Humoring the Woods

Dog and I weave our way through giant spines of thorn to braid patience

Hare, tucks, bolts full speed and slides, wet between my ankles mistaking these brown rubber boots for tree trunks

Alive and still able to chase, Old Dog comes thundering up smiling, though visibly disappointed

~ Where's the Rabbit?~

All present, laughed

W.S. Merwin wrote in a poem called, "Separation":

"Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color."

Encouraged to Imagine

 I find myself wanting to return to the trusty old volumes of The Book of Knowledge, our family's oldest collection of child oriented encyclopedia, published in the U.S. in 1910 and purchased by our Great-Grandpa Rule for his kids.  He was an illiterate Cousin Jack who spent his childhood in the tin mines of Cornwall, England and immigrated to Upper Penninsula, Mich. to dig for copper as a young man. He wanted a richer life for his off spring.
In Sandy, Oregon, we Revenaugh kids poured over these richly illustrated, hardback books of wonder and delight. As far as we were concerned they defined the sole purpose of a Daveno, (best draped with a couple of sheets for private, hide-out reading together.) Those books, several blank sheets of paper, crayons and pencils kept us engrossed for hours. Add a mother, who could answer ANY question in great and engaging detail, and we had the finest early childhood education program available.

Plus, we were allowed to play in the woods for hours.

silver me away!

My friend, Garrison Keillor

inspiration, on going

and fine radio, too

Poetry Everywhere

Just look at the fun heading our way. Go ahead, click on it!

The trail ahead finds Poetry Everywhere

From the site, hosted by Garrison Kellior:

"WGBH and David Grubin Productions, in association with the Poetry Foundation, undertook this project in order to expose a diverse audience to a broad spectrum of poetic voices, build an appreciation and an audience for poetry, and increase the presence of poets and poetry within the two most ubiquitous media in American popular culture–the Web and TV. In addition to presentation on this Web site, the videos will appear on local public television stations at unexpected moments during their broadcast schedules. The partners hope that poetry will become a permanent part of the PBS landscape, offering moments of meditation and even revelation throughout the day.

The poetry films of Seamus Heaney, Philip Levine, and Charles Simic were created by Leita Luchetti.

Independent of the videos created for PBS, 34 animated films were created by students working with docUWM, a documentary media center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the university’s creative writing program, in association with the Poetry Foundation. Aiming to focus a new generation of filmmakers on poetry as subject matter, the project encouraged film students to read widely from the canon of contemporary poetry and, working closely with poets and scholars, effectively translate poetry to the screen using an array of film and animation techniques. The student-produced films were supervised by Liam Callanan, a creative writing professor at the UW-Milwaukee School of Letters and Science, and Brad Lichtenstein, a Peck School of the Arts film instructor."

Watch, listen, enjoy.

New Comer

Little Bear from Yukon Territory.

Tawny and the Winged Tiger

Five train cars loaded with ammonia washed into the Upper Sacramento affecting all things downstream. Tawny left when the river flooded. Her kin knew sickness, driven by greed and chilled by blindness. An ancient survival mechanism was terribly awry.

Many determined footsteps led North. She slowed when hemlock met the salty shore. Paused next to breathe the air from crowns of wild ice. Tawny opened her shoulder sack for water and nuts near tree line. With her snowshoes stuck down into the slope she suspended her legs above the wet. Crunching and listening to the forest, she inhaled the only sunny patch on the hillside.

Then, Mountain Dweller, the Great Horned Owl invited her to nest. His courting song, resonant, deep and complicated, rumbled her core. He and the afternoon wind promised to share a stable fragility.

Hidden from the bright light filling his home, food from every forest niche lay in storage boxes. His orange face and gentle accomplished manner sparked and challenged; a mentor offering to teach her the finesse of survival.

Starlight and the snowy moon were used for hunting. Dawn found them processing their catch; rabbit, fish, grouse. January brought them three eggs, so their afternoons were spent nesting. The lovers shared the effort by plucking down or tufting fur to insulate the quiet, white orbs.

A weight filled their hearts when nothing resulted from these efforts and a ritual dinner was made from the eggs. They promised to try again next year. Over many seasons of failed hatches, they finally accepted this fate.

Mountain Dweller told the story of his long ago wives who came to the forest during unusually lean years in their village. They had repeatedly broken the law, taking more than they needed and at the threshold of their womanhood were banished, ordered to leave to subsist on their own.

From his perch, he watched, enamored by their determination. They accepted his invitation to share the homes he’d built and to learn the great secrets of subsisting lightly and well.

Eventually the women were needed to care for their aging relatives. He requested they return and pay off their debt. He sent them with a thimble size basket, woven long ago, magically holding an ample supply of meats and fruit; love from the forest. Down through the decades of great ice and the years of wild change, Mountain Dweller, in his solitary, generous way, helped to steady the beat.

It was time for Tawny to go. To find a way to teach the youth from where she’d come. Back in the city she kept her bushy tail tucked beneath britches and a skirt.

The Path Ahead

So, my Cadillac arrived early last fall. It's an inheritance gift provided by my frugal Momma, T.M. Revenaugh.

Back in 1947, as a newlywed, she traveled several hundred miles from Adrian to her childhood home of Calumet, Mich. with R.L. Revenaugh on twin Schwinns.
The plan after the shakedown cruise, was to pedal across the continent to Eugene, Oregon. There Richard would complete his senior year at the U. of O.
T.M. had graduated the year before with plans to become a college professor of English Lit.
They quickly found that the shake down cruise to the U.P. was plenty. They loaded the bikes on a Greyhound bus and headed west in late August.

Until her dying day, Mom maintained that the trip set the stage for the next 20 years! I'm ready for a similar experience.

My beauty is a Kona Ute, the SUV's of road bikes.

I was able to give it a few test runs along the highway, enough to know I was hooked on the notion of distance biking with a fine piece of equipment.

So, come spring, cycling the 39 miles from our homestead to town along the Haines Hwy. will allow me to train and see what I've got. The Ute can carry an additional 100 lbs. distributed between the panniers and across the fin-deck.

I'd like to take on the Golden Circle route up through B.C. to the Yukon, across and down to Skagway in time for the North Words Writer's Symposium in July.

The BIG TRIP ~via~ the rails-to-trails from Alaska to the mid-west is still shimmering on the horizon (I've skeins of yarn to spin and dye - Farmer's Market and shops to supply. Best get to Kraken!)

Here's a hats off to all Alaskan writers. 49 Writers , is fine portal to explore.

Also, special nods to Sockeye Cycle. Those inclined towards learning more about cycling through our region will enjoy the images and information offered by our local cycle shop.

Big happy January planning to you each!

Night is peaceful for the four older barn residents now that Ivy's taken Merrel back to town. The heavy reminder of buck will scent the farm for months to come but the shaggy little fellow infused the entire valley, one doe at a time, with limitless potential for milk and kids.

Tonight, her sleeping bag lies stretched across the rug next to the triple glass door. Ragged white peaks beyond are domed, vast, jetblack, alive with the Geminid meteor shower.

From The Blue Room

Light from the stove sparks and crackles along with a vision of next year.

She's goat packing up the steep terrain. Someone who'll keep the embers stirred for morning coffee is laughing and telling great stories. The heat of summer and heavy exertion demands an evening swim. The kid-like pleasure of shared company has made them both drunk and daring; happy.

The four-leggeds browse through the endless twilight.

December Boost: On Creativity and Perseverance

This is wonderful.

A Talk With Alice Munro

Find time to read this recent interview by Lisa Dickler Awano with Alice Munro in the Virginia Quarterly.

Awano takes us into a candid discussion with the author about writing and Munro's recent canon, Too Much Happiness, which is newly out in paperback. A provocative 2009 review of the book at the N.Y.Times, by Leah Hager Cohen can be found here.

I'd also like to ante-up fresh links to The Poetry Foundation, a constant source of entertainment and my ongoing appreciation for The Writer's Almanac, introducing it's readers to great writing daily.

The Taste of Place

In mid-October, I step

outdoors. A tang hangs

thick in the air. High-bush

cranberry presses past

ripe, beyond sour. Ash

and willow leaves yellow

on mud. Saturday's snow

soaked by rain. Chill from

the forest heard asking ~ How

do I bottle October? How

will it taste?

Scanty Dancing

From The Blue Room

dappled delight
we lay on turf and lichen
bathed in a blue penetration
of bottomless sky, a brilliant
open consumption after which
we could only surrender
to napping

Catching The Updrafts

From The Blue Room

There are days that being with others is preferred over the richness of time spent alone.
Take the fair, for instance. The days spent at the fair are expected to be full on people-time, often late into the night; dancing and visiting, listening to good music and cheering until you're hoarse.
Twilight gives up around midnight, here in the North, for a brief hour or so of semi-darkness. I'd return to the cozy barn after dancing and it was then that I'd walk Jacquie-goat through-out the abandoned fairgrounds. She'd browse among the alder and I'd feel the glow of my tired body looking forward to the camper and sleeping bag.
Our movable feast proved to be highly mobile. The first two milking sessions away from home were without a stanchion, mama-goat tied to the stall. Visions of us camping along the trail kept me excited the whole weekend.
The crowds loved her. She was quiet and attentive, drawing in even the youngest who were asking questions and holding fireweed for her munch.

Then, there was performing Sam Clemens'Mountain Goat for Geppetto's Junkyard Puppet Show.

More on that tomorrow...

My best birthday wishes to Garrison Keillor and may
The Summer Love Tour be a great success.

(I love and live by what Mrs. Sundberg had to say last week.)

From The Blue Room

Gathering

From The Blue Room

An auspicious cluster

Tracks Back

We're traveling to Bakersfield to pay tribute
from all points across the continent

Family by relation
Family by choice
Family by happenstance - as much one as the other

We're her six adult children
who's subsequent offspring range
from children and early adolescents through
forty-somethings, each curious

Enough to put our lives on hold,
we'll get together
for a week

We're adoptees
from forty years ago plus
Significant others, new loves and old

We're continuing devotion
to a lady whose home was acceptance
Multiple time zones traveled,
to the little bungalow's front yard

The San Joaquin Valley in July

All are welcome

Always were

Damp morning urge ~ my senses startle in such calm


New delights, discovered ~
Blackbird ~ Foreward

Summertime ~ Haines, Alaska

From dawn's whispering in the doon

Swollen Klehini by Micah

From dawn's whispering in the doon

Klehini Dawn by Micah

Whisperings

I wandered for many years
After leaving the dusty world,
Then built a cozy home
On the blue mountain.
Loving fidelity, I plant a
Thousand bamboos
And a hundred foot pine
As symbols of my integrity.
I plant mums around the wall,
I'm comfortably secluded;
I recite poems in the moonlight;
The sound is crisp and clean.
There's no pleasure like growing
Old on the mountain.
Why should I go crazy
When the road is blocked?

- Buhyu Sunsoo (1543-1615)

From The Blue Room

Morning ~ by Micah

Mother's Day ~ 2010

Aboard The Yonder on Glassy Waters

A Young Wet Visitor

From The Blue Room

Beached for Dinner

From The Blue Room

Merrick-girl at the Oars

From The Blue Room

Jeff Takes a Turn

From The Blue Room

Captain Joe

From The Blue Room

What a day!