As For Poets

[tread_tramp]

Kenneth Rexroth...

 

A Living Pearl

 

At sixteen I came west, riding

Freights on the Chicogo, Milwaukie

And St Paul, the Great Northern,

The Northern Pacific. I got

A job as helper to a man

Who gathered wild horses in the

Mass drives in the Okanogan

And Horse Heaven country. The Best

We culled out as part profit from

The drive. The rest went for chicken

and dog feed. We took thirty head

Up the Methow, up the Twisp,

Across the headwaters of Lake

Chelan, down the Skagit to

The Puget Sound country. I

Did the cooking and camp work.

In a couple of weeks I

Could handle the stock pretty well.

Every day we saddled and rode

A new horse. Next day we put a

Packsaddle on him. By the

Time we reached Marblemount

We considered them broken.

The scissorbills who bought them

Considered them untamed mustangs

Of the desert. In a few weeks

They were peacefully pulling

Milk wagons in Sedro-Wooley.

We made three trips a season

And did well enough for the

Postwar depression.

Tonight,

Thirty years later, I walk

Out of the deserted minor's

Cabin in Mono Pass, under

The full moon and the few large stars.

The sidehills are piebald with snow.

The midnight air is suffused

With moonlight. As Dante says,

"It is as though a cloud enclosed

Me, lucid, dense, solid, polished,

Like a diamond forged by the sun.

We entered the eternal pearl,

Which took us as water takes

A ray of light, itself uncleft."

Fifteen years ago, in this place,

I wrote a poem called "Toward

An Organic Philosophy."

Everything is still th same,

And it differs very little

From the first mountain pass I

Crossed so long ago with the

Pintos and zebra duns and

Gunmetal roans and buckskins

And splattered lallapaloosas,

The stocky wild ponies whose

Ancesters came with Coronado.

There are no horsebells tonight,

Only the singing of frogs

In the snow wet meadows, the shrill

Single bark of mountain

Fox, high in the rocks where the

Wild sheep move silently through the

Crystal Moonlight. The same feelings

Come back. Once more all the awe

Of a boy from the prairies where

Lanterns move through the comfortable

Dark, along a fence, through a field,

Home; all the thrill of youth

Suddenly come from the flat

Geometrical streets of

Chicogo, into the illimitable

And inhuman waste places

Of the Far West, where the mind finds

Again the forms Pythagoras

Sought, the organic relations

Of stone and cloud and flower

And moving planet and falling

Water. Marthe and Mary sleep

In their down bags, cocoons of

Mutual love. Half my life has

Been passed in the West, much of it

On the ground beside lonely fires

Under the summer stars, and in

Cabins where the snow drifted through

The pines and over the roof.

I will not camp here as often

As I have before. Thirty years

Will never come for me again.

"Our campfire dies out in the

Lonely mountains. The transparent

Moonlight stretches a thousand miles.

The clear peace is without end.

"My daughter's deep blue eyes sleep

In the moon shadow. Next week

She will be one year old.

[tread_tramp]

Kenneth Rexroth....

 

TOWARD AN ORGANIC PHILOSOPHY

 

1

Spring Coast Range

The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless,

The circle of white ash widens around it.

I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time

I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller.

Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw;

The moon has come before them, the light

Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees.

It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish,

Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons;

The foetid adder's tongue lolls by the waterfall.

There was a farm by this campsite once, it is almost gone now.

There were sheep here after the farm, and fire

Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch,

The Douglass fir off the ridge; today the soil

Is stoney and incoherant, the small stones lie flat

And plate the surface like scales.

Twenty years ago the spreading gully

Toppled the big oak over onto the house.

Now there is nothing left but the foundations

Hidden in poisin oak, and above on the ridge,

Six lonely, ominous fence posts;

The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge

Over the deep waterless creek bed;

The hills are covered with wild oats

Dry and white by midsummer.

I walk the random survivals of the orchard.

In a patch of moonlight a mole

Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein;

Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean;

Leo croutches on the hills.

There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees.

The purity of the apple blossom is incredible.

As the wind dies down their fragrance

Clusters around them like thick smoke.

All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight

They are silent and immaculate.

 

2

Spring, Sierra Nevada

Once more golden Scorpio glows over the col

Above Deadman Canyon, orderly and brilliant,

Like an inspiration in the brains of Archemedes.

I have seen its lights over the sea,

And the coconut beaches, phosphorescent and pulsing;

And the living light in the water

Shivering away from the swimming hand,

Creeping against the lips, filling the floating hair.

Here where the glaciers have been and the snow stay late,

The stone is clean as light, the light steady as stone.

The relationship of stones, ice and stars is systematic and enduring;

Novelty emerges after centuries, a rock spalls from the cliffs,

The glacier contracts and turns grayer,

The stream cuts new sinuosities in the meadow,

The sun moves through space and the earth with it,

The stars change places.

The Snow has lasted longer this year,

Than anyone can remember. The lowest meadow is a lake,

The next two are snowfields, the pass is covered over in snow,

Only the steepest rocks are bare. Between the pass

And the last meadow the snowfield gapes for a hundred feet,

In a narrow blue chasm through which a waterfall drops,

Spangled and sunset at the top, black and muscular

Where it dissappears again in the snow.

The world is filled with hidden running water

That pounds in the ears like ether;

The granite needles rise from the snow, pale as steel;

Above the copper mine the cliff is blood red,

The white snow breaks at the edge of it;

The sky comes close to my eyes like the blue eyes

of someone kissed in sleep.

I descend to camp,

To the young, sticky, wrinkled aspen leaves,

To the first violets and wild cyclamen,

And cook supper in the blue twilight.

All night deer pass over the snow on sharp hooves,

In the darkness their cold muzzles find the new grass

At the edge of the snow.

 

3

Fall, Sierra Nevada

This morning the hermit thrush was absent at breakfast,

His place was taken by a family of chickadees;

At noon a flock of hummingbirds passed south,

Whirling in the wind up over the saddle between

Ritter and Banner, following the migration lane

Of the Sierra crest south to Guatamalla.

All day cloud shadows have moved over the face of the mountain,

The shadow of a golden eagle weaving between them

Over the face of the glacier.

At sunset the half-moon rides on the bent back of the Scorpian,

The Great Bear kneels on the mountain.

Ten degrees below the moon

Venus sets in the haze arising from the Great Valley.

Jupiter, in opposition to the sun, rises in the alpenglow

Between the burnt peaks. The ventriloquial belling

Of an owl mingles with the bells of the waterfall.

Now there is distant thunder on the east wind.

The east face of the mountain above me

Is lit with far off lightenings and the sky

Above the pass blazes momentarily like an aurora.

It is storming in the White Mountains,

On the arid fourteen-thousand-foot-peaks;

Rain is falling on the narrow gray ranges

And dark sedge meadows and white salt flats of Nevada.

Just before moonset a small dense cumulus cloud,

Gleaming like a grape cluster of metal,

Moves over the Sierra crest and grows down the westward slope.

Frost, the color and quality of the cloud,

Lies over all the marsh below my campsite.

The wiry clumps of dwarfed whitebark pines

Are smokey and indistinct in the moonlight,

Only their shadows are really visible.

The lake is immobile and holds the stars

And the peaks deep in itself without a quiver.

In the shallows the geometrical tendrils of ice

Spread their wonderful mathematics in the silence.

All night the eyes of deers shine fore an instant

As they cross the radius of my firelight.

In the morning the trail will look like a sheep driveway.

All the tracks will point downward toward the lower canyon.

"Thus," says Tyndal, "the concerns of this little place

Are changed and fashioned by the obliquity of the earth's axis,

The chain of dependence which runs through creation,

And links the roll of a planet alike with the interests

Of marmots and of men."

[EWolfe]

Man, that's great poetry.

 

Thanks.

[Skeezix]

Rexroth was one of the original backcountry rangers in the N. Cascades. He took a pony and a bucksaw and cleared the trail between Marblemount and Stehekin, traveling alone. Carryied only hardtack, pemmican, and his revolutionary thoughts over Cascade Pass. You can read about it in his book.

[tread_tramp]

...another from Rexroth:

 

THE HEART OF HERAKLES

 

Lying under the stars,

In the summer night,

Late, while the autumn

Constellations climb the sky,

As the cluster of Hercules

Falls down the west

I put the telescope by

And watch Deneb

Move towards the zenith.

My body is asleep. Only

My eyes and brain are awake.

the stars stand around me

Like gold eyes. I can no longer

Tell where I begin and leave off.

The faint breeze in the dark pines,

And the invisible grass,

The tipping earth, the swarming stars

Have the eye that sees itself.

[tread_tramp]

THE AMERICAN CENTURY

 

Blackbirds whistle over the young

Willow leaves,pale celadon green,

In the cleft of the emerald hills.

My daughter is twenty-one months old.

Already she knows the names of

Many birds and flowers and all

The animals of barnyard and zoo.

She paddles in the stream, chasing

Tiny bright green frogs. She wants

To catch them and kiss them. Now she

Runs to me with a tuft of rose

Gray owls clover."What's that? Oh! What's that?"

She hoots like an owl and caresses

The flower when I tell her it's name.

Overhead in the deep sky

Of May Day jet bombers cut long

White slashes of smoke. The blackbird

Sings and the baby laughs, midway

In the century of horror.

 

...KR 1956

[ScottP]

Images

by Tyrone Green

 

Dark and lonely on a summer's night

Kill my landlord

Kill my landlord

Watchdog barking

Do he bite?

Kill my landlord

Kill my landlord

Slip in his window

Break his neck

Then his house

I start to wreck

Got no reason

What the heck

Kill my Landlord

Kill my landlord

C-I-L

my l a n d l o r d

[tread_tramp]

AWAKE

 

Linda Hogan

 

Waking today

just before winter

when I try to name the color of grasses,

how I feel of their beauty,

there is no word.

I think of the time before there were

words

when you would know morning mist

by the feel

of your loved one's skin and hair,

and when someone came from the forest

of dry leaves

you would know by their scent

even if they carried no wood.

Or the heat of there body skin in summer.

Or if they came the winding way

down from the mountains

they would be covered in cloud

returning to the fold

or if they had gone farther, to the ocean,

you'd know them by their far-seeing eyes,

and when some travellers return

and are shining with light

you know, without saying, that they

have been

in touch with other worlds.

I have no wealth to speak of

other than this,

all this, just to praise the dry grasses

and their color that can't be spoken

in words.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Pigeons on the grass, alas.

 

- Gertrude Stein

[tread_tramp]

Snyder will be speaking in Portland on the 25th anniversary of the St. Helens eruption as part of this year's Illahee lecture series. Here's the link (scroll most of the way down).

 

I plan to be in Portland for this event (May 18) and may need a place to crash for the night. Anyone down in PDX have some floorspace or a couch I can snooze on?

[specialed]

Pigeons on the grass, alas.

 

- Gertrude Stein

 

That's more like it. Poetry for the short attention span crowd.

[G-spotter]

History of the Night

 

 

Throughout the course of the generations

men constructed the night.

At first she was blindness;

thorns raking bare feet,

fear of wolves.

We shall never know who forged the word

for the interval of shadow

dividing the two twilights;

we shall never know in what age it came to mean

the starry hours.

Others created the myth.

They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates

that spin our destiny,

thev sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock

who crows his own death.

The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;

to Zeno, infinite words.

She took shape from Latin hexameters

and the terror of Pascal.

Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland

of his stricken soul.

Now we feel her to be inexhuastible

like an ancient wine

and no one can gaze on her without vertigo

and time has charged her with eternity.

 

 

And to think that she wouldn't exist

except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.

 

Jorge Luis Borges

[G-spotter]

MON PAYS

Gilles Vigneault

 

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

Mon jardin ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine

Mon chemin ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

 

Dans la blanche cérémonie

Où la neige au vent se marie

Dans ce pays de poudrerie

Mon père a fait bâtir maison

Et je m'en vais être fidèle

À sa manière, à son modèle

La chambre d'amis sera telle

Qu'on viendra des autres saisons

Pour se bâtir à côté d'elle

 

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

Mon refrain ce n'est pas un refrain, c'est rafale

Ma maison ce n'est pas ma maison, c'est froidure

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

 

De mon grand pays solitaire

Je crie avant que de me taire

À tous les hommes de la terre

Ma maison c'est votre maison

Entre mes quatre murs de glace

Je mets mon temps et mon espace

À préparer le feu, la place

Pour les humains de l'horizon

Et les humains sont de ma race

 

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

Mon jardin ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine

Mon chemin ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

 

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'envers

D'un pays qui n'était ni pays ni patrie

Ma chanson ce n'est pas une chanson, c'est ma vie

C'est pour toi que je veux posséder mes hivers

[EWolfe]

Robert Sund, a family friend:

 

In wheat country

for miles

telephone wires and power lines

loop

between thin poles

standing across the country like people

saying the same things to one another over and over.

Sitting on a wire,

one bird

keeps it from happening.

[Skeezix]

Green Grass

Matt Affolter

 

In the green grass sits a bug,

Calm and quiet a bug sits,

Under the bright yellow sun,

With a green leaf overhead.

Calm and quiet a bug sits,

Thinking of days to come,

With a green leaf overhead,

The calm air against his back.

Thinking of days to come,

The bug sits,

The calm air against his back,

Sitting in the green grass.

 

Sophomore, Bellingham High School 2001

[archenemy]

Poetry is the voice of Mathematics.

[G-spotter]

Zobo at sixty! Here's my real state:

Where eight clouds are standing, I piss at the sky

It's a wonder, and a pity too

I didn't kill all the imitation Zen in the world.