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.

Esther Alvina Ellinghuesen

Teacher, Publisher, Missionary: What an amazing woman.

To this day, artifacts of Esther are present in my life. 

A battered camel saddle bought in a Cairo souk 60 years ago. 

Huge brass candlesticks.

Inlaid boxes, falling to pieces.

Just tourist trinkets that seeded my life with the desire to travel and see the places of my childhood imagination.

Inside Tut's Tomb

The Lion Gate at Mycenae 

Standing atop the Great Pyramid looking out over the Sahara

The Palace at Knossus

Luxor

The Nile

The Taj Mahal

Fatehpur Sikri 

The Toy Train to Darjeeling

Kanchenjunga

Dhaulagiri

Machupuchare

Annapurna

Kaziranga

Thank you, Esther

Henri's crapgame

Henri Pierre Hillinck



For more of Henri's art see his Pinterest Page: https://www.pinterest.com/wiredinstructor/the-art-of-henri-pierre-hillinck-1900-1959/

Play The Circle Game

once I'm gone

Scatter the ashes off

point loma where my mom

and dad

dissolved

past time

Know 

I found my way to heaven

5 minutes at a time

Keep the sweet knowledge

of my love for you

Sing a song

Lift a stein

shed a sentimental tear

know

you are loved

~Dad

(sunday in la mesa 6/12/16)

Erin- so many belated birth days

Thinking about my daughter Erin. She'll always be my little girl, even though today she is young, vibrant, intelligent and very loving woman. I'm so proud of you Erin.

I remember you sleeping in your flannel pj's with Oliver the cat purring in the warmth.  This picture feels like a Tahoe Christmas.

 In the front room at the Upper Truckee house. I think that little umbrella was still around when we finally moved back in 2006. 

The father daughter dance at your school got us both dressed up. Can you remember us standing on the back deck at Tahoe? 

Here we are with your great grandmother Lillian Hillinck.  We all called her Honey. Do you remember Honey? She loved you so.

My soccer girl.  How many games do you think you played over the years? Some of the best memories of my life happened on those side lines watching you run and play. 

There were some golden moments connected with soccer (there still are). 

Maui in 2005 with Kyle. That summer before you were off to school was special.  I like remembering the sun and the water and the smiles on your faces. 

You are so beautiful. 

I'm a lucky man. 

Happy birthday Erin.

Recipe for meditation on a saturday morning

Three small cups of coffee,
spaced over several hours
mix in a portion of
coconut coffee sand
sip and savor
rattle on for an hour
then another cup of Trader Joe Chai
Costa Rican beans all in Jack's
small thick porcelain cup



tied to an iPhone
learning to breathe
and be
via bluetooth

Am I that Jacked up?

snapshots from the big picture window
in La Mesa...

watch birds in Enrique's pepper tree

a jungle at eyeball level
cactus and flowering trumpet vines
crawl the veined pepper bark

flit from feeder to tree

watch with cataract clear eyes
then with my Alaska binocs
see sparrows the size of pigeons
poised in the peppercorns and leaves

...and dream for the kids.

we talk of how our children will grow
their children
through the future
that's beyond
our reasonable reach
and smile old folks smiles
and remember being young

another ingredient:

30 minutes of caffeine induced focus
spent doing meaningful work for pay

help my students find a path
learn to think, research, imagine
a teacher's life
without the cells and bells
trading the classroom
for a computer and phone

que the chorus

can I do it?
is it possible?
could I be happy?
could I live this way?

and then the morning chores ... wrong word
duties?
not quite
opportunities
... yes
helping janice
defines my present
knowing
moments are just moments
being together is a gift
we didn't appreciate
until
it was almost lost.

Yes a bit of marital laughter
saturday morning confluence
then, with a laugh...
off to mediate
on three cups
of strong coffee

And to my surprise listening to
Karen Sother's Sacred Pause
--- well worn words
--- worked

caught me up
helped me find the (not so )
still quiet place of mediation
add spontaneous yoga
i am in the breath
escaping the spit of time

watched the floaters dance
shadow sheeted
on back lit eyelids
the breath moves
the liquids of me
in clockwise motion
iFind
"peace in the midst of it all"

Is it as simple as mixing some spiced, dark roast
into Jack's cup and
laying down on my mat
with Karen Sothers in my ears?

yes... on this saturday morning
that's all it took
used the jingle jangle coffee
to power the moment
escape the tail chase
of persistent distractions
that track my
worn worrier's mind.

what will work for you?
will you try something new?
or shrug and tug
at your triggers
till the monkey roars
and time becomes
like a toothache
in the night

my screen saver
Machupuchare at sunrise
the air is still
cumulous clouds
over the fishtail
vapor mountains
in the
stratosphere

peaceful moment
charged with certainty
of storm
followed eventually
with momentary stillness

then hear the prayer flags
whisper beyond the tent flap
as it begins again

Toni's Dad after Chosin Resevoir

http://life.time.com/history/korean-war-classic-photos-by-david-douglas-duncan/attachment/10_marine-w-sleeping-bag/

Other images from Chosin Resevoir

Last Days in the classroom (then and now).

Came across this as I sorted through my old papers in preparation for another move.  Gratifying to recall that my last days in the classroom had sweetness and light.  Thank you Christina for the kind words (then and now).

Here (or there) kitty, kitty

Schrödinger's Cat

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

old man

an old man
head in hands
squatting on
porcelin

mind full
of dead beat
sierra poetry

bowels losing
the last day's work

knowing who he is

a man
a husband
a father
a teacher

still thinking
       pushing aside medical bills
about catching
words
in virtual nets

like mosquito
eaters
trapped
between
window glass
and screen

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

Lillian Hall - Silent film actress

I came across an old scrapbook compiled by the silent film actress Lillian Hall  The are many pictures to share.   Here is a link to her IMBD page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0355829/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

As you will see there are no photos of the actress on the IMDB page.  I haven't found images of her online either. So, I've scanned some of the images I have of Lillian Hall and post them here as a first step to getting the information into the IMBD database.  Many of the photos are from the 1920 edition of the film Last of the Mohicans.

From what my wife Janice recalls,  the link is via Glenn Tryon, father of the actor Tom Tryon, who apparently was a cousin of my father-in-law Sherman Kunkel.  According to the IMDB Tryon was Lillian Hall's stepson.  Tangled history here!

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