fishing with dad

It's Thursday and he says: how'd you like to go fishing in Kings
Canyon, just you and me, we'll leave tomorrow after work.
Friday night we pack two army surplus sleeping bags rated
for the arctic leaking random goose down, a ground cloth,

some battered aluminum cookware and ancient packs,

the kind with skinny straps that dig into shoulders, warm

coats and fishing gear and that's all that fits in a '67 MG

Midget. Besides some instant oatmeal, dried fruit and coffee.

We better catch some fish or we're going to be hungry, but

Dad is good at that, he'll teach me where they hide and how

to catch them. Off into the valley after sunset, it's dark but

still hot, the top is down and we smell the irrigation water and

alfalfa out beyond the towns, the scent of meat and fried

potatoes in the yellow pools of light along the boulevards.

Orange groves silhouettes in black against the roots of the Sierra.

A sudden bend in the road catches him going much too fast

but we get through, sliding just a bit. How did he do that? With

hands and foot just so, a balance on the cusp of chaos and control.

It's cooler as we climb the spiny ridge leading to the mountains

dead rattlesnakes and squirrels on the pavement, the scent

of bear clover and cedar perfume the nose, the mountains

announce the altitude. A greeting in the dark, warm and pungent.

We don't talk much, long silences yawn between his stories of

prior trips: wading rivers, sliding down ravines through brush,

riding bikes up from the valley with his best friend, Bud.

The hot rod ford he had and the time it boiled over and scalded

his forehead. The scar that still shows if you know where to look.

midnight: We throw our bags down in a campground where all

the campers are asleep, embers in the fire pits fading into ashes.

At six we rise and hike before the sun or campers are awake,

to the stream above the canyon where he's been successful.

Dark pools and willows, bright cascades between the boulders.

Cast into the edges, let the hook and bait drift into the quiet places

where they shelter from the current. Like a conveyor belt he says.

And we did catch trout and ate them fried in butter with sage and lemon.

Made a bed of leaves and pine needles covered with a tarp that

crackled when we laced our hands behind our heads, staring at the

galaxies and stars against the black. The universe seemed deeper

in the mountain air. Sunday morning we walked back down the canyon,

drove into the heat, the sun bleary through the bug-smeared windshield.

At a crossroads store we stopped for cokes, smelling of fish and sweat,

sunburnt, wrapped within our silence, within our own returns to Mondays,

all the ones that march relentlessly like ants carrying our lives in pieces while we wait for Friday night promises. For magic to arrive on Saturday beside a stream.

Frogs

at the academy of science museum

recently, we saw poison arrow frogs.

about the size of an M&M

with a peanut. same colors too.

acid blue, electric orange, warn us:

don’t eat me, you’ll be sorry.

there used to be yellow-legged frogs

in the creek across the road.

tree frogs in the pastures

of the dairy on the other side

of the old road. Where

Roseanne Olivera lived.

We caught frogs together.

Just to look at for a spell.

Roseanne didn’t kiss ‘em

although she had a froggy voice.

I wanted her to kiss me,

but I was too shy to ask.

Frog and salamander populations

are dwindling. All around the world.

Some may be gone forever

some already are.

I want to hike up to the pond

on Mt Burdell where the tree frogs mate.

Hundreds, maybe thousands

singing. all at once. a chorus.

They were still there the last time

I hiked up there, I pray that they 

will be there again, when the rains

fill the pond and flood the grass. 

Saturday night at the races

Sunburned necks and shoulders
sprout from dayglo tee shirts emblazoned
with favorite numbers and angry race cars
roaring through swirls of colorful geometry.

Whiskered styles locked in the sixties

on guys who drive trucks or build houses

with their wives or girlfriends oozing out of

tank tops and jeans, dangly earrings.

A lot of guts hanging over belts, with

sixteen ounce beers in each hand.

Bud junior or sis balance a box

of jalapeno-covered, velveeta-draped nachos,

floppy burgers, and wax cups of Coca cola.

It's carnival of excess: horsepower, bulging bellies,

and big-ass engines. Big colors, big heat and

flag-flapping tongues. Cleavage and leather

and the shattering noise of racing engines.

It's the smell of grilled hamburger smoke 

and sunblock on sun-grilled skin,

cheap perfume and exhaust fumes.

Popcorn and spilled beer.

A tinny anthem from out-of-sync speakers

has everyone standing solemnly after the announcer

mouths some platitudes about far away troops 

and some legendary driver or team owner

who's now dead, this event is a memorial to him.

Then it's time for what we came for,

to see the snarling bright-painted monsters

sliding around the hard-packed clay oval

at a hundred and twenty miles per hour.

A delicate thing, controlling a beast,

finding a balance on the edge between

fast and upside down. One that gets crossed

a few times. And everyone stands,

peering the wreck until the driver

 climbs out and waves his hand.

Then there's a cheer and a shaking of heads

and an exodus to the beer and concession stands.

It'll take a few minutes to clear up the mess,

get it all sorted, restarted. Might be good time

to go take a piss, have a smoke or buy a souvenir.

Swap stories about that time when Jimmy so and so

flipped or when Steve the crazy one went over the wall.

It's always the same, the drama. Cars fly down the track.

Little kids climb and play under the grandstand

and the teenagers troll the aisles and the stairs

to see and be seen; it's not all about cars to them.

Or to me. It’s the sweat-stained hats embroidered

with flames. The warm summer nights and the smells.

The parade of unselfconscious flesh, the illusion of

a simpler life, where a Saturday night at the track

seems to provide all the satisfaction, the vicarious

thrill, the circus of noise, with heroes and villains

all played out in four hour doses of speed.

Then it's time to drive home under the stars

just as alone as I was when I got there, tired and

red-eyed, with track dust in my hair, as baffled as ever by life.

I bet all of the rest of them are too, because no one's

that simple, it just feels like that at the races.

Well-pleased

That asteroid hit Cancun

sixty six million years ago.

Adios Tyrannosaurus Rex.

But we still have butterflies,

swans, and peacocks.

Vesuvius barfed all over Pompeii,

spared the frescos and mosaics

but not the painters or the bakers.

Where did the Maya go?

Their jungled cities now

the home of parrots,

howler monkeys and lizards.

The Anasazi, same,

but the Hopi still remain

on their mesas,

Carving Katsina figures

from the roots of cottonwood.

I have one on my shelf:

Mudhead, the sacred clown.

Heaven split wide and furious,

and the spirit of God

told Jesus that he was

His much beloved son.

That He was well-pleased

with him. Then sent him

into the wilderness.

We are much loved.

Are we well-pleased

with ourselves?

The winter I turned eighteen

I wandered in Death Valley.

I feared no evil. Only loneliness.

That was my ignorance.

I was not well-pleased.

And was unaware 

of how much I was loved.

I got my Mudhead katsina

up on First Mesa a few years ago.

The Hopi village has been there

for eleven hundred years.

Three men were sitting in the sun

outside a stone house, carving

katsinas. The artist told me

about Mudhead, the sacred clown.

Many years ago the people

had to move away from where

they were living because of

a drought or warfare.

Two katsinas had to be left behind to die-

Koyemsi, Mudhead, who was blind,

and a paralyzed katsina, Tuhavi.

The people left them

with some food,

said a tearful goodbye.

They expected them to die.

But crippled Tuhavi, climbed onto

blind Koyemsi’s back and told him

where to walk. He hunted with

his bow and they survived

by cooperating with each other.

One night they were roasting

a rabbit when a huge Ogre

walked up their fire. They thought

he was going to kill them.

But the ogre shot his arrow

into the fire and the ashes

flew up into Koyemsi’s eyes

and his blindness disappeared.

Some of the sparks landed

on Tuhavi’s legs and he jumped up

and discovered that he could

walk again. Now healed, they

set off and eventually caught up

with their people and joyfully

reunited. Take care of each other

and you will survive, Love each

other and God will be well-pleased. 

Proverbs 1: 11-22

 If they say, come with us,

let us lie in wait for blood,

let us lurk in secret

for the innocent without cause;

let us swallow them up

alive as the grave;

and whole as those

that go down into the pit.

We shall find all

precious substances,

we shall fill our houses

with spoil.

Cast your lot with us;

let us all have one purse.

My son, walk not

in the way with them;

Refrain your foot from their path.

For their feet run to evil,

and make haste to shed blood.

Surely in vain

is the net spread

in the sight of any bird.

And they lie in wait

for their own blood;

they lurk in secret

for their own lives.

These are the ways of them

who are greedy of gain

which takes away

the life of the owners.

Wisdom cries out;

She raises her voice

in the streets.

She cries in the plaza,

in the gates, the towers,

and the doorways

of the city.

How long, you simple ones,

will you love simplicity?

and the scorners delight

in their scorning? 

How long will fools

hate knowledge?

The road

The road is where I find
my pictures, my moments
kept. The ones that speak
for me, to me. The ones
to share.

A concrete mammoth

in the tar pits on

Wilshire Boulevard.

The shell of a decrepit

gas station, the empty chair.

The January noon light 

on Sunset Boulevard,

the carcass of a Cadillac

in the carcass of a town.

A concrete brontosaurus

beside a desert highway

with a gift shop in its belly.

My mother once asked me,

why do you take so many

pictures of gas stations?

I told her, because that’s

where we stop.

Sometimes, the picture

is just the road itself;

vanishing, an arrow

pointing to infinity.

No money, no ID, no idea

 I dozed a bit on the afternoon train
from Ulm to Regensburg. 

Woke up just in time to scramble off

and watch the train leave the station.

And discovered that my wallet

had departed with it. With my money,

my Army ID, the phone numbers

and addresses of the new friends

I was going to visit for the first time

in a town I’d never been to.

All I knew was that it was somewhere outside

or near Regensburg, but the name of which

little town or village it was I couldn’t remember.

I should have paid more attention.

That’s what the scrap of paper with their phone

numbers and addresses was for. To call them.

I had a few coins, enough to call information.

But I only knew their first names: Dieter and Ralf.

Obviously not enough to get a number

from the operator, though she was kind.

I walked out of the city, hoping it was

in the right direction. Probably wasn’t.

The sun went down and I hadn’t reached

a town or village so I found a place to sleep

under a bridge over a small, cold stream.

When I woke up the next morning,

my eyes were crusty, sore, and swollen.

I dipped my handkerchief in the stream and rinsed

some of the burn out of my itching eyes.

Began the long hitchhike back to the base in Ulm.

The rides were short, infrequent, just village to village,

I wasn’t going to make it back that day.

The last one dropped me off near midnight

in the middle of a small city. The name

on the sign at the edge of town was Dachau.

No people on the tree-lined streets. No cars,

no open restaurants or bars. Just clouds

of moths fluttering under lone street lamps.

Not that I wanted to linger, I kept walking until I was

well outside of town into the black moonless countryside.

Looking for a place to curl up in my thrift store raincoat.

I walked out into a dark field. The ground was soft,

freshly plowed, but even in the dim light of our

milky galaxy, I could see pale white specks in the soil.

I told myself that surely those are not the cremated remains

of the people murdered at the concentration camp.

But it felt like they were. Like their icy breath

on the back of my neck. I shivered and turned

back towards the road, stumbled out of the field.

Walked until the night felt warm as a summer night

in June was supposed to be. I passed a rat the size

of a cocker spaniel walking along the shoulder of the road.

I kept on walking, beyond the icy breath of the dead.

I don’t remember much about the place I found

to rest that night. There were trees. And grass.