Whirl and Swirl

Moya Cannon: "Openings" & "Still Life"

OPENINGS

In my chest a rusted metal door
is creaking open,
the door of a decompression chamber
cranked up on barnacled chains.

The rush of air hurts and hurts
as larks fly
in and out,
in and out
between my bended ribs.

--Moya Cannon

STILL LIFE

Much though we love best
those intersections of time and space
where we are love's playthings,
a sweet anonymity of flesh --
life's blessed rhythm
loving itself through us,
two human bodies tuned
to the whirring stars --

this is almost nothing
without the small, quotidian gifts,
habitual caresses which hinder fears,
the grace of small services rendered --
two bowls of blueberries and yoghurt,
two cups of coffee,
two spoons,
laid out on a wooden table
in October sunlight.

--Moya Cannon

-- from Moya Cannon's Hands,

Carcanet Press Limited,

Manchester, UK, 2011

Why I Paddle

In one photo, one fairly simple photo . . . .

I love Keats' poetry, but I don't often agree with his famous lines about truth and beauty.

Kayaking out of Van Damme, I do agree, inescapably.

Early Start

Well, it wasn't that early, but it was a weekday in July.

Still, rising tide, which is important for catching fish while they are feeding.

MacLeish's "Seafarer"

SEAFARER

And learn O voyager to walk
The roll of earth, the pitch and fall
That swings across these trees those stars:
That swings the sunlight up the wall.

And learn upon these narrow beds
To sleep in spite of sea, in spite
Of sound the rushing planet makes:
And learn to sleep against this ground.

--Archibald MacLeish



collected in
Poems of the Sea,
selected and edited by J. D. McClatchy
Everyman's Library

Brother-of-Pearl: A Sequence

Aquaman:
sculpture mix; green house-paint;
leather cord; and abalone shell.

Mendocino: 7/23/18

One Shiny-Clean Truck

I was happy to see CA Fish and Wildlife making their presence felt up north.  Too much poaching going on.

I didn't expect to find myself looking back at me, however.

I was taking a shot of the warden’s truck (for I admire the proud logo and the officer’s mission), yet his vehicle was so squeaky clean, I ended up with a rather good shot of my own truck—as my kayak-buddy JP pointed out.

Pinnacle

I have taken so many shots of this pinnacle.  I really ought to check my archives and present a blogpost on the different moods, the different silent voices of this one hunk of stone.  I don't really explore.   I really enjoy coming back to the same few places again and again and again in different seasons, different weathers, different mindsets.  And, just as I love getting coffee at Moody's and a fish & chip dinner at Sea Pal Cove in the harbor, I love looking at this pinnacle from the deck of my kayak or, even better, from the water itself.

Mendocino Kayaking

A good day for paddling, though the swell was rising and that made free diving or scuba tricky with heavy surge and low visibility.

Dickinson: "Exultation is the Going"

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea --
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep Eternity!

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?

--Emily Dickinson

collected in
Poems of the Sea,
selected and edited by J. D. McClatchy
Everyman's Library

Cave-Time

Not A Pretty Sport III

Number 57, actually.

Gemini at the Beach

“You KNOW you have a twin,” the woman said, walking an elderly dog in the Van Damme State Beach parking lot yesterday in response to my hello.  (I was just waiting for her to pass by, for I wanted to strip off my cold wet neoprene.). “You have a twin, “ she continued, “in SC.”

I am not sure which SC she meant, for I didn’t think to ask.  I thought, South Carolina?  (Did I hear a touch of the South in her voice?  I think so.)

Maybe SoCal or Santa Cruz?

I do not know.

She walked on, the dog pulling her.

Clay: A Miscellany in Motion

Just thrown: very small bowl, intended for mixing, say, 2-3 eggs.

Just thrown: a small bowl with wide hips 

(I like the shape, so I am hoping the weight of the sides won't be too much before it hardens.)

A mix of just thrown to almost ready to be bisqued.

Small figures--chess pieces and masks--almost ready to be bisqued.

Fish-head and two small sperm whales: just formed.

Two pieces (+ duck-head) just moved to wait for the first firing.

Glaze-Time

It has been a long time . . . .

Do You Like My Tie?

Aquaman:
sculpture mix; green house-paint;
leather cord; and abalone shell.


Cover shot for that book of poetry I haven’t quite written yet . . . .

Old Clay: Moving Forward

Dream-Dram

Glenlivet: Founder’s Reserve

Almost as good as poetry
And far less labor.

I falter,
And drain the glass.

--MD

Notes: My Back Hurts

I
Back spasms are no fun.  I don't even know exactly how I strained my back this time.  I didn't carry scuba tanks too far; I didn't lean over and lift a box of books and then twist to put it down somewhere else; I didn't even try to pick up the other kayak, which I know is too heavy for one person.  (I have, I must admit, been carting gear about, shifting book-boxes, and loading up the other kayak, but I haven't had the dramatic pull, that overstepping of muscle through negligence of mind.)

Still, I've had a sore back for days, and today the spasms started.  Really, from long walks in the wrong pair of shoes?  Or a 70-minute hike?  Or, more likely, from the years piling up?

I've applied heat, I've stretched, and now I'm trying ice: three cubes in a glass with Flor de Cana.

II
I certainly don't like pain, but sometimes these back spasms just crack me up.

I've always thought that muscle cramps carry with them a funny sort of pain (they hurt, but the twisting of the muscles seems ridiculous), but some of this morning's spasms seemed triggered by the slightest wrong move, almost by the thought of moving, and I keep having to laugh.

Gasp and grunt, yes, but also laugh.

(I didn't move, I swear; I only thought about moving!)

Sam Hamill: "Ars Poetica"

PREFACE: ARS POETICA

Some say the poem's
best made from natural speech
from the inner life.
I say, That is sometimes true.
The poem's a natural thing.

Some say the poem
should rise into purest song,
a formality,
articulate expression
achieved through complex structures

derived from classics--
which also is true enough.
Let the song arise
as it will.  Learn to revise
the life.  Beware.  Disguises

rise up everywhere:
most dangerously, self-in-
fatuation.  "More
poets fail," Pound declared,
"from lack of character than

from lack of talent."
Some insist the poem is
heaven-sent, claiming
angelic heirs.  The poem,
I believe, is a failure

elevated in-
to triumph, a form of truth
wrought from mortal flesh
and blood that will soon perish,
but which--for one brief moment

or an hour--reveals
the tragic human spirit
in the very act
of imagining itself
cured of the sickness of self.

The poem cannot,
finally, be explained nor
defined.  The true gift
poetry bestows begins
and ends with humility

before the task.  All
the suffering of this world
can be truly felt,
absorbed adn transcended, just
by the act of listening

to that deepest voice
speaking from within.  Forget
hagiography.
All the great masters are dead.
Forget rime and irony.

Forget words, meter,
diction, whole syllabaries--
the literary.
The heart by way of the ear.
What's that you wanted to say?

--SAM HAMILL



from Gratitude,
BOA Editions, Ltd.
Rochester, NY  1998


(This one is for Eric, a very welcome house-guest)

Notes: Of Reading and Rereading

I read the way most folks listen to music, so there's an awful lot of rereading.  Often, a book deserves a second try or even multiple readings.  Or, I'm not the same man, not the same reader, that I was twenty or thirty years ago.  And, who listens to a great song and never listens again, right?

I have been thinking about the books I have reread again and again, and I think they fall into four or five categories.

No, I'm simpler than that: two or three.

Distraction, direction, and devotion.

I reread to be taken away from current events, current pressures, or I want background "music".

I reread for traction and to carry myself forward, to motivate myself, to pump up or to shake it all loose.

I reread as an act of prayer, as homage to great craft and vision and story.  I reread as a commitment to what the word can do beyond any other media.  I reread to explore and to embrace, to be exposed and to expose myself--all the nerve endings of mind and heart and soul--to story and character and action in the best senses.  I don't really have words myself for what I'm seeking, but it is a sacrament I seek daily, hourly, constantly.  Or, if not sacrament, at least immersion.  I reread to dive deeper, to swim beneath the surface of things, and to drown--if need be--in story.  (I hold my breath well, I must add.)

Background, motivation, and/or concentration.  Exposure.  Immersion.  Perhaps, an addiction?

All joy in various measures.

All fun in multifarious modes.

I read and reread the way most folks listen to music.  The way I listen to music.  The way I'll bet you listen to music.

Why don't you join me, if you don't already?

P.S.  Can something read be both distraction and devotion?
Sometimes, it can.  That's the magic.

Body Language

Captain:
sending me signals.
Those ears back, and that tail like a metronome.

Louise Gluck: "Task"

The profundity of our ignorance concerning the merit of what we do creates despair; it also fuels hope.  Meanwhile, contemporary opinion rushes to present itself as the intelligent alternative to ignorance: our task is to somehow insulate ourselves from opinion in its terminal forms, verdict and directive, while still retaining alert receptiveness to useful criticism.

--Louise Gluck

from "Education of the Poet,"
Proofs and Theories:
Essays on Poetry,
The Ecco Press,
1994

Play-Date: Fish and Octo

Old clay pieces out in the world.
My version of building sand-castles, I guess.

Sam Hamill: "The Nets"

THE NETS

Somewhere someone is untangling
the heavy nets of desire
beside a small fire at the edge of the sea.

He works slowly, fingers bleeding,
half thinking, half listening, knowing
only that the sea makes him thirsty.

--SAM HAMILL


from Gratitude, 
BOA Editions, Ltd.
Rochester, NY  1998

Dredgery