Hard as it is to imagine, Dover once had twice as many mills along the river, plus tanneries and other supporting enterprises.
My fondness for old mills, by the way, did prompt a novel, Big Inca.
OVERLOOKING THE REMAINING MILLS
HOT TUB ORACLE
I never intended to live there as long as I did, in the rented townhouse in what I sometimes called Yuppieville on the Mountain. But it must have suited me during that decade of waiting and searching, my anticipating true love and a long-desired relocation into permanence. Besides, it was convenient to the office. Admittedly, I enjoyed using the whirlpool in the clubhouse, soaking in the hot water while watching snowflakes drift down on the other side of the display windows; besides, at that time, the complex was still surrounded by woodlands. Lest it sound too idyllic, let me also acknowledge the dumpster parked beside my unit was frequently overflowing.
The poems in the resulting collection arise in that experience of transient proximity, which has become so much a part of the American landscape. The poems themselves are a kind of side street from other works I was drafting and revising during this time. Still, they make me examine what was right in front of me, all the same.
The series closes my collection, Rust and the Wound. To read the free ebook, click here.
SEE, HERE
as the answer to all his problems
of course, what he really desires
is the oracle
not the old farm widow, either
but the young virgin
who speaks in iambic pentameter
the one who is refined
and perfect
reserved
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To continue the series, click here.
LOOKING FOR WIDER CONNECTIONS
My wife, meanwhile, has her own perspective. “Many people think this valley can prosper in isolation, but let me tell you, the local museum indicates otherwise. It’s filled with Pennsylvania long rifles, Ohio flint, a New Hampshire stagecoach, antique cars from Michigan, pianos made in Indiana, Connecticut pistols, even Illinois farm implements. Everybody came from somewhere.” In her case, South Carolina.
Taking her up on the invitation to tour the exhibits, my wife paid special attention to local Indian basketry and beadwork. “Over time, their artistry was pathetically stripped down to resemble coloring books,” she told me afterward. “The gift shop sells greeting cards from Iowa and crafts from what the sales clerk said was ‘Berea, Virginia.’
“Virginia? I replied.”
“The college there.”
“Oh, you mean Kentucky!”
“‘Kentucky, then,’ she said, as if it’s all the same.”
I understand the scowl. “I notice, around here ‘Easterners’ seem to come from such ‘seaboard’ states as landlocked Nebraska, Kansas, and Illinois.”
“That’ll be news to them,” she grins. “Bet they never thought of themselves as Easterners, either!”
Infinite misunderstandings continue, tit for tat.
“Even so,” I say, “this is big sky and cowboy spreads. Even these treeless foothills ignite something in my airy nature. I hope this elation never ends.”
An elation, at least, when I’m out of the office.
I look forward to tonight’s gig with Kokopelli.
For more insights from the American Far West and Kokopelli, click here.
A BIT MORE ON HIPPIE LIT
One of my lingering questions wonders why the intensity of the hippie experience didn’t flower more fully in fiction.
Yes, I know hippies were considered “laid back” and “mellow,” but that’s only part of the picture. A lot of what we felt was indeed incredible and new. Yet while the music of the era gives both lyrics and a soundtrack to the late ’60s and early ’70s, the literary parallel runs thin. Most of the prose is in the non-fiction side of the aisle – memoir, especially, and sociology – works like Barry Miles’ Hippie. Within that flourished a range of small publishing operations, such as Straight Arrow Books and Ten-Speed Press.
But novels are another matter.
As I’ve already noted, Richard Brautigan and Gurney Norman (Divine Right’s Trip) did give wondrous voice to the action. Add to that Maxine Hong Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey, T.C. Boyle’s Drop City, and we’re soon at the fringe. Thomas Pyncheon’s Vineland, Lisa Mason’s Summer of Love, and Jan Kerouac’s Baby Driver get nods. I’d add Edward Abbey, Tom Robbins, and John Nichols to the list. And then?
Well, there’s always my Freakin’ Free Spirits cycle at Smashwords.com. All four volumes.
As Michael Wards, author of Bitch, a novel about Berkeley 1968-73, commented on an earlier post here, “Today I don’t think 20-year-olds would believe their grandparents were capable of anything that actually happened then.”
That, I suppose, is the entire point. We came so close to a real revolution across the social and economic spectrum. That vision needs to be kept alive and rekindled. Especially in the face of today’s repressive regime.
BRAINCHILD
a feathered and furred woman
bare shouldered, face painted white
black mouth and black exaggerated eyebrows
a black veil over her face
where is the balm?
the salve for stinging nettles?
potted plants on a white mantle
a bowl of sprouts atop a handwritten note
spread over a blue napkin
richly patterned fabric
behind a waxy flower
a pile of Valentines
reeds and songbirds
home is a refuge or should be
a bar of soap wrapped in pale-tea ribbon
a hole cut in a painting left open with crossed ribbons
two men in an open briefcase, as dolls torn apart
so many screws and nails and tense threads
for connections
a barn owl in front of a red barn
a red house with shiny metal roof in the woods
red hen, red comb, red alarm
Bright day in the valley
Lincoln’s Indiana legacy
in a place that couldn’t support a used bookstore
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.
LOOKING FOR VITAL MUTUALITY
We, who consider ourselves free spirits, despite any penchant for obligations, still yearn for a steady circle where attendance at worship is less of an option within many alternatives. Let the worship itself have an urgency and regularity, may it be a priority in the weekly schedule, free it to be focused on the One and empowering.
To be one!
Don’t ask me if prayer works. Anymore than singing, birds answer on a May morning.
Our struggle is magnified by our degree of selfless service.
We turn, instead, to free-spirits, where we give fairly selflessly of ourselves.
Only problem is, unlike the Old Order or monastic setting, we’re not surrounded by and bathed in the selfless gifting of everyone else.
They just aren’t reliable, no matter how fine their intentions. Ergo, burnout! (You and I always wind up holding the bag when they default or go off to boogie.)
~*~
For more Seasons of the Spirit, click here.
GEMINI, BY JIMMINY
Why wait for the dust to settle? Here are 10 bullets from my end.
~*~
- This matter of scale – and balance – in a life that has an appearance of randomness. All these items collected throughout the house and barn. Somehow, order reasserts itself, if you look.
- Remembering the volcano 37 years ago. Just look at the skulls I collected in that country.
- Four years later, the move to Baltimore for the one I thought embodied that moment full of promise to take my life upward into a fairy-tale existence of class and repose, a much different direction from where I’ve landed. Alas, she’d already bolted. And mine has become much more organic.
- Common Meter, 8.6.8.6, as in “Amazing Grace,” is simply the syllable count. A great way to swap words and music.
- Am not having profound or imaginative dreams. But at least the flow’s beginning again, like looking at a secret movie or computer screen.
- When taking portraits outdoors, how often the eyeglasses turn into sunglasses in the bright light – and how often people in party mode turn wooden.
- Looking at a book of glass houses reminds me how deeply that Bauhaus aesthetic is embedded in my sensibility. Not that I’d aspire to live in one now. Who washes all those windows, anyway? And what about fingerprints or noses? These days I’ve chosen a different style, one based in Yankee houses that just keep growing, as needed. As for curtains, she and I will argue.
- To ease back into Hatha – Ha-ha!
- “The things that are not seen are eternal” – II Corinthians 4:18.
- Still feeling so tentative rather than forceful.
~*~
I chanced upon this scultpture at 15 Beach Place while wandering from Chinatown to Faneuil Hall. It’s about a block from the old Boston Music Hall, where Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto got its world premiere. Maybe this site is where he stayed while visiting? Anyone got a clue?
AS A VERB, PERHAPS
now I lay me down to weep
why, we always see the squirrel as playful
rather than tragic
or desperately terrified
a kite in the sky
* * *
if getting anywhere were only that easy
or direct
* * *
Survival is the first law.
But which Self?
To be hungry
and clever
are a dangerous combination.
Especially when cornered.
* * *
layered in trees wires roofs and decks
the predominant wild mammal of the city
mocks dogs, mauls cats
stands more visible than rats
bolts a zig-zag route at ground level
where pigeons walk in circles
* * *
some creatures are more monogamous
and some fear their young
some, helpless and afraid
have no way of knowing
* * *
To find yourself on the other end
of a hungry
and clever
creature
even if it’s only trying to get in
is the basis of law two.
* * *
zoology and physics, a most interesting combination
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
HOT AND SOUR
Chinatown is a delightful contrast to much of Boston’s more Yankee reserved style. We recommend feasting on dim sum on a Saturday or Sunday morning, but be sure to arrive early – the restaurants are soon packed for the inexpensive rounds of adventurous platters.
You never know quite what to find in its shops, either. A resourceful puppeteer I know discovered the perfect fabric in one of its retailers aimed at, shall we say, exotic dancers? She was hardly the type, and the owners were amused.
The city is a rich and varied destination – the Hub of New England, or the Universe, as they used to say. Living a little more than an hour to the north, we’re well within its orb.
Jnana's Red Barn 