Winter Waters

walking by the lake blue-white in half-melte
distant scraping resolves to
sails further out, skaters with parasails
in just enough wind, metal on ice
wet gliding, steel shaving, memory of iceboats

several hours' drive further north
there are bear tracks in late snow
some kind of quiet god woken too early
to own his still-twilit domain
long summer evenings have not yet sprung
out of blue bogs, green cattails, moose brown

there's a river only half-awake
this blue hour of year, stone clatter
musical chime of cold flow on icicle
blue tears hung by spray on granite over shale ledge
this single river carving its shallow valley
scrapes dense kraton, tough sheets, resistant caprock

even further where loons will migrate later
hallow sea-edge open watered haloed green
white pack ice wind-sails into the corner bay
lead left half-open, ready someday for seals
where shallow river-mouth meets tidal swell

we write what we have, when it comes
on shore sand, on half-drowned leaf
brown with tannins and river rust
the land writes on my own waters
circulating sea-tide of red blood and bone shell
skull under skin just waiting its time to emerge

back south in more habitable home
late snow coats milkweed pods whiter
than white, late broken buds exploding with cotton
wild rice stalks clump like black bamboo
and the ring of open water mudding the shore shines

Blessed Solstice 2015

I wrote out this blessing on the eve of Winter Solstice 2015. It arose from my own thoughts and dreams, and experiences, over the past Yearwheel. It also a form of Gratitudes, which is what I write every year instead of New Year's Resolutions.

•

Blessed Be!

Sweet winter solstice blessings to all.

May your forests be dark and fragrant with unsolved mysteries.

May your fields be blessed with gentle rains.

May the road rise to your journey with the grace of fish rising to taste the water's surface.

May the lights of all the physical fires, the fire in the atom spinning, be the lights in your eyes that find the path you follow open and inviting.

May your home be filled with feasts for all your senses.

May your nights be dark with dreams and crystalline sleep.

By sunlight, candlelight, starlight, and fire light,
Reflections of the Light Eternal.

It is finished in Beauty,
It is finished in Beauty,
It is finished in Beauty,
It is finished in Beauty.

Who created us all in the beginning,
Receive us all in the end.

So Mote It Be.

Winter Solstice 2014

the magic is about
light even in darkness
song even in silence
a promise of sun's return
the memory of trees

for all the dark between stars
is filled with light and song
for every atom vibrates and pulses
in endless song
for even dark matter is filled with light
because all matter is just slow light
that can be ignited by the spark of time

as was proven by the shining
of both sun and bomb
of night's ignition into dawn
of angels' glory sung in the tulips of spring
and the light inside these limbs

Light in the darkness
Song in the silence
Every thing that is alive
Reflecting this glory, this shine
So it is and ever shall it be

winter's cycle, bitter rain and wind

something like snowfall and secrets blue in twilight indigo shadow
hoofprints in fresh drifts under a tree red with bitter gall cherries
red glow of eye and breath steam along woods trail hidden in thickets
too cold to feel beyond this circle of candle lantern light
blue beyond the script table edge where words fail and music begins
feet cold sore fire to fire their warmth restored
no place between there and here no way to fathom the gulf
abyss of contradiction valley of shadow and remembrance
clamshell of dreams made secure in illusion
no way this horse can step on the same red anthill twice
a rose called betrayal but bittersweet and wine red in the heart
there are six hours of circles in this beaten grass a haystack religion
in the prairie rain closest under the eaves of bluff and front range
rain on sandstone fat snowflakes sticking melting not quite safe

and then there's no winter but red rose turns to white
simmer and shimmer of sign on wood stone sky cloud earth
come rising prophet come rise and see this promised land
sunflowers in the lee of storm hill and treason gulch
burn green fire in blue wolf and sun cry
circumnavigate this braised suspicion
it's all words only words and hung upon the night's edge of a fabric shroud
and into something like snowfall and secrets blue in twilight indigo shadow

Winter NIght

it's so silent
as I go to sleep
there has been music
in my mind for days
now still and quiet

in the bitter silence
past frost-laced windows
an antlered god plows
moon white meadows
huffed breath wind-muffled

some still breath fogged
with snow makes white mist
on white fields, and I, waiting
sleepless, start at every sound
the house ticking in night's cold

an owl at the window calls
the brow horned dark velvet
lifts eyes and waits unmoving
silence deepens, becomes all
this unlined roads blues into

a greater, colder Road

Video: Snow

Snow, a winter video poem, 2012

The artistic constraint used in making this piece was simplicity: this is a single long video take made from the front porch of my old house, during a blizzard in March 2008. That winter we had several blizzards like this, and record snowfall numbers. This was a single long take made when no cars were driving by, because of the storm, and I could get a long take of snow being blown hard through the trees, and off the roof of the house.

The music is similarly constrained: it is an improvised piece played live to stereo recording, with a little processing later. I played my Chapman Stick through an effects box direct into the computer, then added Frippertronics-style tape-loop effects (in this case made using the remarkable VST plugin Ellotronix.)

The haiku was written at the same time as the blizzard was filmed.

under fresh snow
white flowers bloom anyway:
the days passing

Very simple constraints were used, then, producing a focus on one mood, one moment, one vision.

the Witch Trees

under deadened skies
black firestroked oak branches
whirl in hollow light



cold silent bells
of lost winter temple
ring, ring, still ring



hollowed in heart,
leaden sun, black amber scar,
fingers wave against

the blackened throat
the monstrous heart

Crater Lake, OR

sky caldera nestled in ice
high island in cloud land
snowbound roadblind still



humpbacked lake spirit rising
briefly into air, into light
long surge of low bells against the mountain
ringing on the inner ear

Black & White Mountains

images from the Grand Tetons, Jackson, WY, February 2011

Grand Tetons in Winter

images from Grand Tetons National Park, Jackson, WY, February 2011

Silver & Gold

Hoback River canyon, south of Jackson, WY, February 2011


sunset, Ft. Bragg, Mendocino Cty., CA, February 2011

Cold Fires

towns like little self-contained wastelands
surrounded by vast geologies, volcanic plains
and fog-bound snowfields

cold fires, no one left at home
fences and barns crumbled from neglect
the world's ending passed through
spat, and marched on to kill the next hearths

now no one lives here, or can
those able left long ago
following the work
as the plows broke themselves
on this fertile, rocky, mafic, pitiless earth

snows pile up inside unglazed windows
a broken cradle, a threadbare one-eyed doll
and the rags of a grey shawl
batter themselves apart in the wind's harp

till even the horses are bare bones
skulls and antlers nailed over gateposts
over range roads that fade into the desert
in last warning

•

And that's what I was thinking, as I drove through several of these little Idaho towns along Hwy. 20/26, looking cold and abandoned, in bleak afternoon light: I could never live here. Why would anyone want to live in such places anymore? I mean, I love small towns, and I love living in rural areas; but these looked so dead and forlorn, so alienated from the rest of creation, that they sickened the spirit. I even stopped for gas at one small town, and there was no one at the station; it was all automated, the "Open" neon sign was lit in the building window, but there hadn't been anyone there for ages, the other windows were all painted over and everything was locked up. Is this the way the world ends, in cold, and snow, and silence? If so, Fimbulwinter has come to rural Idaho. And so I drove on, and on, till I reached easternmost Oregon, and the feeling that the people here are still alive.

Badlands in Winter

(Images from Badlands National Park, SD, January 2001)





stark beauty of nothing
moving except far-off deer—
spare trees in storm

South Dakota Whiteout

near Worthington, MN


blowing snow, South Dakota


wind turbines in blowing snow, spinning slowly


sheets of blowing snow crossing the interstate at right angles, South Dakota

The end of the day turns into a hellride, as an hour before sundown, the sun itself lost behind gray clouds and gray blowing snow, the road becomes covered with glare ice, sheet ice, black ice. You have to slow down or spin out, as many have done, emergency vehicles with blue and red spinners on top hovering near. It's made worse by the drivers too stupid to slow down, including big rig trucks who tailgate you, flashing their brights. Some days you can't help but fantasize vengeful justice for such dangerous folly.

Then I made it to a hotel in Mitchell, SD, had dinner, and retreated for the night. Cold, snow, wind, night. And so ends the first day of the current roadtrip.

•

Postscript, the following morning:

I'm not expecting to do much poetry on this roadtrip. Although the surprise visitation of the muse is always welcome, of course. As I've commented recently, I'm more focused on music than poems lately, and for good reason. I'm going to be saving my poetry chops for writing song lyrics, for now, as part of an upcoming project which I'll save discussion for another time. Meanwhile, I need to pack the truck and hit the road already.

Teaching Myself to Draw 8

A few days ago, I was back in the clinic for another IV drug therapy treatment. Those mornings spent with a needle in my arm that come every two months for now, those days after the IV I am useless for the rest of the day. It wears me out. I'm wiped out not only by sitting there with a needle in my arm for several hours, but also the psychological side of things; this was the same room where my Dad got his chemotherapy, after all.

This time, I angled my chair so I could see out the big picture windows. I could see the lone tree in the neighboring field, stark black on a perfectly flat white field. While I sat there getting my IV, I drew the tree twice. Once in pencil, and once as a stark minimal black-on-white calligraphy drawing, using my Japanese brush pen.

I noted while drawing each time that the tree was strongly asymmetrical from this vantage, with more feathered edges on the right, and heavier branches in the center and left. You're tempted to "correct" what you see, but the essence of seeing/drawing is to give what's there, not what you want to be there. There is no ugliness in imperfection, or in asymmetry. There is beauty, rather, in the way the tree balances itself in the air, despite any fractal irregularities.



Pencil drawing first, made with three different grades of hardness of pencil. Started with the softer pencil, drew in al the main trunks and branches, darkening and filling in as you go. The thinner branches at the ends of the main branches done with a harder pencil, pressing lightly, to suggest the feathering that happens at the ends of branches, smaller and thinner as they grow farther from the main trunk. The thinnest branches making a light halo of grey around the edges of the tree, feathering out to the pure white of the field in which the tree grows, the pure white of the drawing paper as white field. Drawn fast, looking all the while, taking time on the basic forms, then quickly filling in the details.



A calligraphic drawing, simple pure lines of black on a white field, details left out, just the main trunks and largest branches of the tree. Just something simple and suggestive. Drawn as an exercise in how much of the brush-tip meets the paper: starting thick and pressed down, gradually lifting the brush, lighter and lighter touch, thinner and thinner line, till it feathers out at the edge. Discipline of attempting to draw each branch as a single unbroken stroke, following thin and thick of the actual tree with the variance in the line. Drawn slowly, moving the brush on the page slow and steady, taking time to feel the pressure differences and how they change the line.



Just for fun, a superimposition of the two drawings together, pencil and ink overlaid, just to show how the observing eye sees the same basic shapes and forms, the same thick branches, even though there are differences in the details.

Wintergreen

A week ago, two or three fresh inches on the ground, on Xmas Eve, making for the traditional white Xmas. Deer tracks in the snow in the morning, with reflections from the glass windows on the house, and shadows of the trees.

Two days ago, a thaw began. Warmer weather, even some fog. I just came indoors from the garden. I was planting purple iris and Darwin tulip and Asiatic lily bulbs in the front garden—on New Year's Eve. The lawns are green, there was fog before the sun came out later in the day. It's 50 degrees or more—shirtsleeve weather for those of us who survive these annual winters. Here it is, in the middle of winter, and I worked in the garden for an hour.

Snow will come back, of course. There was a wind today, indicating a change of weather. No doubt in a day it will be frigidly winter-cold again. This is just the usual midwinter thaw. It will only last a day or two. But for the moment, just for this afternoon, a rumor and hint of spring.

winterdusk

winter inches along
low hills blued in twilight—
the blur of trees

redblue rush cold road past black silhouette bare treestands downswept in dusk
chill wind whistle past window road of tires on wet asphalt spun sidelong and spun
through clear to next town next road next county next intersecting line of woods
banner my heart three-pedaled fevered thrash past infinite spacecold icebricks
softened thrum redblue blur far hills come close and burst on windscreen ice
eye the eye of seeing bloodfever past hellpain headache blare downdale downhill
furious trees of the frozen heart forested bent and brittled by night oncoming
relentless netbrown barebranch treeshudder redblue shadow of headlight on road

long driven dusk chilled ever more compact and frozen
by the at last arrival of homeatands offering of barebranch hand to dusk

Tree of Light 2010

A small Christmas tree this year, on a table in the living room, with the fireplace in the background. I put mostly star ornaments, and musical instrument ornaments on it, this year. I have a terrific collection of very detailed musical instrument ornaments, that look completely real and playable, only in miniature. I really enjoyed getting these out this year, as it has been a good year for me musically, and next year promises to be even more so—so the musical ornaments are on the tree by way of celebration.





What I love about Christmas trees are the lights, at night. Lighting up the darkest time of the year, setting the night aglow. Of course that's the original pagan purpose of the tannenbaum, or tree of lights: a winter solstice celebration of the returning of the light. From now on, the days get gradually longer, even though winter itself as a season has just begun.



The light in the darkness also makes me think of a poem I wrote two winter solstices ago, a poem that's been on my mind lately, which one or two poet-friends liked very much at the time, and which otherwise went unregarded: Evangelismos. It's a poem of annunciation. I could not get out of my mind Rilke's phrase "Every angel is terrifying," and what it must be like to be spoken to by an angel in its glory: which I imagined as a continuous explosion of light and sound, overwhelming and overpowering. I wrote from the point of view of the shepherds in the hills, being herded themselves by the angel, down into town, to witness a miracle.



I always like to put a few Christmas books under the tree, mixed in with the presents. Appropriate titles, such as Dickens, here, and Clement Moore's famous poem. I have a friend who decorates his entire house for the season with thousands of ornaments, garlands, and decorations. He also places a lot of classic Christmas books under the tree; it's always fun to pick one up and thumb through it. The books I usually put under my small tree here all Peter Pauper Press editions, which I have collected for many years; I particularly like their older books, many out of print now, from the 1940s through the 1960s, which are often beautifully typeset and simply yet elegantly decorated with woodcut illustrations. For example, I have a very nice PPP edition from 1965, with illustrations, of John Greenleaf Whitter's poem Snowbound.

Snow Lines

snowline, branch of tree
and cloud along the river,
ink pen on parchment





black water home
of mallards and geese—
the watchful fox



and mistletoe vines
among the bold oaks rising,
red berries splashing