Journal Entry, CPITS, Mendocino Oil Spill

2/9/1988 noon on Tuesday.

This place I have come to after sporadic attempts to write in the altered state with the 20th-century pressing upon me, expecting to learn tools to make managing time easier, I discover I have slowly begun to learn to spend less time on the struggle. Though I do not write daily or even weekly, I am not as concerned though I vowed to write more often.

Cecelia's workshop inspired me to find the original pleasures of writing.

Yesterday I spent rewriting my notes from the Mendocino offshore oil hearing. Tom shortened my piece by at least by 1/3. Much connective tissue was lost. I don’t have an original draft. Tom Roth does not have the vision and foresight that Nick Valentine has. Still, I think I will be pleased with the end result. He promises a double truck spread replete with photos. That's a big deal in the newspaper bizniz.

So, though I'm not writing, poetry every day, I am involved with language, whether it's teaching kids, or grant writing, or being a paparazzi.

Celia said: Consider all writing your work.

Though I have a grant due come on Thursday, a CAC artist in residency grant at Mark West school, and I've just barely begun to crack it, I'm not worried. The coast took first precedence.

I'm fighting back in the only way I know how, with media. Maybe I will do some more journalism. Though it makes me even busier than I already am.

Today I managed to pull 14 pages of writing from my journals. Some are poems already, others have decent material. I'm surprised by how much good material I do have. I tend to think of that my unconscious writing is not real writing. Because the Muses haven't properly tortured me enough until I have no choice but to write.

If I do more of this, will I have lots more poetry? People are all asking for work. From the birth of a poem to final product, it's such a slow process. I've had an extraordinarily publishing record as of late, not the rejections of course, I didn't send that many poems out but then I don't write much either.

I continue to send poems to small journals. My desire is to publish a single poem several times if it's good, it should be out there. I'm not of the single poem, single journal school. Poetry journals have such small print runs. Usually less than a thousand copies.

Cecelia Woloch wants more work for Blue Window. Green Fuse took some work and Creative Discourse took work as well. They took Tocaloma Road, and another piece—I think. On April 23rd, they want me to do a reading with David Best. I'm very pleased and excited to read with my old College of Marin friend.

I wonder how much my two valentine sold for at the Sonoma State art auction? I heard that  a lot of people attended. I was too sick to go myself and besides we were at a CPITS meeting at Point Bonita. John felt so sad that I had misted as my own art show, was as if it was my fault. It was the CPITS logo's fault. A brouhaha over a logo.

Anyway, time is pressing in on me and I feel I shall have to return to my grant if I want a job next year. Pure and simple.

HORSEFLESH

 HORSEFLESH
         —for John Oliver Simon

Sometimes as you sleep in my arms,
my hand strokes your face.
I imagine it to be nude of flesh
& bleached white by weather.
Then I can explore your eyes,
slide down the sweep of jawline,
walk through dark Bavarian forests
where horsetraders from Alsace
read the Torah by candle flame.
Somewhere near the browline,
the ancestors have marked you
in the wrinkled grey folds
where the past & future sleep.

Baja 1986

1994 H.M. Judah L. Magnus Museum, 8th Annual Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for Poetry on the Jewish Experience
1989 Creative Discourse
1986-88 Falling to Sea Level
1988 Poetry SF, 2nd Prize, National Poetry Association
         The Paper
1987 Marin Poetry Center

FALLING TO SEA LEVEL

FALLING TO SEA LEVEL

              Yo no lo conocÌa, pero aveces

              me entero de uno que otro detalle.

              —Monica Mansour

                               —para John Oliver Simon

Late in the season, small avalanches begin

where our boots break a trail.

I place my feet carefully in each milk-blue hollow

and learn the distance of your stride.

We crawl up the crevice toward the sky.

Rocks tumble into the deep valley

and the space between worlds widens.

We rush to fill it with our hands, lichen & stone.

In the thin blue air above timberline

a cornice of snow gives under our weight.

We imagine it to sweep us up like swimmers

at the crest of a wave.  Wind, uncoded

from fingerprints fluxes the surface

of the lake.  The patterns carried

within us makes us recount the myths.

What passes for human

fallen off from ritual

urges us to jump.

We see beyond each mountain, a cloud;

beyond each cloud, another mountain.

By climbing on all fours, we learn to trust our hands.

Slowly, our hands lead us back to our hearts.

Our hands become small commas to separate sky from world

& the mountain watches them paying out shapes to the wind.

Clouds on the horizon have escaped us this time.

The dark thing that chased us from sleep

today, is a pale witness in snow.

Tracks of a mountain lion take on a new shape

separated from night.

We trace the origin of tracks

to a hollow beneath the last vertical face

of the mountain.

We drink from the same water

and leave rock cairns to mark a trail

no one else will follow.

Perhaps, in the future other climbers

will puzzle over this.

Hold in your hand this poem without words;

a white reminder of what we've lost.

Fur trappings slide from bare shoulders.

Glaciers scrub stones smooth again.

At sea level, the cave fire retreats

to its proper place in time.

I say, what civilized us

was the donning of clothes.

You say, No, language separated us.

And your tongue fills my mouth.

The temptation would be to stay in these mountains

and dress language in lichen & stone for vows,

but at sea level, the gods of dailiness

sweep through us and our grasp upon sky,

stones & skin loosens.  One misstep;

a false handhold could throw us back into air.

The next snowfall would bury our tracks.

When spring comes again,

they will sink back into the earth

without a trace.

The years are turning colder, I said.

There are other witnesses, you said,

The mountain lion and us.

Blue Canyon, Sonora Pass
Rosh Hoshana
Fall 9/17/1985

1986-88 Falling to Sea Level

1988 Women's Voices

1987 Creative Discourse

           Marin Poetry Center
           Poet News/ Sacramento Literary Review

CAYENDO AL NIVEL DEL MAR/FALLING TO SEA LEVEL
      Yo no lo conocía; pero a veces
      me entero de uno que otro detalle.
                        —Monica Mansour

Tarde por la estación, las avalanchas empiezan  
donde nuestras botas hacen un sendero  
en el empinado campo de nieve.  
Pongo los pies con cuidado en cada hueco  
color de leche azulado y aprendo la distancia de tu paso.  
Reptamos por la grieta hacia el cielo.  
Las rocas se derrumban en la valle profunda  
y se ensancha el espacio entre los mundos.  
Precipitamos para llenarlo con 
Las manos, los liquenas v la piedra.

En el aire azul y fino de las montañas  
luna cornisa de nieve se desploma bajo nuestro peso.  
Imaginamos que nos arrasta como nadadores  
en la cresta de una ola. El viento, descifrado  
de las huellas digitales funde el superficie  
del lago. La forma llevada  
adentro nos hace recontar los mitos.  
Lo que pasa para lo humano  
caído rel rito, nos urge saltar.  
Vemos más alla de cada montañ a, una nube;  
más allá de cada nube, otra montaña.  
Subiendo a gatas, aprendemos a confiar en las manos.  
Despacio, nuestras manos nos llevan a los corazones.  
Las manos nos hace pequeñas comas para separar cielo y mundo  
y la montaña las mira arriando formas al viento.  
Las nubes en el horizonte nos escaparon esta vez.

La cosa oscura que nos cazó del sueño  
hoy es un testigo pálido en la nieve.  
Las huellos de una pantera toman una nueva forma  
separadas de la noche.  
Trazamos el origen de huellas  
hacia un hueco abajo de la última cara vertical de la montaña.  
Bebemos de la rnisma agua  
dejamos montones de piedras para marcar un sendero  
que nadie va seguir.  
Quizás en el futuro  
otros alpinistas se preguntarán sobre esto.

Toma en la mano este poema sin palabras;  
un recuerdo blanco de lo que hemos perdido.  
Atavios de pelos nos deslizan de los hombros.  
Los glaciares suavizan las piedras otra vez.  
Al nivel del mar, la hoguera de la caverna retrocede  
         hacia su lugar apropriado en el tiempo.  
Digo, lo que nos civilizó fue la ropa.  
Dices que no, el lenguaje nos separó  
y tu lengua me llena la boca.  
La tentación sería quedarnos en las montanãs  
y vestir el lenguaje en líquenas y piedras para votos,  
pero al nivel del mar, los dioses cotidianos  
nos arrastran y nuestro asimiento en el cielo,  
las piedras, la piel relaja. Un tropezón,  
un asidero falso podria tirarnos  
en el aire. La próxima caida de nieve  
enterraría nuestras huellas.  
Cuando la primavera viene otra vez,  
hundirán en la tierra sin rastro.  
Los años se enfrían, dije.  
Hay otros testigos, dijiste,  
la pantera y nosotros.  

9/1986

1986, 87, 88 Falling to Sea Level

TOCALOMA ROAD

TOCALOMA ROAD

—for Alan Mclssac

The round sound of Tocaloma rolls off the tongue

like night drowning in the gibbous moon.

The herefords stop grazing and low to each other

as I help my neighbor gather topsoil for her lawns. Tocaloma.

We stop afterwards at the Western Saloon.

I sip sasparilla as she rolls down another beer

beneath the cobwebbed mooseheads.

At the other end of the bar, a gaggle of men

bang down a cup of Liar's Dice for another round.

Ranchers in overalls and gumboots

argue over what's the best feed for cattle. It's a lean year.

Two-wire bales of alfalfa sell at the price of three-wire bales.

We overhear them talk of planes dropping emergency feed

to livestock stranded on the open ranges.

Toby's Feed is shipping in the last of the Nevada hay.

I'm having trouble feeding my horse.

The corners of Agnes's mouth turn downward when she sips bourbon—

as if it were an uncertain pleasure.

She salutes the empty morning air, saying, Sköl pifiskin,

and I look for the toofta from Norway who always steals her drinks.

When her husband is at sea, and alcohol loosens inhibitions,

she tells strangers met in bars we have no socks.

Their eyes fill with easy tears, and during whiskey runs,

they take us to the General Store, buying me more white socks

than I know what to do with.

Tocaloma. To touch the earth.

The McIssacs went from milk cows to beef.

Alan says they couldn't make it any other way.

In the barn, we step over a dead weaner calf. He says, Don't look.

Their ranch stretches from the sky to the old Tocaloma train station.

Alan has a “Stop” sign in his bedroom, but the cattle erode the hills

and fine silt settles in Papermill Creek. No good for salmon.

On Sundays, her husband sends tightly written letters

on thin blue airmail tissue from Bombay, Hong Kong, the Mekong Delta.

When his ship, the “Baton Rouge” loaded with secret ammunition

was torpedoed, we watched the news again and again, but got no word.

The weeks uncoiled a glittering chain of days before she heard if he was alive.

I played with leopard cowries from the Indian Ocean,

and Caucasian silk dolls with Japanese eyes.

My music box chimed a tinny Sayonara, filled with foreign coins

as she showed me on the big map where the stamps and letters came from.

On Sunday evenings, we'd listen to “Hawaii Calls” on the radio.

When the liquor warmed her blood,

she'd spend hours rolling white bread into little doughballs.

After they got good and gray, she fed them to Smoky, the springer spaniel.

She made me feel unclean for becoming a woman—

as if it were something I could control— like those doughballs.

It was O.K. when we were still kids playing in the thistles.

My neighbor died in summer, when the waves turned golden,

and the lawn stretched to the hills like a green wave.

We pulled weeds, stood under sprinkler rainbows,

tumbled on the grass, until sky and land blurred, became one.

The rich black soil from Tocaloma sprouted healthy thistles

nourished by the cow paddies we stuffed into empty feed sacks.

Her husband drinks and thinks about the sea: Korea. Vietnam.

He planted the disease in deep so she never had children

(other than us). Couldn't, says Gram'ma, tisk-tisking.

Her insides blackened. The surgeon trimmed what he could,

but it wasn't enough. I felt nothing when I heard the news—

as if she were never there. And only now, twenty years later,

I am remembering all those lawns, and Tocaloma—

this place where we touched the earth

because the rolling hills and grazing cattle

weren't enough to feed the eye.

10/1982

1988 Creative Discourse
1987 California Quarterly
1986 Marin Poetry Review