A miscellany like Grandma’s attic in Taunton, MA or Mission Street's Thrift Town in San Francisco or a Council, ID yard sale in cloudy mid April or a celestial roadmap no one folded—you take your pick.
[Here’s the final installment of Eberle’s Weiser River Pillow Book—although some editing has been done along the way, the majority of the work is now available on Robert Frost’s Banjo, & the link to this writing will continue to appear in the sidebar for the foreseeable future.]
THINGS THAT SHOULD BE SHINY
The fake mother-of-pearl buttons on a rodeo shirt.
Windows on a mirrored glass skyscraper. When these are not shiny, it appears that the whole purpose of progress has failed.
Blackberries picked in late summer.
THINGS THAT SHOULD NOT BE SHINY
Cars.
The interior of a church.
The front doorknob of a house surrounded by trees.
SQUALID THINGS
The smell of an empty school corridor lined with lockers above which are student drawings of ways to save the environment.
A trowel that has rusted with dirt still on it.
Chicory that has flowered close to the ground after being mowed.
An unmatched sock.
THINGS WORTH SEEING
Magpies landing outside the kitchen window after the first snowfall.
On the floodplain of a river, an abandoned house through which vines are growing and covering half the roof with leaves.
A county fair where there are many kinds of poultry and pigeons, also goats.
A forest three years after a wildfire has passed through it.
You are walking through the woods thinking how silent it is and how alone you are, and then you notice at the base of a huckleberry bush, a hairbrush, ruined by weather, the gold lettering on its back almost legible.
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE
The sound of a refrigerator late at night can bring an aquarium to mind—the tiny bubbling treasure chest and diver never reaching it—the trapped light.
It is the middle of summer and you know there is no chance of rain. Nonetheless, a truck going by on the highway makes a sound like thunder and for a moment you shiver deliciously.
When the cottonwood trees are releasing cotton in the spring, it does look like snow in the air and yet does not bring winter to mind.
ODIOUS THINGS
The plastic countertop where it has come loose from the edge of the kitchen sink,
The "Sealed For Your Protection" seals on aspirin and chopstick.
At a community meeting, sitting next to someone who bites his nails.
Gas stations and restaurants that are part of national chains, erupting in the rural landscape like the signs of an inevitable disease.
HAUNTING THINGS
The image of oneself as a child.
On the verge of sleep, repeatedly, being awakened by imaginary alarm cries coming from the guinea hen coop.
When the sun has almost set behind the highway, a passing truck blocks the last of the light and the house goes dark for an instant longer than a blink.
THINGS THAT ARE NO BETTER THAN THEY SHOULD BE
The mop bucket.
Crocuses after their first bloom, especially the large kind.
One's girlhood crushes.
THINGS THAT ARE AT HOME IN THE WORLD
A robin standing on a fence post.
An old seeder rusting on a hillside above abandoned fields.
A dinghy moored in the small pool of a rock-crushing pit.
The desk and window in my studio.
An eagle's nest on top of a power pole.
THINGS THAT LOOK GOOD IN JARS
Dried beans—especially black garbanzos and striped lima beans you have grown yourself.
Star anise.
Pickled beets.
Coriander seed from the garden.
THINGS THAT DO NOT LOOK GOOD IN JARS
Pig's feet.
Scientific specimens of any kind.
Leftover tomato paste.
THINGS THAT GIVE THE SENSATION OF FALLING
Standing in a supermarket aisle surrounded by varieties of canned tomatoes that seem to have proliferated since the last time you were there. Varieties of breakfast cereal also create this sensation; varieties of tea, however, do not.
Thinking about a phone number you have lost.
Being about to fall asleep and waking suddenly.
PAIRS THAT GIVE PLEASURE
When the leaves of the cottonwood trees by the side of the highway are the exact same shade of yellow as the double line.
When the line of a jet trail in the eastern sky is the same color as the clouds around the setting sun.
How sometimes I hear the traffic on the highway above my house and it sounds just like a river.
Eating pears and grapes together.
LARGELY UNRECOGNIZED MASCULINIST ASSAULTS ON THE WORLD
All music on the radio.
All systems of measurement.
Women who give their children the last name of their husbands.
THINGS ON A GIANT SCALE
Rolls of hay stacked in shelters; three rolls on top looking like an enormous clover leaf. Erosion on the side of a small hill can create the impression of a massive distant mountain range seen from above.
Near the spring that feeds the house under a wild plum tree, there is an ant-mound that is two feet high. In itself it seems strikingly large; still, the yellow plum leaf resting on it looks huge.
TWO TOWNS NORTH OF HERE
There are many more new cars. There are stores selling clothes for outdoor recreation.
There are no magpies, quail, or black widows. Very few cottonwood trees, lots of pine trees.
In the streams, caddis flies use bits of pine needles in their shell-casings.
INEXPLICABLE THINGS
Electricity.
When continuing a diary in a new notebook, the desire to make a gesture of formal introduction of some kind, however subtle or oblique. To whom?
The pleasure of shining the old chrome-covered clock-timer on the stove. It doesn't work, is not attractive, and yet the tenderness I feel for it never fails to spring up when I’m cleaning the stovetop.
THINGS DESIRED FOR A WHILE BUT NOT ACQUIRED
A clothesline.
An extra steak knife.
Two large steel-covered bass drums.
THINGS DESIRED FOR A WHILE AND RECENTLY ACQUIRED
A blue enamel bucket to hold scraps for the chickens.
A medium-sized doumbek.
A jumper for fall. The perfect fall jumper is of medium weight, very soft, not binding anywhere. Long enough to give a feeling of serenity but still allowing for easy motion. It should not create a feeling of loudness or of primness.
THINGS THAT MARK A POINT IN TIME
Planting garlic.
Taking down the hammock.
Putting hats and mittens in a basket on the dryer.
New moon turning its face toward the empty nest high up in the black catalpa, the tree's limbs etched against the evening sky yesterday & now simply more blackness at 4:00 a.m.
a trailer truck on Highway 95, the glass slide whooshing guitar strings, a riff existing somewhere between the major & minor modes
someday the whole story will have been told & the constellations will continue to glint, small glass shivers strewn above this January's frozen fog
Some night once we’re all asleep will we rise
will we rise to a solarized new moon & the atmosphere of a black & white film except without the soft focus
will we rise & say this is what I meant to say all along
will we rise & nest in the catalpa’s black fingers, the glass slide’s icy rush up the guitar strings toward the octave, the trailer truck whooshing south-southwest
will we rise & say my heart is in my hand & mean it so much it flies off, a birdcall in a blue foggy dawn
it is a very long time ago driving thru night south-southwest thru the Owyhee desert before the crows glided across the sagebrush bluffs, the stars are shattered glass in every direction
will we rise & go back to a place we’ve never been
a glass sliver from a votive candle
will we say my heart is in my hand & it’s glass
the glass slide existing somewhere between the major & minor modes
New moon turning its dark face toward us etched against this night sky in the wordless frozen fog
the cow pond exhaling smoke at 6 degrees the blue gray fog an aquarium miasma filled with sagebrush & emptiness
a face staring backwards & forwards in the blue gray frozen fog thru the willow thru the cloud of juncos & sparrows & the sagebrush breaking thru the snow on the round hill eastward
the rocks white the willow’s long hair black the poplars skeletal
a face staring backwards & forwards in a cloudy mirror & the mule deer outside the window leaping the barbed wire without any effort the dazzling flight of a magpie subdued in the freezing mist & white air
the chill is a teardrop mandolin tremoloed in its icy throat on a high octave E & the crow’s bitter snow is a chill in the heart muscle a contraction
tho the air is blue & gray & opaque & the ridge to the east has sunk below this sea of fog with its frosty water droplets distributing chill to the lungs
the cowpond exhaling smoke at 6 degrees the owl on the wing over the skeletal grape vines the owl appearing to me each night its face a white fog of feathers its wings knifing silently thru the white air soaring south
& the road is white with ice a frozen current swerving south without moving
a face staring in every cardinal direction seeing the white air the willow’s long black hair streaked white with hoarfrost
a rheumatic shoulder the lungs an aquarium miasma filled with sagebrush & emptiness the heart contracting its owl's wings in the white white air
a face staring into a blue gray frozen ocean stitched with barbed wire without a horizon
[Here’s the December installment of Eberle’s Weiser River Pillow Book, & good news for Pillow Book fans: there’s enough left over to make one more post in January. Hope you enjoy it!]
THINGS THAT DISTANCE CHANGES
The new black boots I bought in Boise look remarkably sophisticated by the time I arrive home with them. And the vinegar and spices that were tiresome to buy in a crowded store take on a hint of Arabian treasure when they are unpacked in the kitchen a hundred miles later.
Bittersweet picked in Massachusetts, now in a vase by my keyboard.
In Pernumbuco, a colorfully printed package of herbal tea that arrived from the States; it was the packaging that seemed unbelievable, such delicate designs; the tea itself was unremarkable in a place where you step outside the door and gather a handful of lemon-grass and orange leaves for tea.
THINGS THAT DISTANCE DOES NOT CHANGE
A miniature white carriage from Chinatown looked as exotic in San Francisco as it does on my bookshelf.
Doritos, Pepsi, Milky Ways—the food items that have infiltrated the highway system and look the same everywhere.
ARDUOUS THINGS REMEMBERED FONDLY
A man talked to me of spending a winter 30 miles from the nearest passable road; his eyes gleamed when he spoke of shoveling snow off the roof of his cabin.
I smile when I remember hauling water in Pernumbuco from the cistern in a wooden-handled bucket to take a shower using a tin cup.
When I go out before dawn with water for the poultry, I usually hate it until I'm halfway across the snowy path and then I feel a particular elation.
THINGS THAT CLUTTER THE MIND
Dreams that are filled with anxiety, but not quite nightmares.
Having to think about work-for-money, especially the people you must think about.
Social interactions where you are not sure you have acted appropriately.
THINGS THAT PARALYZE THE MIND
Old wounds, from family.
Tiredness.
Worries about money.
THINGS THAT FREE THE MIND
Daring.
Nonsense.
Laughter.
THE LARGEST MOVING THINGS
Manufactured homes being trucked on the highway.
The Life-flight helicopter on its way to Boise.
Trucks carrying two layers of cars.
Fog rolling in.
THERE IS NO WAY TO REMEMBER EXACTLY
There is no way to remember exactly from year to year how beautiful the plants become when fog has frozen on them. There is a tall stem of chicory on the north side of the house I kept forgetting to pull out last summer. It is transformed now with delicate crystals differentiating its varied surfaces. Instead of being an annoying, presumptuous presence, it is a surprise, like a present—incongruous but delightful among the everyday things.
I DREAMED THERE WAS A COUGAR
I dreamed there was a cougar in with the guinea hens, also a tiger and its baby. The cougar ate the tiger's baby. The cougar was full, the tiger was mourning, and so the guinea hens were not in danger—but there was no sense of safety.
ONE THING I LIKE ABOUT WINTER
One thing I like about winter is the sense of doing battle. But this troubles me. I can so easily imagine early Germanic peoples telling stories of war in front of a fire in the winter months. It is the essence of abstraction—tales of war becoming cozy as the snowstorm rages outside and inside the stack of wood is high. The rest is European history.
BEWARE THAT SENSE OF VIRTUE
Beware that sense of virtue which comes from watching the sun rise—smugness creeps in on the superstition that you helped it.
THINGS CAUSED BY TOO MUCH WORK FOR MONEY
Buying too many things.
Many stress-related illnesses; a loss of personal identity, values, and sense of beauty.
After too much word processing, a dream where I see the formatting of my mind in a Reveal Codes screen.
ALL I HAVE IN MY HEAD TODAY
All I have in my head today is music. The writing I'm working on could not be farther from my mind. Everything in my head organizes itself into rhythmic units of 2's and 3's, building into 8's, into 12's. The leaves on the ground where they appear between patches of snow are doing it, the straw bales, the clumps of bushes against a white hill, everything is doing it—as if an audible pulse in my mind is going through my eyes and becoming visual.
STRANGE HOW THE WORLD SEEMS BRITTLE
Strange how the world seems brittle when a layer of fog closes in just behind the line of the closest hills. There is an illusion that things have gone two-dimensional and, if struck, would be shot through with tiny cracks.
THINGS THAT ARE GOOD TO HOARD
Days with no social or work-for-money commitments.
Bubble bath, in winter.
Buttons of all kinds, especially old ones, and pieces of cast iron from the dump for garden ornaments.
SIGNS OF THE WINTER MIND
You can spend the entire day making up drum rhythms.
You notice that the lace edge of a curtain is grimy with dust and your reaction is complete despair.
You forget to call your friends for days at a time.
Wanting large hunks of meat in the freezer.
Wanting to read Herodotus.
When the shape of the satellite dish is the only distinct marker in the freezing fog and you look up eagerly at the appearance of the flashing lights of the county plow as if a sister ship is passing your drifting house.
When you and your partner are talking about how to repair the water-damaged ceiling and feeling acutely aware of the lack of money, the lack of work, and a sense of bleak reality is mounting—and then there comes a loud sound of scratching from under the floorboards. You both fall silent and look intently at the floor. The sound is being made by something way bigger than a mouse and it is accompanied by gnawing. For some reason though, you both start laughing and the bleak reality disappears completely.
MY FRIEND TALKS ABOUT A GRAY STUCCO HOUSE
My friend talks about a gray stucco house she saw that had vines trained up the walls. Now in winter, she says, the brown lines of the stems and the blue berries looked perfect. Her sense of beauty is terrifying to me because it demands the subjection of everything to an ideal that is so exacting—the berries could not be red, the stucco could not be new, the stems could not be half-green half-brown. Who could live in a house that had attained such ruthless perfection? This kind of ideal is always seen from outside, by an authority that roams ghostlike, disassociated and judging. This is not a ghost I would choose. It would make life like a cliff-edge, it would make the stakes so high, and for what? Ultimately, art can't be based on snobbery, it just doesn't work out.
WHEN THE SUN COMES BACK AFTER DAYS OF FOG
The craters that appear in the crusted snow are lunar in their sudden focus and make you giddy.
The dead grass looks sharp—at first, everything looks dangerous with the glitter and knife-edge of frost. You don't quite want to go outside at first.
For a moment, there is the illusion that everything has become glass and could shatter, could fall in fragments and disappear.
The stop-sign up on the rise where the road meets the highway flashes out like a shield in a return from battle.
[Fans of Eberle’s Weiser River Pillow Book posts take heart—since my division of the manuscript into months involved quite a bit of guesswork, it turns out that there will be a post in December as well to complete the material. In the meantime, hope you enjoy the November entry; & you can stop by Eberle's blog for more animal adventures!]
A rusted dredge in the rock fields outside an abandoned mining town high in the mountains; the snow piling up.
FROM THE WINDOW IN RENTED ROOMS
In Baltimore, past the electric candle sconces with paint drips imitating wax, a helicopter hovering.
In La Paz, the cold and writing with fingerless gloves, watching pigeons in mud niches under the rooftop across the street.
In Ohio, just room enough for a huge four-poster bed, climbing out the dormer window and onto the roof sheltered by the leafy boughs of an enormous tree.
COVER-UPS
In the nineteenth century, piano legs, table legs, all decently draped in upper class parlors.
In the twentieth century, trash compactors, stereo equipment and televisions hidden in wood cabinets; at the turn of the century, expensive wood housings for refrigerators.
In my own house, it is the electrical outlets I wish to cover up in one way or another, especially if they are unused.
EXCESSIVE THINGS THAT MAKE SENSE
A small plastic fountain, indoors, with plastic waterlilies and lights and on top a ballerina twirling, powered by the water flowing.
A garden crowded with ornaments—gnomes, deer, butterflies, wishing well, whirligigs.
A lot of broken-down cars in a field by a house.
EXCESSIVE THINGS THAT DO NOT MAKE SENSE
Pasta shaped like miniature pizzas.
Sports Utility Vehicles.
Mount Rushmore.
ON THE WAY TO THE POLLS
At the corner, a line of cow skulls, very neat and clean, on fencepost. On the way back, a herd of cattle coming at us, turning into the old homestead I call Shangri La. It has the most falling-down buildings and equipment. Even an old schoolhouse and two small silos. No one lives at the house, where there are curtains in the windows but no glass.
FIRST SNOW
It would be hard to explain the phrase "blanket of snow" to someone who has never seen snow. How the blanket is not only a visual image, but also involves the muffling of sound, a fleeciness, a sense of warmth. Also how the phrase itself is not fancy and can be used by anyone. Like a nutcracker. Some people choose the smooth metal kind, simple and elegant but slippery. There are ones in the shape of a squirrel that some people find tacky and others consider adorable. Then there is the nutcracker from the fairy tale and ballet—the staring soldier, wooden and bearded. Originally handmade for an aristocratic family, now these can be bought for the price of half a tank of gas in large chain stores that offer inexpensive imported goods. In the countries where these nutcrackers are produced they would be too expensive for the people who make them to buy. In Pernumbuco I was shown how to open cashews by placing them in an old oil can on a fire until the shells cracked with a small explosion. That was drought country. They did not have the phrase "blanket of snow" but they did describe an unsatisfying rainfall as "grasshopper spit."
THINGS THAT HAVE BECOME PART OF THE WILDERNESS
Baling twine.
Airplanes and all-terrain vehicles.
Beer cans.
GHOULISH THINGS
Talking to two women whose husbands have retired. One weaves and one paints. They speak of the difficulty of finding time when their husbands won't interrupt them. They have raised children, continue to run the households, cook and pay bills. Their husbands can't bear them being alone long enough to do work they love.
THINGS THAT WINTER CHANGES
The bottle of soy sauce in my cupboard seems wildly improbable—so exotic, sitting there, as the snow piles up and the temperature outside could kill.
My cleaning frenzies are happier, less panic-struck, and have more to do with spaces than surfaces. More like a squirrel burrowing into cupboards and closets.
The pumice stone becomes a place you travel to, a narrow blue bay in Greece lined by white pumice cliffs and white bits of rock floating on the water.
The flowers on the Christmas cactus seem in motion—salmon leaping or bright birds in flight.
Seeing a wasp or even a Chargas beetle—instead of an impulse to destroy them, there is a sense of kinship, of being survivors together.
[Here’s the October installment of Eberle’s 2000-2001 Weiser River Pillow Book; as written, this would have been the end of the manuscript—so you should indeed put some stress on the final word of these lists. We began posting the Pillow Book entries last December, so next month’s installment will be the last]
Large metal hoop mandala encircling: teapot, trowel, sawblade.
FIRST RAINS, OCTOBER
The smell of the earth, a soft pungent gratitude.
Looking at the roof, trying to remember where the leaks were last year.
Sitting on the porch steps watching the clouds roll down from the mountains.
Summer-hatched guinea hens, who have never seen rain, sounding affronted.
GODS ON THE MARKET
Ajax cleanser.
Mercury automobiles.
Olympic stain and paint.
Toyota Cressida.
Argo cornstarch.
IMPROVISATIONS AT WOMEN’S FANTASY PERFORMANCE NIGHT
Being in a dance routine with bathing beauties.
Being coronated pope.
Running a school board meeting with a hammer for a gavel.
Witnessing one’s own funeral.
Flying.
I DREAMED I WAS WRITING MUSIC
I dreamed I was writing music, and when the hoot owls started outside, I dreamed I had written music for hoot owls, who then came in, right on cue, at intervals of a perfect fourth.
MARKETING THE WAR
America on Alert!
America’s New War!
America Strikes Back!
Now More Than Ever.
BEFORE YOU GO TO BED WITH THE FLU
Cellophane rattles like distant thunder, echoing with all the flimsy disposable flotsam of the last century.
Dead leaves look like mice.
It seems overwhelmingly tragic that the chickens have no scraps to eat that day.
HOW ENGROSSING CUTTING LABELS
How engrossing cutting labels from computer print-outs my companion designed for the feed containers: turkey grower, scratch, crumble, and rolled oats.
I remember how intent I was, years ago, cutting out place cards for my mother’s formal dinner parties—cards that would be inserted into the mouths of the golden metal insects that served as place-card holders.
How lovely to have animals instead of formal dinner parties.
ACTS OF RESISTANCE
Knowing that all lives are equally valuable. Consistent action based on this knowledge would eradicate hierarchy, elitism, war, oppression, and car commercials.
Not having children.
Making art instead of money.
THINGS THAT ABOUND
Listerine beetles.
Duckweed.
Hawthorn.
THE PURPOSE OF ART
The purpose of art is not so much even a question of product, but of commitment to a process that takes you away from the life proscribed by the agents of greed. It returns you to what is sacred, it ritualizes connection.
FAST FOOD, FAST CULTURE
Strange sight, a fast food roadside shrine, children of a superpower lining up quietly to eat what will kill them.
Putting down money for it too, the hush at the altar of the cash registers, the softly spoken orders. Many people have the verses memorized, don’t need to read the phrases posted in the place where, in church, the hymns would be posted.
Strange method of ritual suicide, within earshot of the roar of another monster to whom we make regular voluntary human sacrifices—the freeway.
Fast food is pseudo-sustenance based on omission: communicants participate in the omission of connection to its production—the land where it came from, the people involved in growing it, making it—the omission of making it, sharing it.
Fast culture works on the same premise—the cult of celebritism substituting for human connection—no involvement in its production, buying it, not making it: the whole business is just another death cult. Of course, death cults are not an illogical response to life in this country.
VACUUM CLEANER MODELS DESIGNED TO FIT TYPE A
Hoover Concept.
Decade.
Elite.
Innovation.
Legacy.
Power Max.
THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION
At best, education provides for an ability to entertain oneself without having to pay for it and feed the beast of consumer culture. Like learning to make love instead of supporting a sex industry. Learning to get ideas for free instead of supporting the non-information industry. In this country, recreation without consumption is a radical act, and leads naturally to freedom of thought.
BREEDER'S CUP CLASSIC HORSES
Orientate.
Include.
Galileo.
Freedom Crest.
Gander.
Albert the Great.
Aptitude.
SAVING GRACES
On the lawn, among the browning leaves the occasional underside of a cottonwood leaf bright and silvery as a coin winking up at you.
The internal voice, that laughs at itself. A friend, who echoes it.
Coming home on a cloudy night, past Mesa Hill, the scattered lights of houses around the post office and the store down in the valley.
[Sorry to those folks who came here for Translation Tuesday—that will be back next week. This week I hope you’ll excuse me for re-posting a piece I ran on last year’s autumnal equinox—September 21, 2008. Very few of the current readers were looking at the blog at that time, so I don’t think it’ll be redundant for many. Hope you enjoy it.]
Today: a suspended chord hovering between two open doors….
thru one the eggplants & tomatoes & peppers hang on their vines & absorb whatever sun breaks thru; the pears that were out-of-reach are still ripening yellow & falling; the zinnias are orange & magenta in the herb bed by the oregano, itself blooming white….
thru one the willow & cottonwood leaves are turning & starting to fall in the breeze—yellow raincoats strewn across the gravel driveway—the small apples at the fence line are ripening & dropping too….
This morning: the twilight’s first pale blue is a scar across the night where the horizon’s wrist folds into the sky’s hand curving black & starry overhead….
Night isn’t really infinite, it’s just a hand that’ll lift us into prehistory; the stars are so many diamonds compressed from wishes & memories & prayers swirling away ….
The moon shrinking white & quiescent into the last quarter, rising late in the night & wandering thru the afternoon sky between the clouds….
Summer was a waking daydream—even the short night’s a daydream of heat & smoke & crickets, & falling asleep in the daylight—here at the western brink of Mountain Time where the sunlight lingers almost into tomorrow (which never comes)….
& the pears we couldn’t reach hang on the boughs for a short time yellow & ripe….
Autumn will be a wakeful night, the cold light of planets & constellations burning back thru time—a thousand thousand lighthouses burning in a dark sea you won’t cross except in the thoughts that carry you thru the nighttime….
Today—briefly—a balance as day & night both leave their doors ajar—a suspended chord hanging between the stars glinting like pinpricks glittering thru black fabric & the leaves glinting yellow & slick as the sun breaks thru….
A balance—the blue scar of morning’s twilight a tightrope you’re walking between the day & night—
A tightrope—balanced on the streak of magenta—a wound between the horizon & the gray clouds at sunset—
A stasis that doesn’t last—a chord that could ring chilling or hopeful between the stars & the horizon & between the sunlight & the cottonwood leaves all falling yellow, & the chord asks to be resolved….
Howdy folks, & thanks for all your good wishes. I’m percolating along, tho admittedly at a bit less than 100%. Without going into too many gory details, a review of my symptoms (in combination with the fact that this condition is very prevalent locally) leads me to think I have a fairly mild case of West Nile Virus. Apparently it’s pretty unlikely (tho not impossible) that a mild case such as this will develop into the scary severe sort. Interestingly, the vast majority of folks who are infected with the virus get no symptoms at all, with the sort of mild symptoms I have being the next most common result. I do feel quite a bit better today.
With Eberle’s okay, I thought I’d talk a little today about one possible future she & I are giving serious consideration—actually, it’s an idea we’ve been tossing around for a few years, but it seems quite possible that we may be moving from the “idea” to the “implementation” stage. The pictures you’re seeing in this blog definitely aren’t from Indian Valley—no, they’re from a little fishing town called Garibaldi, OR (& of course, you can enlarge them by clicking).
We first came across Garibaldi on our honeymoon; we’d left Portland & headed west, with our ultimate destination being a condo in Lincoln City, one of the Oregon Coast’s big tourist towns. As we were winding our way south on US Highway 101 in the mid morning, we felt the urgent need of coffee, & we pulled over into one of those ubiquitous Shell convenience stores/gas stations. We’d veered away from the open Pacific at this point, but I can remember the fog rising up from the big harbor with its fleet of boats. To the eastern side of 101 a small village rose on a gentle slope toward forested hills.
This didn’t feel like a resort town—it had the feeling of a “real place” in a way that resort towns seldom do. I presume this is largely because it is on Tillamook Bay, & not on the open ocean; in some ways, it reminded me of Cascade, ID—a working class town in the midst of a resort area. (It’s a bit smaller than Cascade, actually—about the size of Council, ID in terms of population, tho Garibaldi seems to have more services than Council).
We headed south, & had a lovely honeymoon in Lincoln City, but both Eberle & I filed Garibaldi away in our memories. When we returned to the coast for vacations in 07 & 08 (we skipped 06 due to commitments with The Grub Stake score), we took day trips to Garibaldi from our rental just a bit north in Manzanita; & we both continued to like the feel of the place very much….
We’re now talking pretty seriously about buying a house there. Now for local readers: don’t panic—if we do, it’ll be a “second home” for the foreseeable future; we don’t intend a permanent move away from Indian Valley any time real soon—we both love our house & our surroundings. But Indian Valley has certain very specific drawbacks for someone with a lung condition. Although this hasn’t been the case too much this summer, the way Indian Valley is situated relative to surrounding areas make it an ideal collector for smoke from wildfires during the summer—because its low-lying, we routinely get significant amounts of smoke even from fairly distant fires on the Snake River, for instance; this in addition to the very real threat of local wildfires (there was one exactly one mile from our house the weekend we spent in McCall). In addition, while I’m aware that coastal winters are rainy, the winters here tend to be gloomy as well, as Indian Valley is very prone to inversions—i.e., the warm air stays high & the chilly damp air—often accompanied with frozen fog—lies low. The frozen fog—or pogonip, to use its Native name—is beautiful to look at, but I can tell you there’s a reason the Native Americans believed it to be injurious to the lungs.
& there are general maintenance issues with a 10-acre parcel, with a relatively big driveway (snow shoveling) & even bigger lawn (mowing, etc). In addition, there’s a pretty significant difference in oxygen between Indian Valley (3,000 feet) & Garibaldi (22 feet above sea level).
As folks who’ve followed this blog for some time know, I’ve felt drawn by the ocean since I was very young, & there’s something about the sea that has always filled me with a sort of serenity. When I lived in San Francisco I loved going to Ocean Beach. For a few years I used to bike out there thru Golden Gate Park on Sundays.
Being on the north side of 50, I think I know pretty well that wherever you live, there are good points & bad points. But we’re both excited thinking about this, & we wanted to share a bit of this dream with you folks.
I’ve written this in a pretty leisurely fashion this morning—in between playing the banjo & a few light household chores—point is, I actually think I might be on the mend, as I’m feeling the best I’ve felt since Thursday. Hope you’ve enjoyed the Garibaldi pix; I’m looking forward to catching up on your blogs in the next couple of days.. We’ll keep you posted as things develop regarding the Oregon coast!
We all have times when some intangible part of us needs to be soothed—whether we call that the heart or the soul or the mind, etc. & we all need ways of being soothed; some like to cook, some like to exercise, some like to take quiet walks, some—like me—love to play guitar or some other instrument. These ways & others like them all seem pretty positive; of course, there are destructive ways that some of us have sought this heart’s ease, too—sadly, those ways don’t ever seem to work in the long run. That’s my experience at least.
There are also landscapes, I believe, that can bring this heart’s ease. For some, it’s the mountains in winter; for others, the open space of the rangeland. Some find joy & peace in the bustle of a city neighborhood—its markets, its shops, its streets & buildings; other find it in a farmhouse. For me, the most soul-nurturing landscapes have always involved water in general, & the ocean in particular. I’ve written about this before, so today rather than elaborate points I’ve made before, I’m posting a slideshow of photos Eberle & I took at the Oregon coast last fall. The background music is an untitled guitar piece I composed last summer. The word “composed” is used somewhat loosely here, because nothing was ever written down. This is just an improvisation on a chord progression that’s odd but actually quite simple.
Hope you find the music & images peaceful on this Sunday afternoon.
[Well here we are after all, thanks to Eberle's Weiser River Pillow Book series. If you're interested in past installments, simply click on the link right above the Blog Archive list. Hope you enjoy it!]
A DOUBLE VISION OF WORMS
1971. A family camping trip, two rubber rafts on a lake. The worm suspended over the water between the rafts which are too full of people and dynamics, all the dynamics somehow focused on the worm which has been packed miles into this mountain lake, now suspended over the water, the focus of the question: Who shall impale the worm? If you are afraid of doing it, you will be asked to do it, you will become the center of horrible attention instead of the worm; until you are not afraid and then you will be ignored at the moment of impaling, which becomes a sacred privilege reserved for someone else. A brother, a father.
2001, my garden, the worms are in the earth where they belong and I have a reverence for them, as gardeners do. I know when the tiny young worms start to appear, and which beds have the most. I’m standing in the mint bed and one comes out of the soil, making visible that incredible connection between air and earth—I have put the bodies of guinea hens and cats into the earth, I can almost imagine my own there, going into the worms, the mobile intestines of the underworld.
PANIC IS WORSE WHEN THE SKY IS BLUE
arched high the way it is in June, the plants budding and blooming so fast and furious you realize things are really out of your hands. Everything suddenly alive. This is when you don’t want thundering hooves coming out of the sky, panic, your heartbeat shaking the earth, worms for miles around shaken numbly from the earth, lying there draped and drunkenly exposed.
FENCING
Stretcher, wire, fencing pliers.
Staples, string, a thermos of cool water with mint and lemon balm and ginger in it.
Stout boots; leather gloves are good.
Our neighbors are fencing too and the day is very hot. We all watch each other with increasing wariness as the sun moves higher, and we stretch the wire tight, tighter.
IRRIGATION
We probably won’t see rain again until September.
In June, rose petals will fill the dusty ditch.
The sound of the sprinkler will make Pablo the parrot doze off dreamily, just as he would during a rainstorm.
THINGS ABOUT THE CATALPA TREE
Its heart-shaped leaves seen through the kitchen-sink window and a section of spiral staircase.
Its late-leafing and rather coarse abandon-- and then the perfection of its blossoms, the speckled funnel and whorled lips.
The strange, sweet-astringent smell you can smell from the pumphouse. Then the tree goes invisible until the dangling pods turn brown and catch your eye.
THINGS THAT APPEAR WITH NO WARNING
One morning, one field over, large bales of hay.
The beginnings of blackberries.
A sore throat.
THINGS THAT BECOME COMPLETELY ENGROSSING WHEN THE TEMPERATURE IS 100
Watching Pablo the parrot eat a cherry.
Leaning on the corral fence with the llamas nearby.
Watching the guinea hens plop themselves down in the shade of the plum trees.
Looking at the various plants growing in the pasture. Thinking about them.
PROJECTS ALWAYS LOOMING, NEVER SCHEDULED
Cleaning the pantry, the crawl space.
Scraping the last of the varnish off the wood floor.
Covering the old lime-green linoleum with new linoleum.
PROJECTS WE DID INSTEAD
Built a wood shed.
Made a sculpture of an old culvert and hanging lamp.
Painted animal silhouettes in the corner of the living room.
LATE JUNE
The morning sun is golden-- a deep gold that makes things seem to glow from within—it is unlike the light at any other time of year. It makes the idea of death seem a betrayal—a trick by an adversary not acting honorably. The mesh of light and hammock, leaves and sky, looking as strong and single-minded as the idea of eternity.
THINGS ABOUT HIKERS IN THE WILDERNESS
They fly in from other places and assemble gear—brightly colored and made of high-tech fibers. They make going into the wilderness into an act of consumption. Choosing a mountain, a lake, as they would a car—for what it reflects about their idea of their own elusive identity.
THINGS THAT FLOAT ALONG IN TIME
The spent heads of the irises bearing the memory of spring.
Dry grassheads, that bloomed unnoticed, now making waves across fields in the wind.
Elderberry blossoms like foam carried on the upper reaches of thickets.
(Here's the May installement in Eberle's Weiser River Pillow Book series. If you'd like to know more about this work, please check the links here & here. You can find links to all the installments so far—December thru April—on the links under * Eberle's Corner * about halfway down the page.)
The thing about witches is that they were independently minded—loners. That’s European witches, anyway. In Brazil and Bolivia they seem more integrated into the social structure. But it strikes me that all the lore about books of spells and other paraphernalia has been added to obscure the important fact that witches had no formulated tradition, that what they did was make up their own rules.
And learn from the land, about plants. But not to come up with poisons or medicines, not just for that, mostly to be connected—to the land, through what is observed and what is taught by the slow process of growth. Last week I told myself that if I felt inclined toward religion what I would do would be to learn one from this land—that ten acres of land with water would provide all you need for a civilization—with its own art forms, religion, values, and sustenance. I went outside and put some dried lavender beneath the metal pig-lady goddess, who lives in a shrine made from part of a tractor.
TOWELS ON THE BATHROOM SHELF
The faded pink one, with holes—for orphan days. The thick black one that sheds slightly—when the illusion of opulence reveals its flaws. The deep blue one—perfect, a reward reserved for harmonious days. Striped ones—always go on the hand towel rack, for unexplained reasons. The peach one—somewhere between the pink one and the blue one. Turquoise—you have to be feeling a bit brash for this one. The ones my companion brought with him to live here—still look exotic and exciting. My grandmother’s, with rose appliqués—are fading, poignantly—death again.
THE FIRST LADYBUG
The first ladybug seen from beneath the cottonwoods starting to fill the air with cotton somehow makes me want to let the wild roses grow right into the laundry room—prying the siding apart as they have already started to do, and twining into the secret place where the totem umbrella lies month after month, untouched.
THE PARADE OF LEAVES
Cottonwood, willow, currant already jaded, the spiky blackberry and the elegantly down-curving elderberry, those of the serviceberry have serrated edges, those of the chokecherry do not, these are the ones I have come to know and it is strange to think that they unfurled in their stately, hurtling order before I came here to live among them.
THE SUMMER IS FULL OF GHOSTS
The summer is full of ghosts—of longings from other times of warmth and sun—longing built upon longing, in some kind of endless algebraic proof of itself. And yet this place comes closer than any I have known to containing what I love. Still, there are rustlings in the bushes—invisible things on the wing, with sharp beaks and singing.
THINGS THAT LOOK WELL AGAINST GREEN HILLS
Black cattle.
Ploughed fields.
Crayon-colored farm equipment.
THINGS SEEN ON A SHOPPING TRIP TO THE LAND OF THINGS
Garden hoses colored blue and purple instead of green.
A display of beef jerky in the men’s underwear section.
Bubble gum chips sold in miniature milk cartons.
LUCKY STRIKE AT THE DUMP
3 fans, various sizes.
Large iron hook.
Dishwasher part.
Large metal hoop.
Stove part.
Electrical box.
Bucketful of small metal bits.
SOME COLORS AT THE FARMSTEAD
Pumphouse: drifting sea and pink.
Pig-lady shrine: John Deere yellow and green, pomegranate.
Is it better to clean under the stove burners when the moon is new, do the dust bunnies increase when the moon is on the wane and trailing behind it the glittering flux of the object world—a milk jug emerging in the draw, a beer-bottle cap winking in the corral.
BIG HOT DAY
2 starlings trapped in the chimney—dismantling the stove pipe to let them out.
Cleaning out the swamp cooler pump and pan.
Hanging 2 sheets on the southwestern windows-- from the Hospital Auxiliary Thrift Store—torn, darned, and nibbled. One pale blue, one pale green. They make an underwater light pour across the living room.
THE ORDER OF THINGS
Dandelions.
Peonies after the lilacs, before the hedge roses.
Irises after lilacs.
Elderberries flowering after the currants berry.
TREES AND THEIR BEETLES
The bane of the locusts and their elegant branches, a borer resembling a wasp, cleverly, since that is its great predator. The box elder trees growing around an abandoned homestead I drove past hundreds of times before finally exploring it. The familiar deities of these localities presiding: a toppled refrigerator, large car parts—and swarming cities of box elder beetles.
EARLY MORNING THOUGHTS
Every embarrassing thing you’ve ever done.
Thinking how pleasant it is that two days still remain in the month of May—then remembering how you used to hate the calendar and drew up lunar calendars to follow instead.
Thinking you can give up some high-minded principles that made your first few decades more noble, but uncomfortable.
STRANGE SIGHTS
In the pond, in slow motion, a bullfrog which has its mouth almost entirely around another’s head.
A baby porcupine in the garden, without quills, defenseless.
A wasp wrapped up like a mummy in a black widow’s web.
LATELY WE HAVE ASKED ALOUD
What is the process of galvanizing?
Why bush league?
Why the card in the carding of wool?
There it sits, the Oxford English Dictionary, but sometimes we love a mystery.
(Here's the April installement in Eberle's Weiser River Pillow Book series. If you'd like to know more about this work, please check the links here & here. You can find links to all the installments so far—December thru March—on the links under * Eberle's Corner * about halfway down the page.) LONGINGS WITH NO DOUBT ATTACHED
For a pigeon house.
For a world without US-trained death squads.
For the embrace of your beloved.
SIDEWAYS THINGS
Egyptian people in paintings.
The branches of sage and bitterbrush.
A backhanded compliment.
UNEXPECTED THINGS
Finding a guinea egg in the grass by the draw.
When you go to a city, men are wearing suits and ties, quite seriously. You have forgotten how completely ludicrous this looks.
When you are so happy with a manuscript, then the sudden sense of panic.
After making love, the window across the room seems to disappear and the outside world is completely alive, a vast jellyfish in which everything floats—connected—with faintly luminous bodiless threads.
THERE IS THIS SUPERSTITIOUS THING
There is this superstitious thing, after finishing writing a book, where my soul seems in abeyance, more vulnerable to the zombie-makers. I find myself setting up defenses against the whole range of them, the ungenerous, furiously empty horde. It is not a rational thing. It is as if until I start the next book, choose the next leg of the journey or am chosen by it, I need to keep an extra guard over my unprotected soul. On the other hand, the ghostly voices of my writer-companions and ancestresses become louder, are woven like a shining horizon around me.
SPRING IS NOT
Spring is not compassionate—it’s every bud for itself and there is no time for sadness, no sense in generalizing from the superabundance of specifics, the undifferentiated inundation of detail. The sorting mechanism is slowly dismembered under the tiny, relentless tendrils of vines.
RAIN IN APRIL
A day of leisure, no work outside, this is lovely.
Gray sky, green fields.
The idea of drops clinging, then falling, from buds.
The landscape of lowering clouds brings a desert to mind, chambers carved into rock—small spaces contained within great distances.
HARD FROST
You might as well be exiled to the moon.
The anxiety of winter and having no money returns, a distorted echo.
The color of frozen daffodil foliage keeps me inside all day.
BAD BOATS
Good gadflies.
Sad squashes.
Desperate daguerreotypes.
Timely toes.
Wistful wampum.
DIORAMAS
Sunset. One tree in silhouette. The family dinner table on the savannah.
A test-tube wildebeest in the grade school science lab.
Antlers on the bridal couple.
The salt and pepper shakers locked in mortal combat.
A RECREATION DISTRICT MEETING
On the way there, a snowstorm unrolling itself in the sky at the perfect distance.
The lingering snow-light turning to dark outside the Forest Service building. Inside, things happen when people gather around a meeting table.
A pixie was present, and one woman resembled a fish to a remarkable degree. A squat, square, ruddy man was straight out of Trollope. Rules of procedure govern these meetings.
GEE GAWS
Trip the light fantastic.
Trap the dark ballistic.
Trot the sea pacific.
TABLE OF ELEMENTS
Star
Beach ball
Fish Lipstick
slowly intricately breaking
OCCASIONAL THINGS
A branch with decorated blown eggs hanging from the arching twigs.
A hubcap, placed on my gate as an offering.
Capping a highway fence post, a work boot, sole pointing skyward.
THINGS THAT CREATE A COMFORTABLE SENSE OF WISTFULNESS
A cold day and a relentless north wind.
Making soup out of leftover vegetables and rice.
Holes in your favorite jumper; wearing it anyway and curling up with a book by the fire.
ONE COUNTY OVER
One county over, they don’t have zoning regulations, and we visited a subdivision that was a little piece of wonder compared to the more familiar new wave of second-home communities—mansions with expensive plastic fencing made to look like rustic post and rail fencing but supposed to last forever—conferring a sort of rich-folks’ immortality, a modern version of the pyramids, I suppose.
This subdivision looked a bit like a rural Brazilian town because you didn’t have to be rich enough to buy a lot of land in order to be allowed to have a cow or horses. There they all were, right next to each other in little plots with chickens too. We saw guinea hens, and a strange abandoned structure like an enormous tree house. One narrow strip of land had only room enough for a trailer plus a very large water-wheel in the irrigation ditch, painted bright red. How charming a break from the relentless visual litany along the roadside of who shall have what, and how it shall look. The constant reminders of the continuum that has smugness and righteous snobbery on one end, and all the varieties of sanctioned brutality on the other.
LOVELY LEADEN THINGS
A cloudy April day.
A fishing-line weight.
The soft seal on a bottle of Italian vinegar that smells of distilled sunlight and underground rooms full of barrels.
THE PEOPLE ARE EXTRA
Even though I feel totally disenchanted today with how people act, and unsure of the value of my attempt to create a social reality for myself, I am still so glad that I live here, in a place containing landscapes I loved as a child. I see the road reaching into the hills, disappearing below snow-covered mountains, and I feel grateful for this abiding love of place. The people have always been extra.
HERALDIC CREST
I Shall Elude Them.
With teapots rampant and crossed gardening tools, a recumbent pen on a paper sky.
All the wrong colors.
THERE ARE TIMES
There are times when it feels like you have to make up the world every day-- when there is no carry-over at all from the day before. Somehow, during the night, it was all washed away—the bulwarks against doubt and shame, the levers that adjust the delicate balance of anger, compassion, and independence. These and all the other triangulations simply fall apart, and there you are again, unprotected, with the howling voices of your mutilated culture coming at you, and you try again for one more act of wizardry that will deflect them, turn them into gargoyles so you can walk away from the castle, find out how the rivers have changed course again, in the dark time.
THE FIRST MOWING
The first mowing brings with it the memory of the strange agitation of mid-summer-- the heat-struck immobility and the restlessness of the body, muscles twitching as grasshoppers across the whole landscape are twitching, tufts of grass, incessantly.
I DREAMED A GARDEN
I dreamed a garden, and I was so surprised that my cup-and-saucer plant had come back—the thick, fleshy cup on one stem, the saucer on the stem next to it. I didn’t deserve that kind of luck, I told myself.
As spring has returned to our corner I’ve the world, I’ve started taking my “constitutionals” in our pasture; as regular readers know, we live on a “ranchette” that’s just a shade under 10 acres, & for the past several years our pasture has been home to various llamas—an interesting story, that, but for another time. Last week I mentioned these strolls in a comment on Reya Mellicker’s wonderful blog, The Gold Puppy (a daily must-read in my opinion), & Reya mentioned she’d like to see this meadow I was strolling in.
Thinking about this made me think about some other subjects—some relatively trivial, like the fact that walking is one type of exercise I generally like, especially if the walking involves some element of exploring. Others topics it raises are more important & possibly even somber in a way. I generally like blog writing that’s upbeat, & if you stick with me here, I think this topic also is upbeat: at least that’s the way I look at it. &, yes, it is directly connected to my walking in the pasture; & I should say it’s thanks to the wisdom of my dear wife Eberle—who always has great ideas for Robert Frost’s Banjo & has thought for some time I should write about this topic—that I’m sharing this (most willingly) with you folks. Some of what follows involves the dreaded “D” word—“disease”—but this is most definitely not looking for sympathy. It’s just a way of letting folks whose cyber company I very much enjoy know something fairly significant about me.
Just about 8 years ago, I was diagnosed with COPD (chronic pulmonary obstructive disorder)—it had become clear that my breathing wasn’t what it should be, tho I was quite active at the time. I’d quit smoking about 5 years before that (in 1996, when I stopped writing poetry—not coincidental), & for some time I just thought things would improve over time. But one blustery & unseasonably cool Sunday evening in the spring of 01, I was practicing with the town softball team, & while taking my batting hacks, I just couldn’t catch my breath. Now softball is a lot of fun, but unless you’re dashing across the outfield to make a play, it isn’t terrifically aerobic, & batting is one of its least aerobic aspects. This convinced me something was wrong, & I made an appointment with a nurse practitioner, who gave me the news. I’ve learned a lot since then, thanks to some wonderful folks in the medical profession. It turns out that while my smoking history certainly didn’t help my situation (to say the least), it wasn’t the ultimate cause. I have an odd genetic quirk called Alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency, which means I’m short on an enzyme controlling the lung tissue’s natural cleaning process; in essence my lungs wind up damaging themselves—sort of like using too much elbow grease with a Brillo pad. Since more damage is inflicted whenever the lungs need to clean themselves, smoking is highly unadvisable with this condition, & any kind of significant respiratory infection like a flu is also, in a word, bad. Of course, I didn’t know I had this condition until 01, & hadn’t even heard about it before that. The condition was first identified fairly recently—in 1963. Fortunately, there is a treatment for this, but I'll spare the specific details in consideration for the medically squeamish (it’s actually not bad, but it does involve a weekly IV). The treatment isn’t restorative—once lung tissue is damaged, it’s damaged, period—but it does maintain a baseline level to minimize further damage. One of the more obscure links on theOther Places of Interest section here is AlphaNet. This is a great organization that performs outreach, helps to educate folks with the condition, & facilitates research.
But wait—weren’t we just taking a stroll in the pasture? Well, yes. For obvious reasons, exercise is important when you have any form of COPD or emphysema (to be more specific), because it helps to maintain a certain level of functionality. On the other hand, it can seem like a Catch-22, because there are added impediments to exercise in addition to “the long list of things I’d rather be doing.” But lately, walking in the pasture has really seemed right to me—it’s a lovely setting, & it’s seems filled with a kind of peace, even in its odd mix of rangeland & wetland—although Indian Valley is semi-arid, we live below a ridge that’s filled with springs, so we’re more or less the oasis; & we get much of the run-off from Mesa Hill.
It’s a place I just haven’t inhabited as much in the past few years—so the walks are a way of re-connecting with a landscape that had begun to seem alien; there was a time when I was out there a lot—fencing, building “cages” for young trees so the llamas wouldn’t strip them bare, & doing various ranchette activities involving the llamas & their loafing shed & corral. At a certain point the crucial work was done, & if there was something that needed to be mended, it was an event—not something that was encompassed by the normal flow of life.
But the pasture always seemed magical to me in many ways. Although 10 acres is nothing compared with the territory covered by a real ranch, it’s always seemed like a whole world to me—especially when I moved here from a studio apartment in San Francisco’s Western Addition. The snapshots accompanying this post were taken on Wednesday, & they concentrate on the area around the pond, to the west of our house. I’ve always had a special fondness for this area—it just seems so cool to live on property that has a pond.
It’s also quite fun that our old cat Weenie (she’s about 9-years-old, which is getting up there for a cat that’s half wild) seems to like to accompany me on these strolls. Of course, cats always have their own reality, & she invariably finds something in the pasture to keep her occupied as I’m heading for home.
But the real point of this is, simply: life overall is good. Sure, I’d like to do some things I used to do, but I’m not heartbroken about this—I’m lucky to have any number of pastimes that are feasible under the circumstances, & I really believe that life is something to be enjoyed & embraced for as long as we’re allotted to do so—am I perfect at living up to this? No; but I think I do a pretty fair job overall. Given my current state of affairs, & with a little bit of Irish luck, I should be able to enjoy life for a good long time to come, & there should be a lot more places (both exterior & interior) to explore.
I'll be around later today to respond to any comments. In the meantime, I was reminded of the following beautiful poem by Robert Duncan. Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind, that is not mine, but is a made place,
that is mine, it is so near to the heart, an eternal pasture folded in all thought so that there is a hall therein
that is a made place, created by light wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
Wherefrom fall all architectures I am I say are likenesses of the First Beloved whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.
She it is Queen Under The Hill whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words that is a field folded.
It is only a dream of the grass blowing east against the source of the sun in an hour before the sun's going down
whose secret we see in a children's game of ring a round of roses told.
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow as if it were a given property of the mind that certain bounds hold against chaos,
that is a place of first permission, everlasting omen of what is.
(Here’s the March installment in Eberle’s Weiser River Pillow Book series. In case you’ve missed the earlier installments, there are links to them in the left-hand frame. The first installment also has some background info. A note on the picture—yes, those are our guinea hens on our property. We were notorious in those days for the color of our outbuildings—take a guy who’d lived in California & a gal who’d lived in Brazil & that’s what happens. That building’s gone, however; where it stood is now our front room, kitchen & my office).
THIS IS EARLY SPRING
This is early spring—the harsh light that reveals the spots on the windowpanes, the streaks. Suddenly you notice that the ceiling is adrift with patches of cobwebs, soot, and feathered dust. Even the walls are encrusted with a faint lichen-like growth of grime you would never have noticed a week ago. And body-parts everywhere, from the slain pioneers of wasps and flies.
This small burst of horror is the last struggle against new life—this disbelief that verges on anger, this not-wanting to be tricked, this winter spirit that judges hope to be a corrupting luxury.
THINGS WORTH SEEING IN MARCH
The frantic happiness of guinea hens on the south-facing field when the snow first melts.
Geese flying north-- three vast V’s of them-- moving against the sky, shifting positions, shifting shape as cars on the highway slow and veer, watching them.
Buds on the currant bushes flushing red.
A light early morning snow and mist on Weird Hill, the moon in the southern sky.
EXTRA THINGS
A rock from Crystal Mountain in the zippered pocket of your purse.
Murder mysteries.
Small bottles of shampoo from hotels.
A pleasing sexual encounter in a dream.
IT IS GOOD TO BE A DISSIDENT IN EARLY SPRING
It is good to be a dissident in early spring when there is no packageable beauty to trick the eye, none of the candy-hued flowers that are made use of to sell tissue paper and room deodorizers—it’s all raw power—not brutal like government, not showy like cars packaged to assuage the insecurities of the hopelessly wealthy—but quiet, enormous potentiality-- complex, with the inevitability of buds and stars: rain and mud. A giving-up of one’s consciousness for a moment to the gnarled branches of the locust, and returning, restored, to one’s own convictions.
OVERWHELMING THINGS
The spring thaw.
A mall.
Desire.
THINGS THAT TRAP
Debt.
The idea of success.
Love.
MARCH REVELATIONS
At home, red rhubarb uncurling, and yellow crocuses. On the edge of the highway, the fawn-colored carcass of a deer, flattened into the ground by snowmelt, and a fragment of blown-out tire emerging as glossy and black-purple as a crow.
On the window, a tiny ant crawling, and by the wild plum tree, the ant hill swarming again.
FULL CROW MOON
It’s the only time of year that there are crows in abundance here, though the next town to the north has them all spring and summer.
They appear at the same time that the willows suddenly glow their pale moon yellow.
Crows, like magpies, catch the attention as individuals. They can trick you. They don’t get hit by cars.
THINGS NEAR AND FAR
Stop light: 55 miles Rice vinegar: 52 miles Fast food: 75 miles Hell’s Canyon: 75 miles Mall: 120 miles Airport: 120 miles Rodeo: 14 miles Lettuce: 12 miles Gun club: 2 miles Church: 2 miles
THINGS FALL APART
The wagon wheels set in metal frames to make gates.
The outbuildings leaning as the mud moves around them.
Plastic bits of the truck interior, detaching.
The cracks on the southeast corner of the house expanding, making homes for wasps.
A dress you’ve worn for two decades wearing through in spots—time is passing.
Friendships, too, can come apart in your hands.
CLEANLINESS, GODLINESS
When the red wine spills on the carpet, people say “Salt,” in unison and then do not move for a moment, as if it were an invocation.
How happy Medieval theorists of demons would be to have the computer graphics used to depict germs on commercials advertising cleansers.
FIRST SPRING RAIN
I am back at grade school in Illinois, a Latin class—RANA: FROG. It was raining outside and I used that to memorize the word. Then the sky cleared, becoming enormous, and I realized all at once, for the first time, that school was merely a building.
In Florida almost twenty years ago—I sat with Pablo the parrot on my shoulder then too, on a porch during a rainstorm. The storms back then were frequent, short, and furious. I remember undergoing jealousy and smashing empty beer bottles into the gutter. I live in the desert now, much calmer, with Pablo on my shoulder as I write these pages on the porch in the mornings.
The storms and porches of Ohio are still too laden with sadness to remember for more than a fraction of a second at a time.
Rain in Virginia was so much less real than my own thoughts that I don’t have a single clear memory of a storm. One time, actually, when lightning made unconnected wires meant for a television burst into brief flame between my lover and me, and I thought, yes, that expresses us perfectly.
My perspective seems to be changing so quickly—like a river that is wider but moving faster and faster, around the bend into the uncharted landscape of middle age. So broad and inviting at times—at others, the awareness through ripples on the surface, that the deadly rapids are hidden now, underwater rather than exposed.
SMART THINGS
Asymmetrical hats, with hatpins.
Plants with root systems exuding toxins which prevent other plants from growing.
Imperialist capitalism.
Clamshells with paper flowers inside, unfolding underwater.
Using grade school and high school as a forcing ground for the dynamics of hierarchy.
McCall sewer worker: “After what the scientific cult of intelligence produced in the twentieth century, the only truly intelligent act that remains an option would be to say yes if an alien life-form wanted to have sex with you.”
THINGS THAT GLEAM
Lighted windows at night, seen from the highway across dark fields.
A small brass faucet, in moonlight.
A broken piece of china, half-buried in the spring that runs through the draw.
THINGS TO CONTEND WITH
Cattails taking over the pond.
Grasshoppers.
Snobbery.
EXOTICA
My composition notebook, last year manufactured in Ohio, now identical but manufactured in Brazil.
Dandelions, first brought to this country as decorative plants by early settlers along with Puritanism.
One’s own body, seen in parts, looking down, or whole, in a mirror.
ACTIVITIES WITH NO DOUBT ATTACHED
Fencing in the spring.
Feeding the guinea hens.
Drinking tea on the porch and looking at the mountains.
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