ELEGY FOR JOHN OLIVER SIMON

And where did you go, my as my grandmother might have said. 

With your tousled hair and eyes made of fallen bits of the sky, 

the clouds knew you and wept for you when you left us.

The mountain summits knew you, and wept for you.

The desert remembered you and mourned for you.

Memory circles the rug by the fire like a cat or a dog 

settling in for a long winter nap, but finds little comfort there. 

The fire snarls, the logs pop like a gun, or the cracking of a whip, 

and smoke curls around my hair like a snake. 

It is late, and last night the tomcat was speaking of you 

as he patrolled the edges of the garden. 

He looked for you among the squashes and the rhubarb. 

He spoke of lost tuna dinners and wondered why 

you did not pull up the weeds, why you did not rise 

and go to your notebook with pen in hand. 

Rendering the next sonnet in your mind. 

Once you promised me the moon, and the sun rose 

in my belly, with that broken promise, we came undone. 

You promised me what was not possible 

and we spent our lives running from the truth. 

We ran to the opposite corners of the earth 

in search of something holy and profound 

to nourish that rage and hunger of art, each in our own way, 

the baggage of the past burdening us down.

We didn’t see the swift current, and its bright undertow 

bending the night to its will, where the water-ouzel 

hunted among the rocks for the coinage 

of small silvered fish glinting in the morning light. 

My grandmother said, to let a bird in, 

was to let death come into the house.

When I go down to to the well of sorrow, 

I find you among the cresses and the mosses. 

Sometimes I perch on the low stone wall 

to watch the first stars appear in the eye of the well. 

What is still alive between us, is memory, 

perhaps more mine, than yours, 

as we each hold different bags of grief 

made from the same skin of the heron.

And so I mourn for you, and the flight of birds

stitches the sky into a mosaic of loss. 

The birds gather strands of my hair, 

weaving time and sorrow into a web, 

a nest where the small speckled eggs of memory 

incubate into truth, and we remember what was good, 

all the betrayals of dailyness fell into dust 

until all that remains are the remnants—

those small scraps of love we once held so dear.

 

Shards of grief and loss litter the landscape of memory, 

piercing us to the core. But they have have moved the walls.

And we hung onto the next best thing, 

never allowing grief gather in its wings and to settle in, 

or to take root and to go to seed, we abbreviated 

the process into meaningless soundbytes, 

ready to move onto the next best thing.

 

You left before the pandemic, good move. 

Because if the cancer didn’t get you then covid would have. 

It felled us like flies after the first frost, 

five million dead, and still counting. Will it ever end?

It’s as if the black death came to pay a visit 

and the world came undone. 

The psyche that scarred us for centuries, continues on. 

Everyone is looking for explanations, reasons why, 

challenging the concept of Godhead. 

Who would do such a thing to us, and why?

And yet you still come to me in dreams.

You were my guiding star, my shining light, 

and what I learned, for you were also my teacher.

And for that I am grateful. 

8/27 Writing through grief workshop with Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza, Soul Bone Literary Festival, MIU, Zoom event

Writing through trauma with Carolyn Holbrook

           Poet, mend thyself —Carolyn Holbrook

I find myself missing John Oliver Simon more and more these days. I find myself saving up things to tell him though he’s been gone nearly 5 years, since before Covid. It makes me realize anew the importance of living life fully and in the present tense. It’s pointless saving up for a rainy day. 1. Because we are in a prolonged mega drought. And 2. But the drought of the soul is a desert indeed. It’s so easy to elevate someone to mythic status especially when they’re gone, said Joan Baez, a savior is a nuisance to live with at home. 

I recently extricated myself from an abusive relationship of 21 years. I don’t miss the poor attempts at gaslighting, but sometimes I miss the man. He was great fun at parties, the singer always at the center of attention, but that was also the problem. There was little room for me. And eventually it was easier just to fall into the pattern rather than buck the system. So I gave pieces of myself away. No one else to blame. I let it happen. But at least I had a room of my own and my writing sustained me.

Ironic, it was at John’s memorial, when I was asked to sing/read a poem I had written to John long ago, Horseflesh, with music composed by Jorge Luján, and I could see the jealous rage in Neil‘s eyes—perhaps because he felt I didn’t love him like that. And truth be known, he was right, I didn’t love him like that. Not anymore. He had squandered what little love we had long ago, with indifference. I was living in a vacuum.

Ironic too, in that my poem also triggered jealousy in John’s latest lover,  So much so, that a stranger came up to me to tell me how Susan hated me. The stranger said, watch your back. I decided to make friends with Susan, instead. I also couldn’t help but think that relationship was 40 years ago. There is no logic when it comes to range and jealousy. The heart feels what it feels.

Dream Journal: making coffee for John

Last night I dreamed that I was at a rustic cabin retreat deep in the mountains, long shadows and minimal sunlight. We were a gathering of poets. Someone asked me to make coffee, and though I searched everywhere for a pot to boil water in, I found nothing suitable. I had seen one earlier, but I let it get away. And then I couldn’t find it again. I rummaged through dark cabinets. On the bottom shelf, there was an ornate plastic punch bowl with a metallic sheen, matching cups, and a variety of small vases, but nothing big enough for boiling water over a camp stove, or an old fireplace. John Oliver Simon, who had asked me for the coffee, said he would take me to a place where there were larger vessels. I thought it odd at the time because he had me ride piggyback, so I rode him like a horse and centaur as we traveled across creeks and meadows, traversing glorious mountain passes that took my breath away. The blue netting covering his face was like a mask, but it was slipping, so I straightened it for him, tenderly stroking the face of my old love. We never did find the pots. The journey was the goal. When I awoke, it was as if he were Charon and we were crossing the River Styx, but I had no coins by which to pay him. It was another visitation dream. And somehow it felt like an old debt had been repaid.

the last travel dream I had with John was right before his death: John Oliver Simon dream

HEADED FOR CHIAPAS

We rode the overnight bus cross-country, 

snaking our way from the coast up dirt roads, 

13 hours of hairpin bends threaded

up steep mountain passes like a tapestry.

You can only hold your breath for so long.

Near the Chiapas border we stopped at a pullout

to stretch our legs, while waiting for the engine to cool, 

clouds of fireflies circled us. We were so high up,

I mistook them for the stars overhead.

7/27/22 rev. 2/18

WORD BY WORD

WORD BY WORD

     —For John Oliver Simon

Because I wanted to write about risk, I couldn’t choose. 

Because I had a plethora of memories to choose from, 

I drew a blank, I was a stalled page, a blank screen

where you sit in a small storm, isolated by the elements. 

Sometimes writing is like that, a clean slate 

waiting for you to say something, anything at all. 

But I’m in love with the act of longhand, 

that journey of letters scrying across the sky, 

proclaiming acts of birdsong and mountain passes, 

earned word by word, step by step.

Was it the time I scaled Half Dome, 

and hung my legs over the ledge, 

listened to silly music rise up from the valley floor? 

Or the time we found our own Thank God ledge 

on Mt. Tallac where I hovered like a bird on the brink 

between land and air as he shoved me into the rock face?

In that moment the cliff taught me balance, 

not just a matter of passively occupying space, 

but conforming to it, becoming one with the mountain—

which required an earned respect. And trust in the other.

That time we scaled the rock chimney at Sonora Pass

where we proclaimed eternal love at the summit,

the sky and the clouds as our witness.

But the journey back down the chute was treacherous. 

Portent of things to come. I dislodged a rock 

that clattered deep into the crevasse, where I found 

a small pocket of quartz crystals gleaming like stars.

Or was it the time we tested the tensile faith 

of that rope bridge as we inched across the gorge,

the headwaters of the Urubamba River

rapids assuaging the stark hunger of the rocks 

gnashing their teeth below us?

It seems we are always on the verge of leaving 

each other behind. That is the dance.

When it came to all the men I’ve loved, 

I never learned where the trail ended, how to cleave,

or where the river began, and without wings, 

I leapt blindly, followed the vagaries 

of the heart bursting into thin air,

in search of my sullied craft.

7/27 Write On! Terri Glass

LOVE IS NEVER FINISHED

LOVE IS NEVER FINISHED 

      —for John Oliver Simon

We had rented a VW Bug, but where were we? 

Why him, an old ex-lover, why now? 

It was hot and dry, perhaps we were in Glen Ellen, 

Valley of the Moon, or some place in Northern California. 

Or was it Mexico? John and I made some epic journeys

together, it defined who I was as a poet and an artist.

The late afternoon air was seething with heat. 

The sound of trees creaking, interrupted crickets. 

We got out of the car, lazy, I left my luggage inside. 

Stiff with travel, we stretched and lumbered up the steps,

marveling at the woodwork on the porch of the old house. 

We went inside, our clothes sticking to our backs.

We blew our forelocks up off our brows like teenagers.

Drank from the kitchen faucet, settled in like dogs at the hearth.

But we heard the car rev, spattering stones as it disappeared.

I couldn’t believe that a thief stole the car with my backpack inside. 

John ran down the dirt road after them. I never saw him again. 

I wailed, feeling abandoned, and bereft. No money, no phone.

What was it that Yehuda Amichai said that love is finished again? 

Or was it love is never finished? I stood alone on that verandah

having to navigate in a foreign land without him. Some vacation.

The penny hadn’t yet dropped, I was in the land of the dead

with no way back home. Only the past, like a river, beckoned.

I dreamt all of this on the day that John died. 

12/29/21 CPITS Write On! Susie Terence class

Those foolhardy moments in time

Someone asked me what was the most foolhardy thing I’d ever done. Where to even begin? How about rappelling down inside the inner dome of a decommissioned church of atheism and religion in Leningrad, mid-winter, never having rappelled down anything before? Or working on a fresco, while dangling from a rope 40 feet above the floor on dodgy equipment while helping a Soviet artist to restore it, using razor blades to scrape away debris. 

The singlemost scariest part was climbing an ancient pre-Revolution rickety iron ladder to the roof on the outside of the building, to get to the window that led to the inner dome. Of course the artist gave us a 360* tour of the copper-clad outer dome during a snow flurry. I grabbed the handrail only to have it come up from the lip of the dome in my hand, and the lip was slick, my boot slid to the edge...

It reminds me of the time I came down Half Dome and accidentally pulled the rope rail pipe out of the granite, only to have the 2x4“ plank skittle to the side, with me holding up the loose pipe in my right hand like a cane, while admiring the steep curvature of the dome, wondering how the hell John Muir managed to come back down the dome sans any guardrail at all.

And then there was. the time John Oliver Simon and I decided we needed to climb Huyana Picchu to get to the temple of the sun and moon using a dodgy rope to pull ourselves up a slope that far surpassed the angle of declination. Made the world’s steepest stairs seem like a piece of cake. No fn way was I going to take that rope back down that peak—all this while in the middle of a forest fire, having hiked 42km in, the only way out was through.

There are more stories... it’s a wonder I ever made it out alive. and now, here we are playing hide and seek with an invisible enemy. To be felled by a virus....

Electronic Teaching Journal, nothing new, hands recipe

Electronic Teaching Journal 5/12

Today I taught my newly reinvented hands poetry recipe that I developed from one of John Oliver Simon‘s lessons from Poetry Inside Out, but it was too simplistic, so I complicated the lesson up a bit, and offered more open-ended starter line options etc.

Then, when I was going through my teaching notes, I gleaned some of my old teaching files while looking for more support material. I happened upon an old teaching folder filled with drawings of hands, and exercises I developed from a workshop that Veronica Cunningham taught a long time ago, with California Poets in the Schools.

I had used that lesson and developed an art unit as well for Young Audiences. So, in a sense, the evolving lesson is part of the JOS teaching legacy because John was also there in Bishop, and that was my first time being with him on an extended basis after we broke up, so we were going through a lot.

But by revisiting the hands recipe, I had Inadvertently come full circle, and also paid homage to the beginning and the end. Call it the Alpha and the Omega if you will. The idea, that no matter how original we think we might be, there is always something that came before our latest brilliant idea. We are always holding onto, and beholden to the past. We all walk in one another’s shadows.

And that poetry recipe that I did on the backside of Sierra Nevada range in Bishop so long ago with Veronica Cunningham, developed into a full-blown art lesson that included symbolism and the origins of writing as well as picturegrams. I discovered that some of the poem recipes I was using from John Oliver Simon‘s Poetry Inside Out anthology have come full circle. Here I was, thinking I was developing a new lesson that was based upon an old lesson. But it was really the old, and the new colliding.

But what I really want to talk about is that prepping lessons for the process of electronic teaching has gotten me to go back into all these old files that, in some cases, haven’t been touched in two decades.

It’s a trip down memory lane to see my old self and the future self all at once. We are living in a post coronavirus world, nothing will ever be the same. So now is a good a time as any to let go of the old, so that the new ideas may come in.

I was talking about the teaching process with one of my teachers, Colleen Flores, about how difficult it was to teach via Zoom. Here we are all huddled around a tiny screen looking at each other, we’re insect-sized facsimiles of ourselves. I realized how much I rely upon my body, the dancing that I do in front of the classroom does not translate across the mediums. I am limited to my face being in the spotlight.

To teach with only your face as the only throughline, and knowing how self-conscious I am about all the strange and funny faces I make, I realized anew that teaching is more akin to acting, and stand-up comedy than ever. Because all that we are, we are merely talking heads.

I have to plan in advance so that students can see my hands. Forget about the rest of my body—it doesn’t exist. I only exist from the neck up. And God knows I’m trying to hide my neck it’s a frightening sight to see it on the Internet like that. And on it goes.

5/12

WHILE TRANSLATING LORCA DURING THE WILDFIRE

Translating Lorca, from one of John Oliver Simon’s poetry recipes, my mind went way south. Rather than uselessly cry jetlag inspired tears in a Petaluma parking lot, as Sinead gets her hair done, I bought eye drops, & wrote a poem to the Mayacamas range, still burning. My throat is raw. I am careful to take small sips of air, as my N95 mask was packed away from the Tubbs fire. I foolishly thought I wouldn’t need it again. And here we go, again.

Madre, llévame a los campos
con la luz de la mañana,
a ver abrirse las flores
cuando se mecen las ramas.

Mother, take me to the countryside
with the light of morning
to see the flowers open
when the branches sway.
—Translation of Frederico García Lorca

WHILE TRANSLATING LORCA DURING THE WILDFIRE

My imagination wants to take me to the mountains
to witness the incandescent light of morning
to see the late blossoms opening their small hands
to the Diablo winds trembling the harp strings of reeds
in the marshes where the egrets and herons
patrol its dark depths for fatted frogs and curled snails.
My mind wants to fly to where the branches sway
to the rhythm of dark sap coursing
to the song of distant rivers and birdsong.
But the sodden sky is the color of putty,
all the trees have been reduced
to their lowest common denominator,
carbon and smoke and ash
as the wildfire devours the ridges,
barns, and vineyards with an insatiable hunger
and a prodigious thirst that cannot be quenched.
No birdsong, only the dark wind whispering
secrets into the pale ear of the sky.
A lone raven caws his one warning note
over and over again.

Climbing Mt. San Jacinto (photos)

Swimming in the headwaters of San Andreas Creek, on the upper slopes of Mt. San Jacinto, where the San Jacinto and San Andreas faults meet. We wallowed in a pool sheltered by house-sized boulders that created a cave. The water was icy cold, while the ambient air outside about 119°. The gap of sky between the massive boulders created a visual tension that made bathing worrisome.

I once climbed Mt. San Jacinto in the late 1980s. It took us all day to climb the 2nd highest peak in SoCal on what is now called the Cactus to Clouds Trail that begins on the desert floor in Palm Springs, and rises up through granite scree to the summit at 10,834 feet. That's one mother-tough 10,700 ft. climb through five climate zones. The only climb more arduous than Mt. San Jacinto was Mt. Whitney, and that hike took us three days. (Not counting Machu Picchu, that was the mother of all climbs.)

Thought I was gonna die by the time John Oliver Simon and I reached the lodgepole pine timberline. I hardly even remember being on the summit. I remember seeing some sort of bog orchids and corn lilies, but not the summit. John was a stickler for things like that, so I know we reached the summit. I probably tried to die right there. Or take a nap on the geodetic marker.

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway sure saves a lot of time. But that wasn't an option. We descended down the mountain in near darkness and camped on San Andreas Creek, beneath the native CA fan palms (Washingtonia filfera palms) whose fronds clacked and gurgled like creek waters. And we slept and slept and slept in the oasis. I have no photos to commemorate the event. Only a memory triggered by another memory.

But on this day captured in the photo, the 4th of July, 2007, we merely hiked up the San Andreas Creek until we could go no further. I was hiking in flipflops, and I blasted my knee...but the water was so cold, I never even knew it was injured until we came back down the canyon. Then it swelled up to the size of a basketball. But my wrist, which I had strained from an excessive pruning bout, was fine (note the wrist brace.)

Eons of snowmelt carved a deep gorge in Andreas Canyon. The canyon wall looks like the trunk of the native California Washingtonia fifera fan palm. I felt like a child caught between giant elephant legs. Native California palms are like redwoods, they need to keep their feet cool. Both have an extraordinarily small range and specific micro-climate needs. They favor the fissures caused by the San Andreas fault.

To the Cahuilla Indians, the peak was known as I a kitch (or Aya Kaich), meaning "smooth cliffs." It was the home of Dakush, the meteor and legendary founder of the Cahuilla. Naturalist John Muir wrote of San Jacinto Peak, "The view from San Jacinto is the most sublime spectacle to be found anywhere on this earth!" —Wiki

VERB AND NOUN

While scanning old negatives

I accidentally reversed one, 

& then when I posted them, 

I was startled by a mirror image

heart made of granite and snow. 

So that's why his smile looked all wrong 

in the photo, because it was reversed.

A stranger was grimacing at me.

Maybe if I had seen the flip side, then,

I might have saved myself some grief.

I literally scaled mountain peaks—

even the heights of Machu Picchu with that man—

it was a short, fierce relationship, 

lasting only a few years, 

but it came with a lifetime sentence. 

Sometimes the sentence is all there is: 

all verb & noun. The temporalness of snow 

and the endurance of granite.

8/13/19 & 9/11/19

Granite heart (photos)

An accident while scanning negatives last night, I reversed one, and when I loaded them onto FB, I was surprised to see the images made a heart of granite and snow. I also realized the reason why John's smile looked all wrong, because it was reversed! It was as if a stranger was grimacing at me.Maybe if I had seen the mirror image, then, I might have saved myself some grief. I literally scaled mountain peaks—even the heights of Machu Picchu—with this man. It was a short, fierce relationship, it lasted only a few years, but came with a lifetime sentence. But sometimes the sentence is all there is: verb and noun. The temporalness of snow and the endurance of granite. We had decided to forego following the trail (we don't need no stinkin' trails) and traversed a narrow bridge from one summit to the next, a "Thank God" ledge no wider than our feet, we inched along the crest of a sheer wall, I was terrified. Even Edwin Drummond had never taken me out on a ledge like this. I nearly fell off that mountain because I forgot to hug the wall with my hips. John reached over and shoved my ass back to the wall. I hugged that wall with my hips for all I was worth. I damned near made love to that blasted rock face and lived to tell the tale. I'm not too sure what happened to my pants. I seem to be wearing only longjohns. Awkward family photo mpment. Desolation Wilderness, near Echo Summit, 1986. Pyramid Peak stands at 9,984′, but soon it will be 10,000'. The Sierra Nevadas are young mountains still growing.

RIP John Oliver Simon. Gone little over a year. I still miss him. (John was Ansel Adams's cousin—scaling mountains was in the bloodline).

Last time

While doing CPITS paperwork for John's CAC grants, I found two poems scrawled on foolscap. Then I realized it was the last poem I will ever write with John. It was the last time I ever saw John alive. It was the last time I hugged and held him and said I loved him. It was also a hellish class at Emerson, I was supposed to take over in January. I dreaded it. The kids were all over the place. John was very patient. We wrote to music from Chiapas, the kids were crazy with the thought of freedom and Christmas vacation looming on the horizon. Little did I know that the new year would also bring such loss and sorrow. I am sad beyond despair. I still cannot believe he is gone. Gone. Just like that.

CATHEDRAL OF SOUND
A MADRIGAL FOR THE MILLENNIUM

MY ANTI-BUCKET LIST

Climbing Half Dome a 3rd time is on my anti-bucket list.
Never again. What was I thinking the 2nd time around?
On the way back down, I developed a fear of heights.
I sat on the ledge at Glacier Point, beyond the guardrail. 
I also sat on the lip of Half Dome. What was I thinking?

When I climbed Yosemite Falls, I had a high fever,
the view from above was to die for, but not worth dying for.
Coming down the slot canyon was a total bitch.

I probably won't climb Mt. Whitney again.
I  crawled on hands and knees, across the summit,
a knifeback ridge with a straight drop off on either side.
I practically kissed the rocks at the top.
Then I had to descend. What was I thinking?

I will never again climb the crevice at Sonora Pass,
the view from the ridgetop was stunning,
but then I had to back down the chimney,
I was fatigued, with overtaxed muscles.
My boyfriend guided me down, step by step,
but to fall, sans ropes, would be certain death.

I have literally scaled the heights of Machu Picchu.
Another climb I will not do again, is Huayna Picchu,
with that loose steel cable barely anchored to the cliff,
I probably won't hike the Machu Picchu trail again either.
My knees simply wouldn't make it.
Ah, impetuous youth, well-spent.

4/27/18

CAMINO

I should get up, do something useful,
other than lounging beneath an umbrella
reading a stack of books from a dead ex-lover,
their covers curling in the heat like nuns' wimples.

I'm looking for traces of myself in his old poems,
but there's so little of me there,
there's nothing left to do, other than to crow,
But I was there! I was there! So what
if I am reduced to a her or a you,
those impersonal substitutes that sting and maim 
the memory of a relationship long after it's over.
A namelessness, a negation. A particle of speech.
Then I realized my path leading to uncharted territories
was never about being la mujer de John,
included as a footnote to the future.
I took a camino of my own choosing.
Perils and risks, part of the baggage
we always carry with us.
Making us who we are.

4/23/23

BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY

In the Galapagos, I met a blue footed booby 
who liked the cut of my jeans 
and he danced for me with his blue feet 
waving like little racing flags, 
singing Ayeh, ayeh aheh, are you my mate?
He bowed to the sky, then gazed at me 
with his mad blue eyes, so like John's.

4/22/18

Poetic sendoff for John Oliver Simon at Jered's pottery shed

We attended John Oliver Simon's literary memorial at Jered's Pottery, a warehouse in Emeryville next to the railroad tracks. Sarah Kobrinsky arranged the event, which was fairly well attended. Tobey Kaplan was emcee: Jack Foley, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Clive Matson. Lots of poets from his Poetry Inside Out program, Sophie Dahlin, Lilian Autler, Temina, I took photos. Somehow I expected more people.

The day before was John's birthday, and judging by the amount of people who wished him a happy birthday on Facebook, I'd say that some of them aren't aware that he is gone. I was going to say, gone from this planet, but even when one is cremated, one is still of this planet, even in the form of ash. But having a poetic send-off on Earth Day was fitting. No stardust need apply.

LAPIS HEART

      —para John

After I gave you a blue lapis heart,
which you always wore on your vest,
you said: if I love you am I trapped forever?
We didn't know the answer was an infinitive Yes.
Even when I left. I had to. And yet you still loved me
the way I loved you all this time. No matter what.
At least at the end, we were able to say, 
I love you once more to each other,
and really mean it, no holds barred.

Goodnight, Sweetheart.
I give you back your blue lapis heart,
lost so many years ago in the wash.
You were never alone in the dark, nor unloved.
Safe journey, mi amor, and may your ashes
enrich those desert oases you loved so deeply.

Right up to the very end,
poetry was your other woman,
but the desert was your real lover.
Perhaps that blue lapis heart
is waiting somewhere on the trailhead
whispering secret words of love
to the pale desert sky, waiting
for the next star-crossed lovers
to cross its path.

4/23/18

ODE FOR JOHN OLIVER SIMON

May you always dream
of the freedom of clouds
scutting across the sky.
May your laughter be
raucous as the crows at sunset
and carry their dark wisdom forth.
May you sleep soundly
with wild birds in your heart.
And may your thoughts be
like godbeams of the sun
at daybreak to pierce
the ordinary and the mundane.
And may the mountains rise up
to hold you on their crests
so that the stars may find you
shining among them
like a thought bearing witness
to your words shedding light
on this earthly plane.

2/14/2018

Porque Anadrio!

I am re-reading Otto-Raúl González'
Diez Colores Nuevos en Españo, aloud, badly.
Porque Anadrio es el color allegria!

Re-reading old journal entries from 1985, I was surprised to discover that John told me about Otto-Raúl's poem, Anadrio, when we first hooked up. No wonder I've been fulminating over that poem lately.

Funny, how the mind works circuitously, and circles back to settle like an old dog in front of the hearth. I guess I am seeking joy in a time of sorrow.

After I had helped John's daughter Kia scan photos last Thursday for the memorial, she was browsing John's bookshelf, and out of the blue, handed me the book. Of all the books on John's bookshelf, why that one, the one I wanted? Surely it was fate.

Looking up into that exact blueness of sky, I say, I begin to understand the how the theory of time and space continuum began. You say the word, Anadrio, an invented name for a new color for joy. You tell me of a Mexican poet, Otto-Raúl González, who invented ten new colors, and you said Anadrio is the color of joy and of good luck. —from Long Distance Relationship, 1985

see also Mexico Journal: getting our Guatemalan visas

It took several years for De Diez Colores Nuevos to be published (1993), and John was beginning to translate them in 1985.

Anadrio

Quien primero vio una nube de color anadrio
era un joven pastor de diecisiete abriles
que más tarde fue monarca de su reino
y hombre feliz hasta decir ya no,
porque el anadrio es el color de la alegría
y de la buena suerte.

¡Y de la buena suerte!
¡Y de la buena suerte!
¡Y de la buena suerte!

En mil quinientos veinte
un español porquerizo de Castilla
vino a América y cuando se internó en la selva
vio un árbol de color anadrio
ese mismo soldado de fortuna
más tarde comió con Carlos V
y fue virrey;
porque el anadrio es el color de la alegría
y de la buena suerte.

¡Y de la buena suerte!
¡Y de la buena suerte!
¡Y de la buena suerte!

En la época moderna otras personas
han visto objetos de color anadrio
y su suerte ha cambiado en forma radical.

Un pescador vio una sirena cuya cola
era anadria y desde entonces
pescó y pescó y pescó y pescó y ahora
es dueño de una flota ballenera;
porque el anadrio es el color de la alegría
y de la buena suerte.

¡Y de la buena suerte!
¡Y de la buena suerte!
¡Y de la buena suerte!

Vendía periódicos un niño,
rapaz sin desayuno, de pobreza trajeado,
un día en su camino vio una piedra
que era, por supuesto, de color anadrio.
Ese niño actualmente es accionista
de una inmensa cadena de periódicos;
porque el anadrio es el color de la alegría
y de la buena suerte.

Pinte usted
las paredes de su casa
de color anadrio
y le irá bien.

(Otto-Raúl González, De Diez colores nuevos, Editorial Praxis, 1993)