The amaranth fields
beckon, their youth
crystallized, eternal
laughing at rain, snow, hail
war, loss, grief, joy, death
widow’s wail
and soldier’s breath
amaranth fields
giggle in gentle breeze
they never know decay
their joy persists another day
I skip across the night
on moonlit lily pads
the copse of willow trees
lithe, and twisting
urging forth each step
beyond this path
lies all else, ethereal
ten thousand moaning
terrors, which upon the dawn
dissolve, awaiting their own
inevitable return.
The chrysalis lives
to be discarded, lives
to die
for without it
all wonders
crumble
and all beauty
disappears.
Vine-laden trellises
bear witness
to those arriving
on a mist-marked morning
a brick pathway
unfurls
once straight
now
thorny tendrils hold
searing colors
so vivid that their
full luster stays
until the ship sails
to what lies beyond
this
mortal coil.
In the orchard of my heart
even those peaches with skin
like cast iron, will
be kneaded soft with time
tender pasts grow sweet
time washes away
any dirt that dare interrupt
idle fantasy
The world is a rag-tag
collection of things that
aspire to be simple,
to stand on their own
cry loud their strength
a wanderer
with laugh lines well-set,
as like a love letter folded
ten thousand times
will find beauty bursting from
each corner-
the ground, the sky, the wind
each new pulse joins innumerable
others
and where one wonder ends
and the
next one begins,
matters not.
Petals crowding, swirling
in a gyre, each melon-pink
awaiting their final fall
where they will lie,
for a beautiful soundless wake.
Mystique breeds in dark spaces
as light wanes, fades, dims, and disappears
the river obeys no
noise ordinance
its rushing gains majesty
performing with a symphony of crickets
as the backing band.
By the way, you can click on any of these travel photos to see the big version. These are all huge pictures, you just have to keep them to a certain width to fit within the blog template.
Coming back into civilization, it is impressive how quickly you go from having some sense of familiarity with strangers to gaining complete detachment and anonymity. For most of this trip, there has been only one major road, with junctions often hundreds of miles apart. Thus you may pass a car or some cyclists, or they may pass you. At some point down the line, you will see them again. There is a sense of shared journey even if you don’t know anything beyond their car and the origin of their license plates (I played the game, and ended up with 34 US states and nine Canadian provinces).
Whistler is a giant tourist facility, even in summer. Besides mountain bikers and upscale shopping types, huge summer programs ferry blue-hatted upper-middle class children to the chair lifts and from activity to activity. This is the familiar feeling: to be lost amidst a large crowd going a million different directions. Even at home in the Bay Area, this is the environment I live in. At some point there are too many people and too many agendas and destinations. It feels odd to come from rural British Columbia and enter the system as a temporary outsider. No wonder people have culture shock when they move to a city, or from a rural environment to a developed country.
The natural scenery is now behind me, to be replaced tomorrow with the spectacle of the Vancouver Celebration of Light.
The water locks eyes with the sky
and smiles, sparkling
for under a clear,
fatherly sun,
there is no place
for quarrel.
Unspoken Politics 