June and July 2014

Just remembered that

trying to write meaningfully

is already a failure of trust;

just being awake here speaks

all the meaning there is,

letting go,

the only must.

**

Fernandez Trail, Ansel Adams Wilderness

A cirque is a three-sided, glacier-carved bowl

that holds a high mountain lake that holds in its face

reflections of the sheered stones that make it so.

No one here says mountains don’t speak, nor lakes

whisper back—birds know, trees hear

rippled reflections

pass on the lips of resident winds.

**

6/22

Summer Solstice

Our first backpacking trip of the season

begins at Clover Meadows in the high Sierra

at just over seven thousand feet,

a walk on the year’s longest day 

that draws on all of our reserves, all of our resolve,

only to deliver a stunning display of stars

for a late night supper

and a long, dreamless sleep.

**

6/23

Lady Lake 8,500 ft.

Thresholds crossed are worlds re-seen

from places we’re often unaware we’ve arrived.

But not here. Unawareness has no place

in a place like this, where, having come,

being seen is a given, and being seen as having come

is itself re-seeing.

**

On the bluff above Chittenden Lake 9,400 ft.

The quiet founded in thin air and high thriving rock

is as complete a refuge as one will find, itself the answer

to the mystery—given all the effort, why we continue

to return, but to again be taken in.

**

Things that will last…

after Kenneth Rexroth

We spend our last day and night

at the Madera Creek junction,

where the Fernandez Trail meets

the Walden in the flat

among the lodge pole pines

at the end of a valley meadow

that runs aside the creek below

a towering volcanic formation

studded with twisted juniper pine,

a small meadow

traced with quivering aspen,

low-growing buckwheat, wild flowers,

butterflies and humming birds.

The creek is lined with willow and lupine

and filled with hungry trout.

But for the creek and woodpeckers

and when wind, the trees, it’s quiet.

How to be here is a matter of who you are.

The place absorbs all who come, goes on its own way

when we’re gone, needing no prophets to tell it so. 

**

6/29

Some turns crinkle, even bind

just a bit, some go so smooth

the view is the only proof

of change—change being

the nature of nature, notions of sameness

are inherently false limitations

risen from simple inattention.

**

7/5

For lack of paper and brush,

that Zen-struck poet, Ryokan,

is said to have practiced calligraphy

in the air—sweeps of soundless poems

spewed out on the restless tongue

of wind-filled skies.

**

Appreciation

is the gift of recognition

properly received.

**

Of most importance

is where the foot that’s risen

will fall.

**

the third way

to cultivate…

to live-listening

to the world and to what

it is waiting to be…

**

7/25

Unquantifiable…

Skin, under the touch

of wind, of sun, under loving eyes…

The presence of turning

to another’s needs—having been useful…

The thought of the sound

of the grandchild’s voice, remembrance

of the name…

The glint of rising sun

bringing the final line of the poem

home…

**

7/26

Sneaking out under the blaze of late afternoon sun,

ocean fogs run the length of the ridge,

white flags of promise of relief,

evidence of the possible

seeding shifting undercurrents, windows,

cupped and readied for release…