My weekly offerings at my free digital bookstore, Thistle Finch editions, include some remarkable new entries gleaned from our ongoing journals review.
There’s the Chronicle, Antiques Dealer, profiling a woman who saw deeply into the landscape she adopted. I do miss her.
Another Chronicle, Shakers and Me, has me now reflecting on a late friend who had held extensive conversations with Eldress Bertha, one of the last Shakers; I urged him to set the exchanges down on paper, to no avail. Yet a few he mentioned still echo. What I present here could be a prelude.
Still another Chronicle, On the Rock Wall, underpins the petroglyphs and petrographs I would later see firsthand in the Pacific Northwest.
I am fond of Scenes From a Life, prose sketches of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
And then there’s Sue’s Bread Recipe. Yes, learning to bake loaves was one of my lessons in the yoga ashram, one that led to hundreds or maybe thousands later. Here’s what Little Sue introduced to me.
If that weren’t enough, there are the poetry broadsides Within a Bigger Order, Kansas and Kyoto, and Bronx to Brooklyn (about someone I’d still love to talk to once more).
Put them together and I think you’d have a great magazine. Well, I am open to letters to the editor.
In the morning, beside the fire, Kitty said if we were still in Indiana, we’d be at Meeting right now, which spurred thoughts of friends and places. Then Carol Grow phoned, to say the Dolphs had friends/guests coming from Oregon and we’d meet at 8 — no potluck, just what turned out to be good, deep energy.”
Was this Smitty Young Bear?
Ivar noting “something strange” in the Valley, the lack in most of it of older, well-maintained structures — instead, the use of trailers, storefronts, a “boom town” attitude … we were also into a deep drought.
The Scotts, of Ellensburg, home from sabbatical … they’re highly regarded and outgoing … but their son is dying, something that returns them to Friends after backing off for years — burned too often, too much standing up for conscience, let somebody else do it …
In short, the Quaker gathering was becoming the center of our social world.
As I noted 6:III:
Meeting growing closer, deeper, with strong, invisible bonds … a beautiful, loving communion … speaking initiated by Louie’s strange, deep, loving, and troubling speaking … our next meeting will be at their place … where I would pick up what I thought was a curious white, striated and very heavy rock from their mantelpiece only to be told it was a mastodon tooth …
On 17 apr:
Meeting in E’burg, in the morning, at Joe and Myrtle Wilkening’s … they can’t come Sunday nights but mornings or Saturdays are good … also got the address for another place to meet here, through them …
Later, we stopped at the Dolphs’ on our way back from a salmon bake in Toppenish we couldn’t find. Cut asparagus along the canal banks. Learned their little tenant shack is up for rent. Now, trying to find the courage to move in there … smaller but much, much cheaper …
At home, finding an ad in Crossroads, another couple sitting for Meeting … called them and learned of two other couples. So our Quaker circle here, in a single day, has grown by half again, if we arrange ourselves …
~*~
Ten days later, we were half-moved into the little house … and trying to cut back to fit into it …
So the move took place at the end of April? I would have placed it a month a letter, from memory.
The move put us much closer to the earth and agriculture that were so essential to the existence of the county. It would also spur much of the action in my novel, Nearly Canaan. It brought me closer to the culture and ecology of our environment.
The Hunter is typically a male, an image of strength and tribe. In this case, Truckers.
Citizens’ Band radio, take a totem, new name for self:
Wildcat
Canadian Redhead
Blue Marlin (a Chevy van)
Kentucky Kid
The Illinois Playboy
Bluebeard
Old Dutchman
Bumblebee
with a talking stick / in your hand, in the air / at the wheel of an 18 / yes, eighteen-wheeler
Sometimes talking four-wheeler, too:
“Four-wheeler, she’s clear”
that is, not a Bear
“Ya got ears”
“Keep an eyeball out for”
~*~
Time check
Road check
~*~
“At 205, Eight-O
westbound Bear flipping around”
~*~
“Green stamps” are dollar bills
(reflecting store promotion trading stamps
of the time)
hence, “on the green stamps”
means turnpike tolls
perhaps bridges, too
~*~
“Was you in Harrisburg Pee A last night?
I was a-talkin’ to you”
~*~
In Gilligan’s Island, meaning Ohio
during Governor Gilligan’s term
“The Bears got seventy-five dollars out of me,
lost you,” meaning fine paid
A rig is reported doing “a roly-poly,” that can’t be good.
The signoff of departing or divergent interchanges:
“Have a good trip”
“Don’t feed no Bears”
“Catch you all later”
Beginning my 30th year. [I wouldn’t turn 30 for another year. It’s just that you start life at age 1, not zero.]
Quaker Meeting in our house last night, 17 in our little place [in town], Ward’s observation, “This is a comfortable room.”
Swiss-born Louis Ulrich spoke of gearing up to ascend Mount Stewart again, “a cure or a kill.” He was in his late 70s at that point. The mountain summit rises 9,415 feet above sea level and is notorious for its rugged steep sides.
“How are you going?”
“Up my gully.”
Otherwise known as Louie’s Couleur on the official maps. He was in the trio that made the first known ascent to the summit, pioneering his technical-climbing route.
As I would discover, beyond Wenatchee and Leavenworth two hours to our north:
Enchantment Lakes Wilderness Area at Mount Stuart, photo by Jeffrey Pang. via Wikimedia Commons.When we had Meeting in Louis and Anna’s home, I was drawn to a curiously striated large rock on their fireplace mantel. It was the size of a bowling ball but much heavier. Turns out to be a mastodon tooth found on one of his outings.
~*~
Throughout our valley, set up next to the mountains, there was great concern about drought, especially the lack of snowfall, which was the source of the irrigation water.
As I noted from one trek:
The Wildcat is not raging … despite a snow shower off in the mountains …
Or, regarding the Lady in the White Continental: And since there was no snow at White Pass she took the twins and flew to Switzerland.
Thing is, she can’t ski.
Well, I’m now thinking the twins soon became Olympic skiers.
~*~
People think of writing, perhaps especially poetry, as work but here I’m seeing more the frustration when it’s constipated.
Much later, I would come to see the practice of writing crossing over into prayer.
~*~
What I couldn’t see was how much change was about to occur in the multiple fronts of my life in the coming months.
Here are some thoughts. Or should I say reflections?
Usually you look through it, unless it’s dirty. You know, a pane of glass.
I don’t know about you, but I find washing windows to be a pain.
It can also be something you drink from. Or a quantity. (“I’ll take a glass of milk, please.”)
Or something to boost your vision. (“Now where are my glasses?”)
It can have very sharp edges, sometimes used in tools or instruments.
Traditionally, it’s made from silicon dioxide (SO2), a common constituent of sand and coming from quartz flakes. Because of the high temperatures required to work with pure silica, most glass is made with additives that lower the required heating levels and allow for different varieties of glass, soda-lime being the most common. Borosilicate gives Pyrex, and lead glass being the most brilliant and having a lower melting point.
Contrary to a widespread thought, it is not a solid liquid but rather an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid, allowing it transparency. In addition, it’s chemically inert, which is why it’s so wonderful for bottles and jars.
Fiberglass is stronger than many metals by weight, non-magnetic, non-conductive, can be molded into complex shapes, and is generally chemically inert. Its applications include aircraft, boats, automobiles, bathtubs and enclosures, hot tubs, swimming pools, septic tanks, water tanks, roofing, pipes, cladding, surfboards, and orthopedic casts. It could easily be a Tendrils of its own.
Spun glass is probably best known as insulation, while its use as fiber-optics cable is touted as superior to traditional copper wiring.
The oldest known glass objects are beads, perhaps originating as an accidental byproduct of metalworking or lead glazes for pottery.
Technological advances in glassmaking could furnish a Tendril on its own, but let’s not overlook the fact that one of the most recent gives us the tough glass that’s on the screen of the laptop or smart phone where you’re likely reading this.
As for poetry? “Wonder if my work adds up to summa, if it has a point” …
The night before (so where were we?): “the aging aesthete dismissing Pfingston’s piece, ‘This isn’t a poem,’ as though he knew, this uptight, pretentious high-school teacher whose 30 friends kept clinging to him, whispering comments about ‘classical forms’ and the ‘need for discipline’ and keeping a guard against ‘imitators’ and how Joan Stone can’t STAND Duane Niatum, ‘He borrows everything.’”
“That’s what happens when you get a PhD,” I almost said.
How many tall tumblers did that guy down — a dozen? How can any drunk evaluate a poem, appreciated its silence?
I’m tired of veneer, tired of poetry tasters — everything but the purely original, primitive, religious incantation …
[I had not yet delved into Jackson Cope’s “incantatory language” perspective on early Friends …]
When a batch of submissions go out, the first back are quick rejection slips — usually overstocked — then the mixed bag of acceptances and misses — and finally the slow anguish of almost-takens and those returned unread …
It’s almost a pattern
~*~
Wollah Wollah = whistling water = Walla Walla
~*~
When Coyote desired Beaver’s beautiful daughter, Rain sent his own beautiful daughter to plead with Coyote, who instead tried to rape her and make her his other wife. And thus, enraged, Rain punished the east — Coyote’s land — by raising the Cascades mountains so that Coyote and Wind could not steal all the clouds.
I’m left wondering about Beaver and his child.
~*~
Meanwhile, these local poets and artists who don’t study, don’t know what’s been done before, wouldn’t recognize ancient excellence, don’t know what’s being done now, don’t experience the nature out there or the scary, untapped energy fields within themselves … who don’t try to make each piece unique but merely a repetition of their static non-discovery closed-in closed-off non-lives …
[How’s that for non-judgmental?]
~*~
Hops, which are used to favor and stabilize beer in its brewing, were another famed agricultural product from Yakima. The vines would climb the ropes to the top, with the whole vines being cut down at harvest. Note Mount Adams in the background. (Photo by William Borg via Wikimedia Commons.)
~*~
I used to write poems about the weather. But what can you say about a place where the weather’s always good? Only that the wind’s blowing?
[Think of a comment I recently heard, about a poetry editor who scorned Weather Report pieces. Gave them an instantaneous rejection.]
While my novels Nearly Canaan and Secret Side of Jaya contain many details from my Yakima Valley years, the experience also prompted a proliferation of poetry.
When it came to the great outdoors for us, the year 1977 early on presented us with a trip that settled in E’burg rather than a few more hours on to Seattle. We found refuge in the Outrageous Taco, a freak center in an old beer hall turned pizza/taco/deli quiet with live music and free poetry journals to circulate … a sense of pleasant decay (a $2 movie nearby) … incense in the air, too. We would return frequently … a good selection of new and used books, too.
Homeward by the Canyon Road, walked over the swinging bridge at Umtanum Creek, Kitty screaming, scared, delighted, a future point for a hike …
~*~
The Yakima River Canyon stretches 27 miles through three major ridges between Yakima and Ellensburg, with summits that rise more than 2,000 feet in places. A railroad and two-lane highway cling to the base beside the river.
In late February, we made our Umtanum ascent, including the bald eagle observation, the first in the valley in 25 years. It was the middle ridge, as I recall, and forms a pivotal chapter in my novel Nearly Canaan.
Thinking of my nature poems … man, the legions of demigods, takes something away, reduces the richness of the land … Nancy Trueblood’s “in the mountains I feel closer to God” … limits the diversity of the species, the expansive quiet, the wonderful circling weaves … in Indiana, my nature poems were often at the edge of the woods — the interface of man, land, and seasons … historical depth where farms sometimes expressed a harmony … a deep cold springhouse, a summer porch … the mountains here, ever green or, like our desert ridge, light brown, are something else … and man adds nothing …
~*~
10 July, Sunday
Drove along Sauk Creek to Stevens Pass … [north of Ellensburg]
Gold-mining remains … introduction to Leavenworth and then the North Cascades …
Leavenworth, with its Swiss Alps festive mood … shame that something similar cannot be created/sustained in “American” or Native authentic theme … maybe something to do with America’s lack of holy rivers and mountains or maybe our flat “Christian” approach to life … (Swiss Calvin not withstanding)
~*~
18 July … apricots gone
~*~
31 July/First-day evening
No entries in a week —
Last Sunday, left early for Seattle (after a midnight Saturday shift) to meet Bill and Mig Dietz and Curtis and Jacquie. The whole port city bit: winos, sailors, loggers, porno shops (me, buying newspapers!), Blacks and students, crowded Sunday parks, jazz. Got to know Curtis better, though their planned North Cascades backpacking got jettisoned by Jacquie’s emergency retinal surgery. His gentleness and humor, plus his Seattle friend Bob Green. Our disappointment with the Seattle art museum, then learning it was cut in half, with anything modern at City Center. The aging freaks and the strangest cats.
Met the Dietzes for dinner at Ivar’s, pier 54. How beautiful these people are. Bill’s ability to melt Kitty’s sharp questioning from Jacquie …
Had salmon, scallops. [Not crab?] The Yakima, a sleek new ferry, in the next pier. Seagulls and seafoam.
Heard of one Friend’s decision to go to Australia, though she didn’t have enough cash to get a visa. Hitched to SF, her first ride was with a trucker who CB’d ahead, starting a chain that got her safely, quickly down the pike — always the next ride waiting. Got to the SF consulate office, sat outside till she got a “hardship” visa. Got her case heard. And went on her way, after staying at Friends House.
The uncommonly filling spirit at our parting. So high, elated from this visit, happy to be together, laughing aloud on our long drive home with a new moon.
~*~
Mount Rainier, photo by William B. Jacobs via Pexels.
Fremont lookout
Rainier National Park
7,200 feet sea level
Kitty joined me in the ascent from Sunrise; thought she’d stop at Frozen Lake but seeing children’s tracks felt shamed into continuing. Amazing Alpine natural gardens …
Clearest day one could hope for: Adams, Goat Rocks sharp view from the trailhead, yet a violet haze layer over Puget Sound from Olympia to Mount Vernon.
Next page a sketched panorama map showing Mount Baker, Glacier peak, and the Stuarts … plus notation, “Olympics a blue ragged line riding above the haze.”
Sitting up here’s just like riding a cloud.
And thus we are cloud-riders being ambushed by ’monks,
the fearless chipmunks attempting to ride our lunch …
In the Far East there is a vital, well-read proletariat literature – speaking for a people.
Here, we have intellectuals playing games. Along with populist idiots.
Still, how much of the Far West book scene I knew revolved around poetry-conscious, well-stocked bookstores that were also patrons to readings, broadsides, and small private volumes.
Suppose, now, a poetry journal allied with a bookstore where its authors’ books could be purchased …
This was pre-Internet, which has opened new opportunities, or before I knew of radical publisher and bookseller Giles Calvert and his Black Spread Eagle on Ludgate Hill near St. Paul Cathedral in London, the voice of many early Quaker tracts and volumes.
Jnana's Red Barn 