Wildflower Mountains

We walk, my brother and his sons, through wildflowers
covering the hillsides of a mountain peak
We climb and talk, climb and talk,
reach the top to eat our lunch.
Cherries from my yard, cheese and bread.
My brother offers me a slice of apple.
My brother who rode me on his bike to school
who brought my little kids here -
who invited me to attend the birth of his first child,
who always hugs me like I am cherished
who sings with me at campfire time.
Who was the first to take me to the mountains.

We four walk back, down the long trail,
the verdant forest standing by as we pass.
Switch back by switch back,
dappled sunlight on moss.
Chatting easily I learn about the boys,
Our conversations all in stride, our stride down the mountain
of foot moving forward imprinting trail dust,
next foot, and the next.
There is no need for much, it is all here,
we four, walking a summer day away.

Bake Sale for Civics Textbooks

Last week the Yamhill County Oregon Democrats held a bake sale. The proceeds from this sale go to purchase civics textbooks for our county's secondary schools. How about that. In the U.S.A., the country which is fond of bragging about our superiority, we have dropped the ball on nurturing our children into becoming citizens.

I have several ideas (fears) about why this has happened. The worst is that the money powers, the same ones who decide what is 'news' have decided that young people can be easily diverted from knowing what is really going. Their attentions can be drawn into a vapid pop culture full of useless celebrities who exhibit the behaviors of wealth which they themselves will never attain. Their youth spent in a dearth of knowledge about the political process at the most basic local level.

Yes, and money too is a problem. We know our state coffers are empty, our budgets being cut everywhere. Yet, I see "Smartboards" in every classroom, carts of laptops, whole rooms full of computers. Why is a decent civics textbook not as important as a computer?

I welcome comments.

To Mother - From The Road

April 11, 1976
Seattle to the Grand Canyon by Bicycle

Today my eyes sting warmly from the sun,
And all about I look to cliff and hill.
My many thoughts have rolled into just one,
The memory of you, so very still.

The road is long and weary in the day,
I wish for quiet places I might hide.
Sometimes a tree will beckon me to stay,
But always in the morning I must ride.

Today, beneath the juniper I lie,
to write my humble love into a song,
and wonder what you do for us, and why.
Your gentle patience never turned a wrong.

I like to go away on journeys thus,
to breath and see the newness of the earth.
But always as I look into the dusk,
I ponder heavily my place of birth.

And one who I know lovingly you bore,
you sang and taught with joy so plain to see.
Played games and laughed the gaiety you wore,
that person, I am sure, is almost me.

So when the evening comes to end the day,
I look towards myriads of stars above,
and reaching out to them my soul will pray,
To bless my mother with a world of love.

Given again, 36 years later, and still almost me....

Later, on the Train

Later, on the Train

Click clicking, thump hooting, chug northward between stations
brief glimpses, blurred houses, riverponds, rolling past.
Neat sequence, clouds lifting, oh so slightly, over marshes
New maple, all fancy, all broadleaf, all May Day

The world, my friend, spreads inspired from a train,
the hum rolling forward into a good future.
Some destination where loved ones wait there at another station
Sweet anticipation, and still the trees, sky, light on water.

The seat shifts backward, only a twist of the toggle -
way back, twice as far as an airplane seat would.
No security xray, foregone shoes, invasion of gear.
We passengers stride boldly past chugging engines, to find our car.

Train, train, I wanted you since childhood,
gazed longingly down your tracks and wished to climb those steps aboard.
Six years old , I could not know this luxury,
To buy my fare while sitting in my office chair.

Ah, there, slides by, a small house with
the porch light on, an answer against this gloaming.
So recently a rain, over spring's thick greenness, muddy land,
everything newly wet,  porch light illuminating apple trees in bloom.

Passengers, we share this car, this brief ride North
Out of the window train thoughts I hear:
One stray cell  conversation closed with:
 "I ain't forgot aboutcha love."

Sunday night

April is coming to a close. This spring seems warmer than the last two. I stop at Farmington gardens and people are lining up to buy their trees and other plants. We get so excited by a few warm days.

The grass grows madly, voraciously, intensely, unhindered, exuberant. My poor little electric mower gags and chokes. I feel like a torturer to push it through the damp fields.

Tonight I dug out compost. This is always a small miracle, the way the vegetable matter of a year can turn itself to dirt, heavy with worms working their magic, happy worms. I try not to cut them with my shovel. I greet them like little friends, take them out to my larger garden and watch them disappear into the soil of my desires. Where ever they go, I am as happy as they are to have it be spring, warm enough to wiggle around, think about colors and birds, witness the blueberry bushes and fruit trees covered in blossoms.


There is dirt under my finger nails. I have planted my first starts of cabbage and tomatoes. It does not seem possible that the earth should be so good to us. Fickle friends as we are. The earth, an ever forgiving mother, an unceasingly tolerant friend.

             Friday Night

In the morning I will lead Sadhana with my yoga teacher trainees. We will begin outside in the cool morning air doing the energisation exercises that Paramhansa Yogananda developed. They move more than just the muscles. They awaken more than just the mind.

Tonight we did 2 hours of restorative yoga, as the light faded into night. What peace and release there is in that. I thought afterward, as I drank my cleansing water, about how I want to give that experience to others. I hope I get the chance soon.

Now it is time to go to sleep, reading words of inspiration, looking for the prayer for morning meditation. How fortunate I am, that this yoga community has moved to land on Chehalem mountain. I am a neighbor, and a friend, a member of the practice, and the teaching group. I am encountering myself in a new way, in a new place.

Full Moon over the Passion

You know, I have always loved the word 'passion'. In fact, you could say that I am passionate about the word passion. Tonight in the Zocolo of Mexico City my honey and I witnessed the pageantry of Mexican Catholicism playing out under - dude- a full moon. Really.... floats of statues depicting the stations of the cross, Roman soldiers stabbing Jesus or stealing his clothes, and his mourning mother dressed in black following behind. The 'sorrowful' mother. I do remember all this from childhood.
  In recent years I have become more enamoured with the painting of Easter eggs and the search for a decent chocolate marshmellow bunny. The passion of Christ is a mythic tale, full of metaphor and emotion, imagery and tragedy. The human condition elevated to endless yearly reenactment to remind us if, we had forgotten, of how shallow and fickle humanity is. (The republicans have done a fine job of that this year, they should get the passion award).
It is exciting to see the excitement, and even  the full scale fireworks, the street performers and the little kids tossing glow sticks in the air. The priests lead funeral processions to the droll beat of the death drum, or the keening chant with call and response. What have you done to betray a good person, they ask? What indeed.
It never hurts to look inside, to wonder about infinity and the transitory nature of this life. If statues and songs can bring people back to who they want to be, how they want to live, maybe a tear shed for someone already gone on to the big unknown, this is one way to start spring.

On Easter I will not look for any eggs in the Zocolo, only candles and statues illuminated by the full moon of April, the first full moon of spring.