Snow Day (12/07/13)

Woke up to a new world outside...gorgeous. Have a look:

Melina's garden through the window...

Closer...

Goin' out to have a look around...

 
 For Christmas!

 Does Zane like snow? Oh, I think so, yes.

 Something interesting down there (dog as snowplow)!

Wallowing in it!

 Does Melina like snow? Take a guess...

The mill office - looking good  in the snow

Even the chain link fence around the chicken yard looks good with snow (fractal fantasy)

Snow creates new scenes of beauty

Blessed with a patch of blue

Garden plot moguls

Look at the way the snow built up on my pots (thanks to lack of wind)

 
The place viewed from the East

Melina's garden

Melina tried it barefoot for while (I think she liked it!)

Grape vines & planter

Melina with Zane charging ahead

 


View from the mailboxes (can you guess which one is ours?)

House of the rising...snow!

Snow dusts some ceramic tile  (salvaged when the older parts of Gilroy High School were torn down)

Just us...

Garden Update

Melina has been digging garden plots for onions and garlic. This involves excavating them down about a foot so you can put in an anti-gopher mesh - then shoveling all the dirt back in. Today we put row cover over the plots to protect the new sprouts from cold weather and the deer.

 

Veteran's Day

Let me be clear. I have neither regrets nor any particular pride about my service (almost 3 years). I did not volunteer or get drafted. I signed up because in 1964, out of college and unmarried, I was very likely to be drafted and if I signed up instead, I could get training in a field of my choice. I chose photography, and I could have stayed on at the army photography school in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey as an instructor if I hadn't been such a f*k-up (I actually did teach for a while). And so, to get rid of me, I was sent to Vietnam, where I did two 9 month tours. The first, shooting 16mm movies and regular photos for the 9th Signal Corps (from combat to "shake & grin"), and second, doing graphics in a print shop for the 6th Psyops Battalion in Bien Hoa (operations included leaflets dropped from airplanes). The second tour was optional, but the thought of returning to an army base in the US for a year did not appeal to me.

There are a lot of stories behind those tours, but long-story-short, I got out alive. And with a few photos taken by others to show I was there (see below). They all are from my first tour as a photographer for the 9th Infantry Division, located in the Mekong River delta area, a land of rice paddies, sloughs, rivers, mud, and monsoon rains.

I am sorry about the people that didn't make it back and those that didn't last long after they did (I knew both kinds), and those that were messed up - mentally or physically, or both, from the experience). It was a strange and bumpy time in American history and one we seemed doomed to repeat every few years.

I acknowledge with appreciation people's thanks for my service. I did try to do a good job.

1. I am embarrassed by this photo - it's the obligatory variation on the "macho idiot" pose taken by many not long after arriving and before we came to realize what kind of war we were involved in (that's a subject for another day). The M-16 rifle I was brandishing was soon replaced by a holstered .45 M1911 sidearm - try holding a rifle and using a movie camera...it doesn't work).

 2. The original Signal Corps photo crew. I can still put names to most of them.

 3. Out on a job.
 

Checking out a VC tunnel complex. No, I didn't find it or clear it. I was sent there to cover General Westmoreland's visit. One photo I took of him, sighting a VC sniper rifle, was published in Newsweek magazine, back then a competitor of Time magazine.

 

An underground VC weapons cache (I'm way in back).

  
6. Slogging through the delta while on an operation (Yes, I did a fair amount of slogging).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and home again home again jiggity jig...

 

Good Morning to Me!

Zane

Or, Zane Grey to be fully correct - a noble beast, a fine hound, who also goes by the nicknames of Fuzzy, Fuzzy Butt, Snarfy, Chompy, and many others, depending on how we interpret his moods and actions. Melina raised him from a small pup. I got to know him when he was about a year old, and I love him dearly, too.

In the morning, he stands watch, alerting us with a deep growl  if deer, turkeys, squirrels, birds, or other critters dares violate the sanctity of our property. He doesn't like that at all, no, and he is very diligent!

He wakes Melina by throwing himself against her and rolling around ("Oh" he says, with mischievous, twinkling eyes..."did I wake you?")

and generally acting a little crazed (you do know a crazed eye when you see it?).

Other times, he can be a benign and thoughtful companion...

 Unless you mess with his Kong! DON'T mess with the KONG (pay attention to the flattened ears and the "I mean business" eyes). So don't, just don't... don't even think about it!).

 

Oh, another thing about Zane. His nose is very sensitive to bacon. He loves bacon for breakfast.

 But then, who doesn't?

Invocation (for Mariposa) 10/07/13

Ah, this country,
where one has to dream of clouds...

I want to know the smell
of rain.
Let there be rain,
Let there be rain.

Oh, this house,
where the dry and weathered walls
still need a coat of paint,
and the roof a shingle or two...

But Your will,
not mine.

Oh, let there be rain,
I've been dreaming of rain.

The Other Life (for Melina) 10/07/13

In the darkness
of our warm ocean bed,
sometimes,
I find your hand and discover
it is a delicate wing,
or a seashell,
a bleached bone,
or a piece of weathered driftwood
from that sunlit and unknown shore
where you and I
make our other life
together

Genesis Meditation 10/07/13

Yes,
even before they were conceived,
they wanted to fly.
So, He gave them wings - that is, 
they were given wings

They wanted to run,
so He gave them hooves - that is, 
they were given hooves.

And we wanted to make.
So He gave us hands - that is,
we were given hands.

But wait, there's more...

We wanted to ascend,
so He gave us souls - that is,
we were given souls.

And with souls, we wanted to pray.
So He gave us hearts - that is,
we were given hearts.

And so, do ya see?
to whom do I pray?

But, do ya see?
to whom do I pray?

Jesus, they've whittled down to a man,
a cozy friend, offering a warm beverage
and some good advice.
And God,
whose circumference is nowhere
and a center that is everywhere,
is surely somewhere, but
I can't find anywhere.

And so,
to whom do I pray?
Who listens to my prayers?
Do ya see?

Simple

It's 4 AM and things seems pretty simple:
in this life I need a woman.
It isn't so much a case
of who I would chose,
but more about who would choose
to stay... to endure
with me.
Still, it seems to make sense,
male and female,
joining.
That's what this world is for.
If not, then everything stops.
It's not for me to judge this.
I did not make the rules.
Still, people debate,
attachment, non-attachment -
as if choosing one
will change anything:
the wave becomes a trough, the trough a wave;
it's still just salt water.

I thought this poem would turn out differently -
I thought it would be about me,
and my questions,
my aches and pains.
But look what has shown up instead:
the blue light of dawn,
a new day.

But the day will  have to wait.
For now, I return to bed and
the heat, the flesh and fur, the wondrous face
of the woman called Melina.

My Father

Found this old Polaroid of my Dad, sent to me while I was in Viet Nam (1966 or so). Mom must have taken it. He is standing in front of a couple-three oak-studded acres on the Sacramento River up by Anderson (near Redding) that he bought maybe for retirement. He was about 61 in this photo, born in 1905; a good man and I wish I had gotten to know him better - 39 years separated us and our differences seemed big at the time (in retrospect, they weren't - we both had a lot to learn). The property is long gone, but I thought I'd take a new picture - me at the gate of the place Melina and I have here in Mariposa... kind of an homage. So, here's to you, Pop, I miss you, I love you. 

Note: The Polaroid photo (top) has the typical fuzziness (they didn't put very good lenses on their consumer products).
Post note: Dad hunted the Calochortus (Mariposa Lilly) in its many forms, taking photos.  Here in Mariposa we will be planting a little garden of Calochortus, in honor of my father and his fondness for Mariposa lillies.

Question

Is it a sign of Fall,
or the end of Summer, when
the scent of the pines
is no longer their sweat,
in the early heat of the day
but their sweet breath,
exhaling in delight
at the this fine, cool morning?

Dappled

Out the window
dappled bark on the sycamore
dappled sun on the bark
a brown leaf falling

In the Middle of the Night 083013

I rise in the middle of the night,
to read poems in the bathroom
until my restlessness finds accord
with reality.
When I finally turn out the light,
a unanimous darkness envelopes me.
It's OK, though.
My feet, in their blind wisdom,
know the way to bed,
and I return to your warmth, as a ship
returns to port after a perilous voyage.
You throw an arm across my chest,
like a hawser, mooring me
to the dock of you, drawing us together,
unti I am home, I am yours,
and finally, and once again,
at rest,
I once was lost, but now I am found.
It's OK, I murmur,
it's OK.

Tree Poems

... ran across a poem by Norwegian Rolf Jacobsen ("Trees in Autumn") that reminds me of one I wrote years ago, "Trees" (1996). We are expressing similar views, I think, but his reaches a simpler conclusion.

Trees in Autumn

When the summer's gone out of them
we can see what they are made of.
The vesseled maze, the spreading beams,
strength or helplessness, bone or cartilage. \
Defenseless. Now
we see through them.


Here is mine:

Trees

Its a bad time for trees,
a secret half locked deep in the ground,
an aerial half vulnerable
to the whims of arrogant men.
Their only defense (and it has always been so),
a seasonal diaspora of seeds,
when the Many seize the late summer winds
and leave the One behind.

Small Poem Series: Body

I used to think my body
was mis-proportioned for my height:
trunk too long, legs too short.
But today, I look at my thigh
and it seems a good stretch
between
the hip and the knee.
The calf, too, seems of adequate length.
Maybe I was just supposed to be
a few inches
shorter.

Small Poem Series: Appalling

In preparation for a shower,
I peel the wrapper from a bar of soap
and toss it into the overflowing wastebasket,
which will wind up in the overflowing garbage can
outside the back door.
God! There is so much trash associated with how we live,
even when we try to live simply.
It's appalling.

The Time