Sparky had had the run of the place, entertaining his humans, and living the good life. That is, until the humans' puppy came. They called it “Baby” and a lot of other names, making funny faces as they mouthed the words, so he knew they were words meaning they loved the human puppy more than they loved him. They’d used some of those words and made faces at him when he first came to the house, but not nearly as much as now, with their new hairless and smelly human puppy.
He’d sulked and moped a bit the first few weeks of “Baby’s” intrusion into his world. At first, the big humans watched Sparky, afraid he’d hurt their new puppy. But, after a while, after looking at what the new human puppy did, and didn’t do, Sparky nearly lost interest in it. All it seemed to do was drink from the strange bottles the female human gave him, make horrendously smelly piles of poop (which the humans seemed to hoard in various containers around the house, before throwing them out in the trash can in the alley), and cry loudly and often, mostly in the night.
Still, Sparky didn’t feel too put out. He still got his food twice a day, and all the scratches behind the ears and the pets he wanted. The humans still took him out on walks to his favorite places to smell and pee. They’d tried to make him sleep on the floor in the kitchen, but after a couple of nights of whining and yelping, he’d wormed his way back to his favorite place on the foot of the masters’ bed. Sparky early on had mastered his technique of looking sad and pitiful when the masters tried to change his routine, or didn’t give him enough of his treats. He’d gotten them trained early on and they still responded to his commands.
In fact, since “Baby’s” arrival a month ago, Sparky had managed to score a significant increase in the number and amount of treats he got every day, mostly by looking especially sad and pitiful when the masters were holding the baby, trying to keep it from crying all night long. Still, he wondered why they kept the thing around. It didn’t do any useful task, and couldn’t even fetch a ball or alert the masters that there was a tom cat roaming the alley at night. All it did was eat, poop, cry, and sleep. There was no purpose to this new thing, but he’d long ago given up trying to make sense of most things his masters did. As long as they kept his food bowl full and took him out on walks every day, he’d be content to put up with most of their odd ways.
Unlike any of the puppies he’d known in his life, even back in the big place he was born, where there were lots of puppies and big dogs, this “Baby” was so dumb. It didn’t seem to even figure out where the food was. Instead of feeding itself from the food bowl, it would just lie there, crying and yelling, at any hour of the day, wanting food. Even a new puppy soon figured out how to fill its empty belly, and would scamper around the house until it found its mama’s swollen teat or the bowl of food that was always filled up by humans, every single day. And, any self respecting dog would quickly figure out how to whine and look pathetic and hungry, in order to get a human to open up the treat sack and give the dog a treat. And, it wasn’t much more of a stretch to convince more than one human that treats were needed, even though another human had given them a handful just a few minutes before.
But this human puppy, it was just worthless.
Sparky couldn’t take its stupidity or laziness any longer. After filling his belly at the food bowl, he took a lone kibble in his lips and brought it over to the “Baby”. It was doing its usual stupid trick of lying on its back and waving all of its paws in the air, making odd cooing and gurgling noises. Sparky hoped that if he put the kibble down by the baby, it might even figure out that there was food in the house, and all it had to do was get its pudgy self over to the bowl, and it wouldn’t have to cry or howl anymore, just to fill its belly. He dropped the kibble by the “Baby’s” head; narrowly avoiding getting his ears grabbed by the “Baby’s” front paw, and stepped away. The “Baby” just looked at him and at the kibble, drool pouring out of its mouth, and it just babbled on.
“I give up”, Sparky thought. “This thing is dumber than I’d thought. It can’t even figure out how to feed itself when there’s a full bowl of food just across the room.”
6/09
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Finding My Peace In A Far Away Place
Three hundred some miles from home and I am standing in a desert, looking out into a pond filled with birds of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some are staying for the summer, and others are just moving through.
It is the end of May and it already feels like summer in southeastern Oregon. Hot and dry. Dry enough that I feel the water escape into the air from my skin, my nose, even my throat when I say a few words about the birds to my friend. The sky is summer brilliant blue, and already, in the mid morning, a few white clouds are growing, promising to be thunderheads, heavy and black, by mid afternoon. The air is rich with juniper, sagebrush, and the funky wet smell of the pond and the nearby slow moving river. It is the Blitzen, German for lightning, which will come this afternoon. Already, thunder rolls from a black cloud growing high over the mountains, carried on the wind to the pond, promising a cooler, sultry afternoon and maybe even rain.
This is the Malheur wildlife refuge, which takes in Malheur Lake and the rivers that feed into it, from the north and the south. Malheur is French for "misfortune" or “bad hour” and probably some other not so literal translations. The lake lacks an outlet to the sea, and is alkali and, especially in low water years such as this year, a bit thick with minerals and the skanky algae that thrives in brackish water.
Yet, this is not "misfortune" or a “bad hour” here. The river runs with fresh snowmelt from the nearby Steens Mountain, a nearly 10,000 foot fault block that runs for twenty some miles. The mountain robs almost all of the rain out of the prevailing westerly winds, making the land east of the summit a true desert, where brittle alkali and borax run ten miles, paralleling the summit.
White snowfields shine bright even from my low vantage point, and the marshes are thick with cattails, willows, sedges, and thick grasses growing fast in the wet and the heat of the May runoff. In the middle of this desert, life explodes here. Birds eat fast and furious, fueling up as they build nests and raise their young, or pause to refuel in the midst of their migration. Alaska and Patagonia are not unknown destinations here, for many of these birds. "Misfortune" or “bad hour” is a place of good times, and every year, they keep coming back.
Birdsong fills the marshes and the river, and the flights of ducks, Arctic swans, white pelicans, red wing blackbirds and the rarer yellow headed blackbirds offer the viewer a constant show. As we drive along the now dusty gravel road that runs for forty miles down to Frenchglen, flocks of graceful avocets burst up from the ditches and the river grass, their arched beaks a shiny black, their backs a shiny coppery armor, and the upper side of their wings a subtle black green. If you see them in their normal pose, hunched over, their beaks working a muddy shallow, they look rusty, almost bronze. But now, in startled flight, the greens and the copper red give this bird more complexity than I’d noticed before.
And that is the message today. Out here in what looks like a dull, lifeless, sun-baked desert, there is complexity and richness that lies just below the surface, just a few minutes of patience before one answers the call of the road, before we move on. If one waits, then the Arctic tern will suddenly dive bomb into the pond, snatching a small fish or even a frog. Mr. Jackrabbit will bound out of the brush, looking startled with his big brown eyes, and giant ears turning to catch the latest news of the marsh.
In all this noise, this music of the birds and the slowly moving water, seeping north from the snowfields, through the reeds and warm mud, there is quiet. There is time to think, without the distractions of home, of city life and traffic. Here, there is hot sunlight, building clouds, and life. We are all visitors here, the birds and I just flying through, on our separate journeys. Even the jackrabbit and the ginkos are on the move. In a really dry year, this pond may not fill, and will lie fallow, the reeds sleeping out the season, hoping for more snow and rain next winter. Or, the biologists may close a gate, directing Lightning River to another field, another pond.
All of this country was once a series of ranches, homesteaded by hardworking immigrants, families who had moved West hoping for a bright future. They brushed up against Peter French, an entrepreneur who thrived on building the biggest ranch in Oregon, supplying California with beef. The other ranchers stood in his way, and he wasn’t much for honoring land claims and fences. He left his mark on the area. The Round Barn, the Long Barn, and the town of Frenchglen remain tributes to his legacy. He was famously murdered, and not all of his neighbors had regrets.
Then, later, the government took a stand, and began to protect the birds and the lake, and to manage the meager water supplies from the rivers, and the wildlife refuge grew. The ranchers and the biologists seemed to have little in common, until they realized they all loved the land, but just showed their love in different ways. Peace came slowly to this area; everyone finding that fighting over what they all needed wasn’t a good plan, not when they needed each other, just to survive.
And, now the great grandchildren of the first ranchers run the hotels and the visitors centers and the cafes where the birders come and spend their money. And cattle still graze and water still flows, and the antelope graze in the alfalfa. And, the birds still come every year, and feed in the fields and the marshes, and nibble a bit on the long rolls of hay kept by the ranchers in the open fields. And, the birders eat the steaks from the ranchers and the water grows the alfalfa and protects the nesting sites for the ducks. And, no one seems to have time to argue about any of that anymore.
I think of all this, running through my brain, as I gaze out into the marsh, taking in the richness of life here. And, in all of this, I find a bit of myself, and a bit of peace. At least in this far away corner of the world, life makes sense.
It is the end of May and it already feels like summer in southeastern Oregon. Hot and dry. Dry enough that I feel the water escape into the air from my skin, my nose, even my throat when I say a few words about the birds to my friend. The sky is summer brilliant blue, and already, in the mid morning, a few white clouds are growing, promising to be thunderheads, heavy and black, by mid afternoon. The air is rich with juniper, sagebrush, and the funky wet smell of the pond and the nearby slow moving river. It is the Blitzen, German for lightning, which will come this afternoon. Already, thunder rolls from a black cloud growing high over the mountains, carried on the wind to the pond, promising a cooler, sultry afternoon and maybe even rain.
This is the Malheur wildlife refuge, which takes in Malheur Lake and the rivers that feed into it, from the north and the south. Malheur is French for "misfortune" or “bad hour” and probably some other not so literal translations. The lake lacks an outlet to the sea, and is alkali and, especially in low water years such as this year, a bit thick with minerals and the skanky algae that thrives in brackish water.
Yet, this is not "misfortune" or a “bad hour” here. The river runs with fresh snowmelt from the nearby Steens Mountain, a nearly 10,000 foot fault block that runs for twenty some miles. The mountain robs almost all of the rain out of the prevailing westerly winds, making the land east of the summit a true desert, where brittle alkali and borax run ten miles, paralleling the summit.
White snowfields shine bright even from my low vantage point, and the marshes are thick with cattails, willows, sedges, and thick grasses growing fast in the wet and the heat of the May runoff. In the middle of this desert, life explodes here. Birds eat fast and furious, fueling up as they build nests and raise their young, or pause to refuel in the midst of their migration. Alaska and Patagonia are not unknown destinations here, for many of these birds. "Misfortune" or “bad hour” is a place of good times, and every year, they keep coming back.
Birdsong fills the marshes and the river, and the flights of ducks, Arctic swans, white pelicans, red wing blackbirds and the rarer yellow headed blackbirds offer the viewer a constant show. As we drive along the now dusty gravel road that runs for forty miles down to Frenchglen, flocks of graceful avocets burst up from the ditches and the river grass, their arched beaks a shiny black, their backs a shiny coppery armor, and the upper side of their wings a subtle black green. If you see them in their normal pose, hunched over, their beaks working a muddy shallow, they look rusty, almost bronze. But now, in startled flight, the greens and the copper red give this bird more complexity than I’d noticed before.
And that is the message today. Out here in what looks like a dull, lifeless, sun-baked desert, there is complexity and richness that lies just below the surface, just a few minutes of patience before one answers the call of the road, before we move on. If one waits, then the Arctic tern will suddenly dive bomb into the pond, snatching a small fish or even a frog. Mr. Jackrabbit will bound out of the brush, looking startled with his big brown eyes, and giant ears turning to catch the latest news of the marsh.
In all this noise, this music of the birds and the slowly moving water, seeping north from the snowfields, through the reeds and warm mud, there is quiet. There is time to think, without the distractions of home, of city life and traffic. Here, there is hot sunlight, building clouds, and life. We are all visitors here, the birds and I just flying through, on our separate journeys. Even the jackrabbit and the ginkos are on the move. In a really dry year, this pond may not fill, and will lie fallow, the reeds sleeping out the season, hoping for more snow and rain next winter. Or, the biologists may close a gate, directing Lightning River to another field, another pond.
All of this country was once a series of ranches, homesteaded by hardworking immigrants, families who had moved West hoping for a bright future. They brushed up against Peter French, an entrepreneur who thrived on building the biggest ranch in Oregon, supplying California with beef. The other ranchers stood in his way, and he wasn’t much for honoring land claims and fences. He left his mark on the area. The Round Barn, the Long Barn, and the town of Frenchglen remain tributes to his legacy. He was famously murdered, and not all of his neighbors had regrets.
Then, later, the government took a stand, and began to protect the birds and the lake, and to manage the meager water supplies from the rivers, and the wildlife refuge grew. The ranchers and the biologists seemed to have little in common, until they realized they all loved the land, but just showed their love in different ways. Peace came slowly to this area; everyone finding that fighting over what they all needed wasn’t a good plan, not when they needed each other, just to survive.
And, now the great grandchildren of the first ranchers run the hotels and the visitors centers and the cafes where the birders come and spend their money. And cattle still graze and water still flows, and the antelope graze in the alfalfa. And, the birds still come every year, and feed in the fields and the marshes, and nibble a bit on the long rolls of hay kept by the ranchers in the open fields. And, the birders eat the steaks from the ranchers and the water grows the alfalfa and protects the nesting sites for the ducks. And, no one seems to have time to argue about any of that anymore.
I think of all this, running through my brain, as I gaze out into the marsh, taking in the richness of life here. And, in all of this, I find a bit of myself, and a bit of peace. At least in this far away corner of the world, life makes sense.
Monday, May 25, 2009
In Flanders fields
In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
in Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with our foe:
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high. If
ye break faith with us who die We
shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Flanders fields.
---Canadian Lt. Col. John McCrae
after the Battle of Ypres, Belgium, 1915
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
in Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with our foe:
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high. If
ye break faith with us who die We
shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Flanders fields.
---Canadian Lt. Col. John McCrae
after the Battle of Ypres, Belgium, 1915
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Witnessing
They stand there
every Sunday morning
witnesses
in black—
Their signs
“Peace” “Justice”
giving them voice, giving me
pause.
To the tourists and the families going to church
And the grocery shoppers like me
They speak, in silence
yet shouting,
shouting that the wars
this country is fighting
might make no sense
and there are other choices—
perhaps we should think about that
at least until the light turns green.
They stand there
black clothes, white signs
stark in the spring sunshine, blue sky.
This week, the lawyers and the colonels
and the former vice president
still defend our government’s torture
and imprisonment without
trial, without
witnesses.
and, perhaps,
we should think about
that.
The light turns green, and I move on down the street
to put away my bananas and olives
to plant my geraniums, and
cry.
May, 2009
every Sunday morning
witnesses
in black—
Their signs
“Peace” “Justice”
giving them voice, giving me
pause.
To the tourists and the families going to church
And the grocery shoppers like me
They speak, in silence
yet shouting,
shouting that the wars
this country is fighting
might make no sense
and there are other choices—
perhaps we should think about that
at least until the light turns green.
They stand there
black clothes, white signs
stark in the spring sunshine, blue sky.
This week, the lawyers and the colonels
and the former vice president
still defend our government’s torture
and imprisonment without
trial, without
witnesses.
and, perhaps,
we should think about
that.
The light turns green, and I move on down the street
to put away my bananas and olives
to plant my geraniums, and
cry.
May, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
A Retreat, A Finding
Retreat
but not really
I am still here, and the world still exists—
yet, I have run away, and the to do list is left at home
and the pile at work now lies unattended.
Nearby, the ocean waves crash, and the late afternoon wind blows
and songs and poems and other thoughts stir to life
and may find themselves flung by the Muse
onto my lap, and in need of being expressed
in whatever form may come about today.
Stripped of my daily duties, I find myself light and unburdened,
ready to take in the offerings of the Muse and
wrestle the thoughts that fly through
down onto the page, brought to light
at last.
Warrior poet that I am, ready for this battle
it is time to let the fresh wind blow
taking the stink of too many rainy days of late
and wipe away the dust, and move the rubble out.
Begone. I am free.
Down to the bones, down to the simple notes of the melody
the beat of the drum, the clear pickings of the guitar—
time for what needs to be heard, to be written
and nothing else.
Today, not a retreat, but a cleansing, a
finding.
5/09
but not really
I am still here, and the world still exists—
yet, I have run away, and the to do list is left at home
and the pile at work now lies unattended.
Nearby, the ocean waves crash, and the late afternoon wind blows
and songs and poems and other thoughts stir to life
and may find themselves flung by the Muse
onto my lap, and in need of being expressed
in whatever form may come about today.
Stripped of my daily duties, I find myself light and unburdened,
ready to take in the offerings of the Muse and
wrestle the thoughts that fly through
down onto the page, brought to light
at last.
Warrior poet that I am, ready for this battle
it is time to let the fresh wind blow
taking the stink of too many rainy days of late
and wipe away the dust, and move the rubble out.
Begone. I am free.
Down to the bones, down to the simple notes of the melody
the beat of the drum, the clear pickings of the guitar—
time for what needs to be heard, to be written
and nothing else.
Today, not a retreat, but a cleansing, a
finding.
5/09
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Country Walk, Country Tune
Real Spring is finally here, the kind of day where you aren’t bundled up in fleece and the first shoots of green leaves aren’t covered with frost. The wind doesn’t slice through you, biting at your skin.
It is the kind of day where a walk through the woods finds your nose smelling a light sweetness, and you think you are dreaming of honey soaked cookies fresh from the oven. No, it really is the smell of a wild flower, floating on the warm breeze along the trail by the river. Foliage is bursting out all over, delicate leaves and tiny flowers on nearly everything that is coming up from the dark richness of the forest soil.
The river races by below me, still fresh with the yesterday’s rain, but clearing, with the rocky pools a deep green, even a bit of blue, and the sun filters through the newly opened leaves of the alders, and the new, tight buds of the Douglas firs.
My camera and I enjoy the walk along the trail, taking in the trilliums, the bleeding hearts, and even the new Johnny Jump-ups, while the new fiddles of the sworn ferns and princess ferns unfurl. All too soon, the forest floor and this path will be shaded by the broad leaves of the Big Leaf Maples, the vine maples, and the alders towering above them. But, today, the white drooping flowers of the Big Leafs and the delicate double red flowers of the vine maple show their colors, and take center stage.
My leg muscles stretch and strain a bit, getting used to the slope of the trail and the newness of an hour hiking, and its warm enough that I sweat a bit, breathing in the sweet scent of flowers and the earthy river water, tumbling across the boulders and basaltic ledges of the river bed, washed nearly clean with last winter’s floods.
In a bit, I’ll be picking my guitar, and finding chords for old country songs, and waltzes, feeling the rich, long notes of the fiddle, and the high, sweet notes of a mandolin will fill my heart with songs of joy, of old times. And, the warmth of the day will be felt on my guitar and the sweetness of the wildflowers will sing through my heart, as I raise my voice with the others, sharing our chorus of the old country tune.
May, 2009
It is the kind of day where a walk through the woods finds your nose smelling a light sweetness, and you think you are dreaming of honey soaked cookies fresh from the oven. No, it really is the smell of a wild flower, floating on the warm breeze along the trail by the river. Foliage is bursting out all over, delicate leaves and tiny flowers on nearly everything that is coming up from the dark richness of the forest soil.
The river races by below me, still fresh with the yesterday’s rain, but clearing, with the rocky pools a deep green, even a bit of blue, and the sun filters through the newly opened leaves of the alders, and the new, tight buds of the Douglas firs.
My camera and I enjoy the walk along the trail, taking in the trilliums, the bleeding hearts, and even the new Johnny Jump-ups, while the new fiddles of the sworn ferns and princess ferns unfurl. All too soon, the forest floor and this path will be shaded by the broad leaves of the Big Leaf Maples, the vine maples, and the alders towering above them. But, today, the white drooping flowers of the Big Leafs and the delicate double red flowers of the vine maple show their colors, and take center stage.
My leg muscles stretch and strain a bit, getting used to the slope of the trail and the newness of an hour hiking, and its warm enough that I sweat a bit, breathing in the sweet scent of flowers and the earthy river water, tumbling across the boulders and basaltic ledges of the river bed, washed nearly clean with last winter’s floods.
In a bit, I’ll be picking my guitar, and finding chords for old country songs, and waltzes, feeling the rich, long notes of the fiddle, and the high, sweet notes of a mandolin will fill my heart with songs of joy, of old times. And, the warmth of the day will be felt on my guitar and the sweetness of the wildflowers will sing through my heart, as I raise my voice with the others, sharing our chorus of the old country tune.
May, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Poetry Concord, 2009
Poetry Concord, 2009
We are all poets here, in this room
listening as one after another of us
Reads---
And, we look into each other’s hearts
as each word is shared, each phrase
taking us deeper and deeper into
another’s soul.
Some use rhyme, others metaphor---
All
baring chests, inviting me in
where few have been.
Courage and drama and excitement
all mix together, as the dances of words
moves along—
new territory.
No longer just people in a room on a blustery spring day,
people who choose to ignore the ocean and the beach fifty yards away
to spend our day focusing on words and alliterations
and souls opened wide by our listening
by them taking us into them, into their lives.
Hours later, the words still rumble
deep in my gut, bloodying my heart
their echoes bouncing and crashing
like the waves on the beach below.
4/09
We are all poets here, in this room
listening as one after another of us
Reads---
And, we look into each other’s hearts
as each word is shared, each phrase
taking us deeper and deeper into
another’s soul.
Some use rhyme, others metaphor---
All
baring chests, inviting me in
where few have been.
Courage and drama and excitement
all mix together, as the dances of words
moves along—
new territory.
No longer just people in a room on a blustery spring day,
people who choose to ignore the ocean and the beach fifty yards away
to spend our day focusing on words and alliterations
and souls opened wide by our listening
by them taking us into them, into their lives.
Hours later, the words still rumble
deep in my gut, bloodying my heart
their echoes bouncing and crashing
like the waves on the beach below.
4/09
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