a lifelong touchstone

I lay on the stone and fell into the cosmos 

always there 

in my stony heart 

always there 

my high granite bed 

under the yawning sky 

there were signs that said turn back. 

a hawk screeching and flashing talons in my eyes, 

stay away 

    stay away 

        stay away 

I kept on 

Stepping over a downed log I a wasp stabbed me. 

electric shock snapped my head out the hike and into alert. 

signs to turn back? 

challenged to go on

I hiked

Hawk and wasp echoing

widow maker limb fell 

crash bashed across the path

just a step behind

A pause, a shrug, an extra breath and I'd been dead.

Instead I hike on alone 

three warnings

before 

I found IT 

on the stone bed in the night. 

I found solitude and Tolstoy.

I hiked  

    one hundred miles 

        one hundred miles 

alone

now and then the same 

now and then connected 

all I've carried 

all these years 

connected

to song and soaring grace 

found in the backcountry

I carry it all 

blessed

and still alive!

sunday

barrel chest wrapped with pain

sore 

wrapped in a blanket of tears 

for the pain 

for the hurt

for the weight of 

a human 

floating and sinking

floating belly to the sky into space

between planets in the family orbit

touch the face of whatever god you can imagine

find 

strength and peace 

share it share it share it....

Old friend

 Old friend

lost so many years ago 

at the cross road

solo or family

you are alone

I am not

yet we have the same task

live with ourselves

live with it

live

hidden memories of trail days

bubble like the burp of Yellowstone mud

reach to the light

form in the mind

remember when we were young 

and so dumb

Know with all my heart

Janice warm inside

silent snow sleeps outside

blazing inner fire

touched by winter

wind disguised as summer

wind chimes 

bird song

meditating

San Diego bird song

stills my wandering mind

my breath

like the surf sliding

on a gentle shore

blissful wave

breathe balance

breathe 

be present

feel the crest

with all my heart

this song of sweet life

we sing together

a moment

The queen
on her throne
under flowering Matisse
froggy nudes looking coy
the seal infuses mushrooms
we laugh
a wet bird hops at midnight
we laugh
two birds tied together
tap dance on the tiles
we laugh
together at last
the doors open
we are the light
hearts joined
still time
joyful moment
we
are
one

April 15, 2019

present moment 

perfect

love ripples

out

ripples 

back

from infinite space

to infinite place

riders

senders

sharing our water

and our cheese sandwiches.

Time

i want to live so I can see you grow

see you learn
see you change into whoever
you will become

I need a gift of time

I see clearly now that
time is more than a trick
It is a daily portion of experience
served out breath by breath

how I breathe
determines the duration and value
of time

the time I spend with you

my wife
my child
my grandchild
my friend

is what makes life sweet and worth pursuing

i want to live so I can see you grow

Gary Snyder

I've been reading Snyder for years.  I had the memorable pleasure of hearing him read at Lake Tahoe back in the 90's.

For the past six months I've been reading everything he's written.  I started by re-reading all of the books I already had (including RipRap and the Cold Mountain poems). Then I went on amazon and started buying his books.  Axe Handles is magnificent. Turtle Island won the Pulitzer prize for poetry in 1975.

It all goes well when I start my morning mindfully reading Snyder. He takes me back up into the mountains where I lived for so long.

There's a documentary about him on Netflix that I'm going to track down too.
I love doing this.  Reading through the body of work of a great writer is time well spent.

This poem in particular has been a touchstone of my writing life:

Hay for the Horses

by Gary Snyder

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
        behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the 
        sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."

From Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems by Gary Snyder, published by North Point Press. Copyright © 1958, 1959, 1965 Gary Snyder. Used with permission. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15436#sthash.TfYQX1Yf.dpuf

Haiku in the morning

I dug a battered cardboard box out of the shed a few days ago. Written on the side was the word Poetry.

I'd been looking for this box and now I've found it.

I unpacked my old books and stood them on the shelves near my reading chair. Sort out the Gary Snyder in one section, William Carlos Williams in another.  Then the haiku.

I have the habit of starting the day with a mindful cup of coffee and some random reading.  I grab a book from my shelf and turn to any page. I try to read the poems with a mindful focus. 

I'd been reaching for books that weren't there.  Now they are.

Just this morning I was reading about the life and work of the great Japanese Haiku poet Issa.  I was introduced to this form, and Issa in particular by my high school English teacher Denis Huckaby. 

Now, fifty years later the echo of that first discovery is still faintly ringing my inner ear.

I do not memorize poetry.  I have no facility for remembering verse.  However I do have one Issa down pat:

Oh snail,
Climb Mt. Fuji
But Slowly, Slowly

That's my memory of it.  I was pleased to see this Haiku referenced in a Wikipedia article about Issa.

"One of Issa's haiku, as translated by R.H. Blyth, appears in J. D. Salinger's 1961 novel, Franny and Zooey:

O snail

Climb Mount Fuji,

But slowly, slowly!

The same poem, in Russian translation, served as an epigraph for Snail on the Slope (published 1966–68), by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, also providing the novel's title."

Give or take a little punctuation and I seem to have recalled it quite accurately.

The book I pulled from my shelf is an old` college text called An Introduction To Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Basho to Shiki.  I was amused to see the book is still in print and available from Amazon with used copies from only 1 penny.

My edition, complete with scribbled notes from my days as an English major at Berkeley is worth far more than a penny  (to me).

Skimming the selection of translations I came across my one memorized poem, translated by Henderson:

Snail, my little man,
  slowly, oh, very slowly
    climb up Fujisan!

The literal translation is included:

Katatsuburi | soro | soro | nobore | Fuji-no-yama
     snail  | slowly  | slowly | climb-up | Fuji-mountain

50 years ago Mr. Huckaby gave me a haiku assignment.  I went to North Hollywood Park, across from the library and wrote a dozen haiku as I sat with my back against an old eucalyptus tree.  

I was hooked on catching 17 syllable moments.

Later at Berkeley, I wrote another sequence (featuring Katatsuburi) that got me a conversation with the instructor. This long-gone teacher, name forgotten, was larger than life to me. He was poet, a teacher and a former Montana smoke jumper ready to dive into forest fire hot-spots.  

I wish he'd been Gary Snyder.

But he wasn't.

When I was solo climbing, I'd some time think of Issa's stead slow climbing snail.

On long up hill slogs with a full pack
I'd pace myself with a climber's rest step,
chanting - nam myoho renge kyo

gaining Sierra elevation.

I learned from my resurrected Haiku text that Issa was also a trained artist who often signed his brushwork '... and Issa too."

Henderson mentions an atypical Issa haiku "written in very pompous and old-fashioned 'epistolary " language (sorobum), which was then commonly only used in stage performances. "

He who appears
   before you now--is the Toad
       of this Thicket.

Henderson goes on to explain that the position of a sitting toad is like the one assumed by Japanese when they squat on the floor for a formal greeting. He concludes with a description of a painting of a famous frog-like theater manager who was a contemporary of Issa, Miyako Dennai III.  (I know a killer keyword sequence when I see it.)

This is the picture:

I love how the Internet makes it possible to see the arcane and obscure.  All you need are the questions and the keywords.

Sunday morning

my heart
rock
dropped
in a still pool

observing
now
while
remembering
when

Present Moment

My mind is
on Mars
at the
present moment

I'm listening to the morning sounds
coffee perking
paws on the floorboards

My feet stir
red dust
at the present moment
the turmoil of
just another day
stirs up the present

moment.

Breathe deep
listen to the dog snore
breath out - only moment
smell the dog musk and

feel the sun shine through the window

and down the corridor

where my loved ones stir

present moment
while my mind wanders
over the inner falls
of my out breath

and I witness my life
like a pebble dropped in still water

in the present moment.

Gratitude

Like placer gold
panned from the stream of experience
we have mined a life together

jewels discovered in the light

a young woman suns
on a delta deck
early days by the water

laughing I hold a
wiggling bass as you
scream in the shower

in a shepard's hut
on a mountainside in Crete
the wonder of our life

high pass in the alps
You stretched out on the mountain grass
NATO helicopters rumble by below

the faint smell of olive trees
blossoming Greek morning
Mycenae
I climb the Lion's Gate for you

in the beehive tombs of Agamemnon
the echos of our young voices
repeat
I love you

blocks of ancient limestone
eroded steps
exposed by time
a chalk marked path
top of the pyramid

Sahara, silent and eternal
The scared horse flesh carries us
where Caesar and Napoleon rode.

drag a finger in the Nile
risk the worm infection
to feel the flow
African water
becomes Mediterranean Sea.

inside
the boy king's tomb
alone, alive, breathing the
captured air
a few moments together
last forever

worn smell of the old hotels
the Raj molders
in Darjeeling
breakfast tea and curry
Kanchenjunga is the sky
our knees touching
over continental breakfast

sitting in the old Sikh's parlor
Kalimpong motorcycle
a Royal Enfield
he once rode to Calcutta
shared with us
gleaming pride

leopard tracks the snow
on the trail to Annapurna
we share a lunch
with jungle monkeys
Dhaulagiri ridge to heaven
as the mists pull back
we are in the Himalaya


long climb
a high pass in Nepal
a boy stands by
a wash tub
of icy water
bobbing brown bottles
Star Beer
Namaste
what time is now?
a porter's day wage
consumed in slow greedy gulps

spider veins
the Brahmaputra
in the dry season
maheer
land locked
Indian tarpon
thick sided
golden scaled
roll in the narrow creeks
swim to the sea


sliding like a slow snake
the Brahmaputra spills the Himalayan
snow melt, now muddy tea, into the
Bay of Bengal

the moment in the bazaar
too weak to push forward
I leaned on you
you helped me stand
I knew you were the
one

The English added gardens to the Taj Mahal
where we decided to have children
make 'our hearts hostage to fate'
be in this wheel of life every moment

and we feel the wonder of our days
again
living moments
recalled and treasured
hard won placer gold

cut bank memories

forgotten spring

a forest pool

a huge trout

in the cut bank

lurks,

balanced in the current

waiting for a meal


I belly crawl

earning a glimpse

huge humped green back

golden speckled sides


I've forgotten where the hidden pool is

and only find it

when minnow-flicker

memories

swept down stream

briefly swim

then swallowed

by the beast

from under the ledge.


Take 2


time crushed granite

a golden pebble bed

current raked

elbow in the stream.

cut bank

time and water carved

where the current pushes

against hidden stone

an old trout

ready for the wet mayfly

or fingerling trespasser


solo backpacking

a glimpse of a mythic fish

each year I return

stealthy

to spy grandpa trout


a century later he lingers

in the cut banks of memory

forgotten the range

forgotten the trail

remember the cut bank trout

hidden

waiting for a meal

Inside

Today
With practiced breath
and tuned ears
I went Inside the Taj Mahal
With Paul Horn

I slipped from the now
into memories
like gold in the crevices

**********

Cross country skiing at Carson Pass
Up through the granite and pine
Glimpse Elephant Back
Then down the big bowl on skinny skis

**********

The lot of us
will build each others houses
a self help group at Lake Tahoe
about to be home owners
we gather together to choose
our ground

12 people
12 different lots
We toured them all
and drew up
emotional lists
of places to live

There was only one lot for Jan and me,
we wanted North Upper Truckee

The time came to choose

12 slips of paper
numbered 1 - 12
placed in a hat
held
above eye-line
each couple drew

I took the last slip
It read 1
We'd drawn North Upper Truckee

As I kicked the spade into rocky soil
starting a foundation trench for our home
I thought how lucky we are
to have a place in the world

As we framed the walls
set the windows
shingled the roof
hammered home the siding
the reality
sunk in

That was our start.

**********

The polished mahogany
and worn green velvet
on thickly padded seats
Taj Express
Delhli to Agra
Breathing the fumes of the Raj

Walking toward the Taj
The hot air thick with moisture
The crowds dressed up for a sacred place

Inside the warm marble
of the great dome
fingers laced
we found our future

If all the chosen people of India
have the courage to live their lives
why not us
who have so much

Let's have a baby


**********

Fatepur Sikri
red stone fortress of the Shah
screaming parrots
thousands thick
jump up
and color the yellow green sky

**********

My new daughter
in my cupped hands
blinks deep eyes
and smiles
first minutes of her life
teach me
to be

**********

squares of light
numbered and named
dark for decades
slides before sunlit windows
peaks climbed
paths hiked
sunsets captured
with chilled hands
and my Rolei 35

work hard to find places
where you could not take
a bad photograph
now
captured squares of light
hidden in a closet
wait in a box

**********

I'm an old man
Standing at the kitchen sink
preparing breakfast for my wife

the acres beyond my window
echo organic orange trees
stumped for lack of water
dry dead pegs mark the rows
where trees were
gone now 

I wouldn't be able to see down the valley

I wouldn't be able to see the blue arc of the ocean

when I stand at my kitchen sink
seeing

Guide or Guided?

I breathe toward my still point

seeking the moment

distracted by memories that briefly flicker

Entering the water
at La Perouse Bay
the Maui warmth of the fish bowl
coats me with the present moment

Eastern sierra high meadow
fingerling golden trout
dart for cover

Central BC
old growth timber
tossed like
God's pick up sticks
before the peak

Forgotten fishing hole
I belly up
hoping for a glance
old trout in the cutbank shadows

laying on the surf line
up in the sand
where the last of the tide touches me
feeling the float of the moment

World of river worn rocks
small pebbles worked to sand
a universe caught in a river bend
miraculous salmon jumps

My stone bed
shelf of rock wide enough for
a young man in a sleeping bag
staring up
sleeping on the mountain

Red stone worked by artisans into
a chessboard for humans
Fatipur Sikri courtiers moved
feeling the Shah's
finger on their fate

Muddy creeks snake
the first Brahmaputra water
from the Himalaya
strained by the tea bag of Bhutan
to brown silty soup where
golden scaled Maheer roll
under the shadowed surface

A stark tree
branches weighed with leathery wings
satisfied vultures
settle over the shoulder of
the smiling police chief
serving tea.

Crowded Indian bus
air thick with dust
kids screeching
chickens squawk
beyond the dirty glass
other buses
at the bottom of the gorge
like dry overturned beetles
old tires rotting on bent wheels
bad road for buses
a hundred miles to Kazaranga

Breathing
briefly
remembering
my life
like postage stamps
in a collection
rarely admired

Guide and guided

Jack's mindful morning

cup of espresso

sip one
the foam stings
the tongue
sip two
the back of the throat
catches the soothe
sip three
the memories circulate
so strong I taste them.

What is it about mindfulness that fills me with sharp specific memories?




My thick handled coffee mug with the a blue script logo:

Jack's

Since 1946

Bishop, California

The coffee shop hidden behind the Sierras on HWY 395 where

I'd come down from a self-imposed

epic sierra hike

to feast on a breakfast at

Jack's.

A week or two of crunchy granola,
brown rice and trout set me up for

a mound of hash browns
a 3 egg omelet stuffed with ham, peppers, cheddar cheese and onions
a side of bacon and a side of sausage

and keep the coffee cup full.

Bought this cup for my dad Jack (who started me in 1948).

It stayed with him until he was gone.

Now the cup,

and the mindful morning sips
of memories
are mine.

Tending the Trees I Plant

Woke thinking a good night, this cold is on the run.

Saw from my study window the pepper tree I planted with my son on Christmas day.

It was leaning forlornly against a boulder.  The wind had upset the roots. Tree work in a weakened state got me sweating and feeling old.

Stood the tree.
Stomped the ground.
Soaked the roots too much and made a mush of things.

Shoved more soil on the base of the tree and mashed down my big booted feet into the muck.

If a good wind comes over the tree will go again.
I'll attend it.

I want it to grow.
I want it strong and healthy, part of a big family of peppers, ready for us to celebrate next Christmas.

Still the tree died before spring

With My Grandson

Walking through the park

Pushing my year old grandson

snoozing in a three wheeled jogging stroller

A brindled bull dog choke chained to my wrist

I'm tender and tough

This old run down park is too  

Paint crews know this place

They struggle to stay ahead of the graffiti.

We jog by two tatted gang kids

Moving toward the shadows cast by the old olive trees.

Shade and breeze beckon.

Laid out on the cool grass one hand on the dog,

long stretched and content,

the other on Logan's stroller.

I begin to doze

Logan's chubby grubby toes turned out as he dreams

We relax into a sweet and joyful
moment.

Humming Bird Remembered

thunk and flutter

a hummingbird

stunned on the deck

smooth the iridescent feathers

run a finger over the still grey felt belly

beak opens

beak closes

small claws grasp the air

set the stunned bit of fast life

on a squash vine

an hour later

gone.