A Change In The Weather

The land's been dry since the melting of all that snow. They say it's been the hottest May and early June in a great many years but I've been gone away watching the old one grow much older so I really can't relate. Now that I'm back, I'm frankly thrilled to find summer means business.

This afternoon I was indoors, hidden from the mosquitoes. They were so thick out there that to stand in one place for a few moments can attract hundreds, ("Let go of the hose and walk away! Ade! Let go of the hose and walk...away!")

I found myself watching the green treetops, fingering the overcast gray. They were tickling the underside of cloud cover. Tiny breezes. Not enough to waft away the buzzing clouds haunting the screens, but enough to make all visuals beyond the windows purely hypnotic.

I splayed my insides open a little further (been locked down such a long time, you know, staying still for the frail and elderly), and when I did, the breeze seemed to gather a little.

"Hell, widen up baby". The breeze snuck right on in through the parted window, across my belly, up into the opening parts of me, over my bare shoulders and down my back.

I thrust my chin upward and listened to the river clawing away at the banks. The score performed is a roiling symphony that when combined with robin song and that pervasive buzz at the screen, well, the sounds can just slide down into your veins. I let 'em have their way.

You know, I could tell without even peeking, that the breezes were picking up steam to perform a tiny miracle; a sudden dampness made every hair tingle.
The silver-dollar flat splats on the red steel roof were the tapping of as many raindrops as there were mosquitoes. The stinging nettled winged ones were backing off a little, shrinking and swirling into their myriad damp enclosures.

As the cold wet gift from heaven let spill its blessing through out the parched forest and across the river flat. A sharp, surprising, inhale reached out from below my navel.

And then the smell.

Oh the smell... a sweetness indescribable.

To Entertain New Ideas ///

"A Roman Holiday"...


The Song Is You.
The way HOME in June, by way of San Francisco.
The Island Institute 2009

Maori author Patricia Grace, winner of the 2008 Neustadt Laureate Award featured in World Literature Today.
Looking forward to learning more about Grace and Maori culture and the similarities to N.W. Coast cultures of the Pacific.

Three weeks ago, I visited with Nora Marks Dauenhauer in Klukwan, Ak. at the story teller's gathering held during the Culture Week celebration.

When she was speaking to a mixed age audience, it was the little kids up front that she was especially connecting with. This revered elder has a spark and gumption I've enjoyed at many potlatches over the years. She knows how to keep an audience listening.

She's led a remarkable life, focused as an anthropologist of Tlingit culture with her husband, Richard Dauenhauer. The two devoted decades to retaining her people's native oral tradition. Their careers are represented in numerous books and ambitious projects.

Nora, a fine writer and gifted poet, told the kids they could write about anything that interested them. Anything! You could tell they were really listening and thinking just what that would be.

The Mountains Behind Me

It feels at times
as though my crush-less shadow
turns to vapor amidst the sleeping sky
a cool, delicate waxy beauty
scenting the air

I am
jetting away from possibility
the possibility of elaborate skin together
here outside our lifetime
away in the surrounding mist