Stitching Together Memory

My old Singer sewing machine pulley belt is in tatters and shreds and no longer adequately drives the wheel. The canvas belt is separating from the rubber and has shredded so as to interfere with the wheel pulley. I trimmed the belt with a nail scissors and got a little more life out of it but now the old belt's literally hanging by a thread.

I haven't been able to properly use my Singer for years. Last time I used it was five years ago to mend Neil's 1920s military kilt. It's literally falling apart again and the polyester thread I used to hand-stitch its myriad pleats back into place, doesn't hold up to the considerable weight of the fabric. The kilt must weigh 7-10 pounds so that's a lot of strain on the thread and the buckle fastenings.

Hard to find the old Coates and Clarke thread these days. "The best thread in the world," my grandmother always said. "Good sturdy stuff," she'd say, pulling on the thread, making it taut until it twanged and sang like a harp string. "Made in Scotland too." Little did I know that my domestic destiny would be caught up in that bobbin of thread manufactured in the cotton factories along the Clydebank.

I haven't been able to use my old Singer for years. The little motor spins and moans when the belt slips and I have to coax it along by hand.  At this point, I'd be better off with a treadle sewing machine. I really need a replacement belt. But when I look for belts, I can't seem to find one for that model.

Sure, I could get a new sewing machine. Lord knows they're cheap enough new. I could even get one for nothing on Freecycle. But I have a fierce loyalty to my old outdated Singer sewing machine. Sure it'd be lovely to be able to zig-zag or embroider or make button holes, or even have a reverse option.

My grandmother had a similar model Singer bought used from a peddler during the Depression in San Francisco. She gave him five bucks a week until it was paid off. She sewed all the clothes for 8 of her own children (4 boys and 4 girls), and also for my brother and me (she raised us) on that old Singer.

She also sewed generations of curtains and bedsheets on that Singer. When the sheets got worn out down the middle, she ripped them apart and sewed the relatively unworn outside ends together. I even had a set of summer sheets pieced together from old flour sacks. I loved their fresh laundered line dried stiff scratchy feel. It heralded summer.

My brother and I, we both learned how to sew on that old Singer. He became an auto upholsterer. During the hippie era, I even sewed leather skirts, vests and purses on it—not to mention rather, er, inventive dressed and tops! My mom once sewed up a multicolored red and blue canvas panel tepee on that Singer.

My brother and I, we both accidentally sewed up the tips of our fingers on that Singer. We sang and howled with pain but it made us much more careful sewers.

Apparently it was a family right of passage. My mom also sewed up the tip of her finger several times over on that old Singer. She later did a lot of theatre and costume designing on it. One costuming stint at the Cal Neva casino for Sinatra's fan dancing show girls—not a whole lot of material involved on that job—mostly feathers and beads.

I remember another sewing stint of hers with the famous Hollywood designer Ruben Panis (she married him so he could get his Green Card; he was later brutally murdered by a jealous lover) making Miss World costumes—I did the seed pearl beading on Miss Korea's pageant gown. The point is, that old Singer was running 12-16 hours a day under deadline and it never once faltered.

My cousin Kate has my grandmother's Singer now and it's still working fine (it's on its 2nd or 3rd motor), but she needs a belt as well. (BTW, she too has sewed up the tip of her finger. A good thing we have fingernails. It usually stops the needle from traveling up to the tip of the metatarsal finger bone.)

When I moved away from home, I bought my Singer in 1972 for a whopping $40 on 2nd Street between C and D Streets in San Rafael, CA. A neighbor had given me a gorgeous similar vintage White model but it didn't work as well as the Singer. After about 6 months using it, I was ready for a better sewing machine. So one morning when I was driving down 2nd street saw this old black and gold Singer exactly like my grannie's in the window, I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and ran into the used appliance store.

The owner tried to dissuade me from buying that old Singer, saying, "what-aya want that old thing for? I got some real nice Kenmores here. How 'bout a White? They're better than that old Singer. More features. It's old. Won't last long. Won't be able to find parts for it. You'll want the newer features" He really wanted to sell me a more modern 1960s sewing machine. But I had my heart set on that Singer.

Besides, the old White, though it was truly magnificent to behold, with its plethora of dizzying gold foil and colored enamel scroll work to admire, it was a real Jezebel. Despite its fancy inlaid walnut cabinet and painted beauty, it was really a lousy machine. The spindle bobbin was always jamming and balling up into a tight knot of thread (I. M. Singer improved the old bobbin and tension assembly) and I never got used to using the pressure foot pedal. There were gas and brake pedals more accurate than that pedal. I missed the much more accurate and precise knee pressure pedal on my grannie's Singer.

I wanted that old Singer. I wanted the best. You might say I was destined to own that old Singer. I emptied my wallet on the counter, but I was about a dollar short of $20 so I ran out to my car and scrounged for lost coins in the ash tray but I was still a few cents short, so I looked under the car seat: a nickel, a penny a dime. I had the down payment! I had an old hand-me-down '58 Volvo panel van from my uncle John—are you ready for this?—originally imported as a Singer delivery van, and thanks to its coin swallowing crevices managed to scrape up the $20 down on it.

Unbeknownst to me, I had entered into the original innovative Singer Hire-Purchase process—put a little money down, pay in installments—precursor to the credit card. It took me a few months to earn the rest of the money for the Singer. When I finally came to claim it, the shopkeeper, shaking his head doubtfully at my folly, he thought the Singer was a more modern 1939 model than my Grannie's.

So did I—until today when I stumbled upon the Singer website. Looking up specs on another machine being offered for free on Freecycle, I was shocked to discover that AC515997 was a 1929 model. I don't know how many motors it had from 1929 to 1972, but I've only had the one motor for nearly 35 years. I have used it for 30 years... until the belt shredded about 5 years ago.....

Well, suffice to say, nearly 35 years later, I still don't need any parts for my Singer but I do need a new pulley belt. My machine was never quite  as robust as my grandmother's Singer, it can't sew through thick material like a tepee with French seams, or leather without a lot of coaxing, but it usually did the job. I miss it. I really don't want a new machine.

ADDENDUM 9/6/08: After hauling my Singer into several sewing stores in Oakland and after calling almost every quilting store in Alameda County during the 3-digit heat heat wave in June, I resorted to trial and error, trying every sewing machine and vacuum cleaner belt I could find that was around 13 inches long. Nothing worked. Most belts are far too short.

Women stopped to admire my black and gold Singer strapped to the wheelie luggage rack like a lovely child in a pram, they, with their modern sewing machines, couldn't believe their eyes. A mirage. I felt like I'd stepped out of a living history museum time warp. We swapped stories on the longivity and sheer sewing power of the old Singers that could sew through most anything.

One rather toney sewing store owner on Piedmont Avenue (my last hope), haughtily rendered a suburban sniff at my machine as if it was something dragged in from the gutter, wanted to know when's the last time I got it serviced. I said never, I did it myself. She looked at me as if I was deranged. "But you can't do that," she said. Of course I can. I replied. Dead simple to lube and tune it. Like a Volkswagon Bug. An idiot could do it. I resorted to special ordering a motor pulley belt that never arrived.

After three months of waiting for the Singer pulley belt, when Costco had a special sale on Singers, I broke down and bought a newfangled machine for $150 that makes buttonholes, embroiders & zizzags too. But though it has 51 stitches, and it even self threads, it's more cumbersome and bothersome to use than my old Singer. it's claketty as a train, sounds like it needs a valve job and a lube. Too many levers in the way. Little plastic knobs come off at the slightest touch.

I can't see what I'm doing without hunching down for fear of sewing up my nose. I hate the micro LED light. No pulley belt in sight. Everything's locked away behind a bulky white plastic case. Even the thread guys. The thread spool now lays sideways, you need a toy wheel to keep it on. A piece guaranteed to get lost sooner rather than later around kids. How hard would it have been to put a hinge on the spool holder rod and let gravity keep it in place? Like the old days? No room for oversized industrial spools here. Just the weenie expensive spools of thread with exotic names. No Coates and Clarks. Alas, I've entered into the realm where one gets one's machine annually "serviced" for the price I originally paid for it.

I miss the knee pedal. I wound up dragging the foot pedal onto the bed and sitting cross-legged, I could lean on it and approximate the knee pedal action by using the foot pedal as a knee pedal. One woman said it's easy to use the foot pedal, like driving a car. I'm from the four-on-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal driving school. Not easy to switch when you've learned to sew with your knee for 45 years! Programming's utterly different. Like comparing dressage to drag racing. The slow stitch finger button makes up for it. Maybe I'll adjust to it in time. Meanwhile, an mountain of sewing repairs, in some cases, dating back five years, awaits.

This summer, I did stand at the falls on the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland, and took photos of the old Coates & Clarkes building, now renovated into fancy loft offices. All the cotton mills and thread factories are being torn down for condos in Johnstone, Elderslie, and the other industrial towns that sprung into being during the 1800s. I couldn't even find a sewing machine belt there either, for love or money.

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I loved the story of how the modern sewing machine was invented and perfected via a dream. Whether or not it's true, it was a flash of inspiration. I can't find the reference, but I.M. Singer couldn't resolve the thread breaking, he dreamed of two swordsmen fighting with needles with eyes on the tips...and that's how the solution to create a needle tension mechanism came to him.

I was also once tight friends with Sonoma County poet Pam Singer Raphael, distantly related to Isaac Merritt Singer. God only knows what branch she descends from, there are many. I never asked. She was a real New Jersey girl, talked kinda funny, with a heart of gold and in those halcyon daze we had a strong taste for Humboldt Heaven, Acapulco Gold and Maui Wowie.

Pam was a real waterdog, she was once a champion water skater back in Jersey. We spent many a summer day swimming hidden pools along the Russian River and the Gualala River. Back in 1979, we apprenticed together under Lee Perron and trained to become poet-teachers for California Poets in the Schools, teaching poetry (and art ) to kids—a job which became my lifelong calling. I never thought to ask if Pam was also related to Isaac Bashievs Singer, I think she was... I'd met his literary agent Sylvia Tota on a Hungarian train one summer. (See blog: Budapest Nights).

Pam's father was a chemist who invented Sensodyne and Qwell! After the Summer of Love, Pam said a lot of her hippie friends used to profusely thank her father for inventing Quell when they met him. her boyfriend Michael Yesbik said he shook Pam's father's hand for inventing Quell.

Having read a bit of Pam's paternal ancestor's somewhat philanderous ways (I. M. Singer had several simultaneous wives and more than a Baker's dozen of children), it's an aptly fitting invention! Singer, escaping a matrimonial scandal in New York, fled to Glasgow with his new bride, set up a Singer factory and built a residence on Clydebank.

One time she told her father how much I liked Sensodyne but it was so hard to find in Sonoma County. He sent me a care package, a whole box full of Sensodyne toothpaste. I didn't dare mention to her that I was i also intimate with Qwell as I picked up lice that summer while trying on clothes in Waikiki stores. I was completely hysterical when I found out, but that's another story...

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My partner Neil's hard working chain smoking aunties and mum were all employed by Clydebank Singer (Coates and Clarke) factories. The old brick and glass walled factories still stand along the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland. Their myriad window panes glint in the sunlight. In the afternoon, the sun shines right through the building so the vast banks of windows light up like vast cathedrals of prisms. Now the buildings have been converted into modern malls.

My grandmother would tell me that the thread was made in Scotland. I still have some old Scottish Coates & Clarke wooden thread spools, once a prime toy find. It rolled, it made a fine a building block and it even made for a crude yo-yo or necklace of sorts. I even made a flute out of several thread spools. It didn't work. I didn't know about reeds.

Little did I know I would actually wind up with a man whose family worked in those same factories. Now his auntie Cathie, the woman who delivered him, is dead. The funeral was held day before yesterday. She was a grand old lady nicknamed Lazarus because she had been at death's door so many times and defied his debt. She gave up her ciggies (coffin fags) at 70. Her grave site overlooks the old mill factories on the River Cart. Come midsummer, we'll be visiting her grave. I have a half a mind to bring along a necklace made of those old Coates and Clarke thread spools and lay them at her grave. Fitting afterlife booty for the barrow.

The Paper’s Summer arts issue: Opening the Mouth: is art relevant to the public?

Press Democrat, letter to the editor, Celebrate Sonoma forgot the poets

Healdsburg Tribune, Poetry overlooked at Celebrate Sonoma

Poetry overlooked at Celebrate Sonoma

Editor; (This is an open letter to Cindy Paulos and the Celebrate Sonoma Staff): Sonoma County is home to one of the highest per capita of artists in California and the 1989 Celebrate Sonoma/Sonoma County Art Awards ceremony is a brilliant way to honor us. Thank you. I want to commend you on all your hard work on putting together this showcase but I was appalled at the blaring omission of a major fine arts category by your committee. Listed in the program were six musical, five visual artists, nine thcatrc/dancc, three literary arts -- even a restaurant, chef, and cartoon category -- but no poetry! As an active poet, past president of the Russian River Writers’ Guild, the oldest continuous reading series in northern California, and Sonoma/Napa coordinator for California Poet in the Schools with the fourth largest program in the slate, I find this oversight unacceptable. My personal credits include the 1986 San Francisco Arts Commission Bay Area Poetry Award, the 1987 San Francisco Bay Guardian Poetry Awards, the 1989 San Francisco National Poetry Week awards and seven California Arts Council Artist in Residency grants, I find it somewhat ironic my students' artwork graces the cover of the latest LBC Events magazine -- but no poetry. The National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council both support and recognize poetry as a fine arts form along with visual arts, music and performance. There arc literally hundreds of other equally and exceptionally lauded poets in Sonoma County who would have brought honor to your awards ceremony. (A long list of poets followed, edited for space) Telling us to show up at an open mike when you fail to publicly recognize our art form is both an insult and a discriminatory act. Would you expect the Santa Rosa Symphony to do likewise if it were excluded from the list? I strongly urge you to amend this glaring omis sion to one of the largest and prolific communities in northern California by including poetry as an arts category in your 1990 Sonoma Arts Awards. Only in America something base as this could happen. In most countries of the world, Chile and Russia included, poetry is the heart and the breath of culture -- people line up for blocks and for hours to hear their poets read. Without poetry there arc no lyrics, no songs, no theatre, no art! We are our country's poets and deserve to be heard and appreciated. Should you need more information, we would be glad to assist you.

Maureen Hurley, Lynn Watson, Pamela Raphael, Forestville

RRWG, CPITS student reading, Burbank Activity Center

Cazadero benefit poetry reading for the Cazadero Academy (art)

10/18  Cazadero benefit poetry reading for the Cazadero Academy.

Readers include myself, Mike Tuggle, Susan Kennedy, John Oliver Simon, Richard Garcia, Pam Singer, and Stephen Torre. Not everybody was on the flyer. It turned into a marathon. Bill Witherup, Michael Syles, Jim Dodge.

I very much like Stephen Torre's work. I think he would make a good guest artist for my CAC project. This poem about logging on the Navarro River is incredible. He's the lumberjack I was looking for.

87 or 88?

CPITS Teaching Notes, Montgomery ES, Westside School, Healdsburg ES, journal

10/29/82 Dear diary, after 20 hours of fruitless arranging of a SSU Public Poetry center benefit reading with Herb Kohl on November 11, then the 10th, then canceled completely because I couldn’t find a venue—then I got the Cotati Cabaret to agree to host us which is a good connection. God, how can I even write because of the exhaustion and the frustration. I was sick in bed for three days, so zoned out, I never wrote up my teaching notes. This is a recapitulation.

Since my last entry, I’ve taught nature poems of 4 to 11 lines. Write four obvious things and four obscure things. Pat Solen‘s class went well but Gary Reeves’ class was out of control. Dick Peters’ class had low energy with minimum output. I got so-so results. I talked lots about images for concrete poetry. 

After Gary’s second class, I had my doubts about going on with the lesson plan. Lee and I did animal poems during the next section. It was like regression. Dumb it down. We each read lots of examples and told them to start writing when they got something in mind. That went well and some of the best animal poems were produced ever. 

Peter’s’ class we did a repeat lesson and got some mediocre stuff. I think they’re doing what they think I want, not writing about their feelings. We went ahead with other lesson plans in Pat‘s class. Day, one four elements, four seasons, four more elements. Write a nature poem with at least one from each category, then do a drawing of it. Went well.

Day two make a simple sketch. Cut out the words that describe your poem or drawing and organize them on the page in a shape, that’s concrete poetry. These poems came out wonderful. Example if you wrote tree and did a silhouette sketch of a tree and looked for lots of words for example, and only found tree tree tree tree, you’d have a hard time trying to find enough words, but if you describe the things a tree is to you you get more ideas. The poems were very good. 

We went ahead with it in the other classes. I have to do follow up from the last class. Peter’s’ class is lethargic but they did the best poems I’ve ever witnessed. Gary Reeves’ class went well too. 

I’m learning self-control, pacing, etc. The logistics for concrete poems takes up the whole afternoon. I need lots of time for students to hunt for the words. Techniques for getting their attention at the beginning. Don’t say a word. Just stand there until they get the message. Then begin.

I told them about the upcoming anthology and to please write more poems at home to be considered for publication. The idea of appearing in print is always a siren call.

PPC I had a public poetry center student reading scheduled on October 28 and no one showed up. The poets conducted a workshop which was small and lasted from noon until 4:30 PM so it wasn’t entirely wasted.

Reading for a day in on November 18 all set up, negotiation with ICC intercultural center, poster is made—I made it, etc. it’s all finalized. Press release needs to be done. Art show classical guitar and poetry reading for Alta, Jonathan, London, and Beatrice Lagos at the Laguna is all set up. We have free floor space. We keep the door in order to pay the poets. Poetry show with flamenco dancing and classical guitar.

Mandala magazine is getting submissions and the class I’m teaching is unreliable, so lately I am recruiting outside help from PPC members. I’m learning to administer work to be done provided that the class is there to receive instruction. 

Tomorrow I start teaching a calligraphy class at Montgomery, Elementary school in Cazadero. I will give a history and show work and ask them to find feathers to make their own quills.

11/3 Poetry reading at Garbos with George Englander. I thought it went very well. My best so far reading from journal entries mostly.

11/6 reading at SSU in my fiction class with Elizabeth Herron, I read short story stories from my journals. I am not cut out to write fiction. I need to write about real things or listen to my poetic voice.

11/18. Busy busy putting on readings, Boschka Layton, Jonathan London, and Beatrice Lagos with Alta. I’m pretty jazzed as Alta doesn’t often come out to read. I was surprised that she said yes. It was very time-consuming, setting it up. Boschka’s art and poetry reading was a smash success. Her daughter, Naomi was wonderful on the guitar and we had a full house. My photos are in the Sonoma County Stump.

I haven’t had time to write any of my teaching stuff. The Mandala classes coming along. Calligraphy at Cazadero, I spend a lot of time researching material. I’m teaching third and fourth grade, I suspect there may be some problem with the teacher. She seems annoyed. Does she even want the program? 

Paul’s class by comparison, is a dream. Kids are doing well but I don’t always have the same kids each session, so It’s impossible to build continuity, something you need when learning calligraphy so, that’s not working out. I don’t like the bait and switch. I have one student who is left-handed. So we worked with many systems before we got something to work for her. I had to learn to do left-handed calligraphy, and she learned to do right handed Calligraphy.

Garbo’s meeting for coordinators at Jim Montrose’s house. Hammer and tong.

10/8  teaching notes from Healdsburg Elementary school fifth grade I taught intro to poetry to three classes. The format is what is poetry and why do I write? It was hard for me to talk about myself. I discovered that the information, what is poetry, was too detailed and that I couldn’t throw out too much. They became space cases if I did. I would be lucky to teach them all. 

I want to cover in one day plan during the next five sessions. I passed out two pages of poems with words, like metaphor and image and rhyme on it. They read poems out loud and we discussed big words in the poems and what the poems meant. I asked them if they had ever experienced any of those things? 

In all three classes, they picked the fire poem versus the Sexton poem (fury of overshoes had appeal), but I was flummoxed when they picked my poem about light. I told it was one of my list, and I said the reason why I started to write it was because I wanted to paint pictures with words. That’s when I discovered poems are made up of images. We can all see an image and write about it. I say an image is a picture worth 1000 words. And also an image is worth 1000 nouns. 

In the first two classes on Monday, Lee Perron, the arts coordinator, and my trainer came in with a guest so I invited him up to the front of the classroom and we each made up alternating lines out loud so the kids could see the process. We used objects they could see hear, taste, touch, and smell both in and out of the classroom. We made up the beginning and the kids wrote the last line.

On Wednesday I was on my own! I had the teacher working with me, but the fire alarm went off right when they were starting to write, so I took control of the class and asked them to finish. I rekindled the interest by reading some of the other endings out loud.

Time: to prepare for the first day is idiots delight work, and it took me three hours. Teaching time, etc. it was there from I was there from 10:30 AM until 4 PM. Wednesday was better, I taught from noon until two. To prepare the lesson plans, 10 hours total and one semester of observation, ouch. Talk about time commitment.

I also met with all three teachers on 10/3. The conferences went from 10:30 until 2 PM. I was reeling with exhaustion.

On 10/4 I reported back meeting with Lee, and for a half hour I met with another new poet, Pam Rafael. We went over her book for the Horicon anthology, and I did the calligraphy for it. We also discussed our first day. She tried to instill confidence in me. And I was terrified. I had these pictures of 6 foot tall fifth graders waiting to beat me up. We are already on our way to be coming friends.

I also did some other CPITS related work on 10/7. I won’t always mark down my time as it is a lot to write it down means I won’t have as much time to do my incredible workload of school work. Poetry Center, and calligraphy, not to mention my own classes. For example, it took me 45 minutes just to write this up. 

PS, the reading Tuesday with Elizabeth Herron, David Bromage and Roshni Roshtomji drew 80 people.

Press release photo see the Stump photo Roshni, set up and clean up, making posters etc. eight hours

Also I made the front page of the Healdsburg Tribune today as poet and residence to kick off arts program at Healdsburg Elementary school. It’s a big deal I was shocked to see a photo of myself in class teaching.

11/18. Focus on chores at Garbo’s for the RRWG. Lee and I will do the entertainment plus booking for February and March to generate some capital. The grant we applied for, technical assistance, for $3000 has 175 applicants so the CAC did not award it to anyone. It will be turned over to a region. We may have to rewrite a grant and the most we could ever hope for is around $200 so what’s the point? We spent that much and maybe more just writing the grant. 

Basically this means I go unpaid again. If this continues the burn out what rate will be great. Bad news. Good news I was asked to teach a guest CPITS residency at a private school in Marin. My former employer’s daughter’s class as a memorial to her great grandmother. Negotiations with the school will proceed on Friday. I have a 10 AM appointment at Saint Mark’s school with Mr. Bizjak, the principal. I am asking for the full $650 plus money for anthology.

I got the CPITS countywide poetry anthology to the printers all camera-ready to Reprographics. 

Yuck. A bit of domestic theater. The cat is acting crazy and the frightened mouse can barely move. The cat is high on it. I wish he just eat it. Don’t dare throw him or the mouse out as a second mouse has been caught. I really wish the cat wouldn’t share He’s caught two in two months in my house is too small for mice too. It’s an eat, or be eaten world. The mouse and cat are banished for the evening.

Last session CPITS with Pat Solem’s class. We made creation myths. I read some and then told them one. They wrote their own myths and some had trouble getting started while others loved it. I got my first fan club going because of it. Dick Peters’ class went along well with concrete poetry, but surprise!they needed less time than we planned for.

12/17 since last month, lots has happened. The Sonoma County anthology was taken back from printers by Michael Dow. I hereby throw up my hands in despair because the anthology now represents too much anger and frustration. And Michael has been a prime blocking force for entirely selfish reasons. 

And six months is just too long to be spent hustling over some things such as this. Too many power trips. The man has no concept of how to put a magazine out or what kind of commitment it requires. He’s already ruined relations with the county printer. Not good. And this is after Lee and I set that one up too. He’s afraid to release power or afraid to be honest. Too much to deal with. I find it ironic because of his involvement with Tibetan Buddhism. But life is full of such paradoxes. Enough on Michael.

(When MIchael doesn’t show up for our annual meeting, that he produced, Lee deposes Michael and becomes de facto area coordinator. MIchael said he was held up by an escaped bull and had to capture him but he didn’t call us or anything. He just left us floundering. 

Michael’s holding on and keeping us from expanding or going into new schools has became positively crippling. It was not a pretty sight. I felt so badly considering that MIchael was my first mentor and it was he who brought me into the CPITS program through the child and changing times conference at SSU.

SSU Women’s History Week

CHANT FOR THE LINE OF COAST, Horicon School

CHANT FOR THE LINE OF COAST

blue green
heron
blue heron gliding
herron gliding
gliding blue green
river
shoreline
blue green
wonder
gliding heron blue green
river
fish leap
river green
blue river
water splash
blue green
river, sound

river path 

winding 

wind path 

river sound 

frog leap 

salmon dance 

river sound 

wind leap 

wind dance 

river dance

one river
three mountains going on forever
two blue herons
white wings outstretched
wind blowing on 10,000 pine needles
redwood forests
red pants
four geese
green shoes green shirt
15 blackbirds flying south along the Gualala river
one coastal highway
13 views of the coast
12 winnebagos heading north
ocean river going south
ocean going river
four more mountains
one peninsula migrating north two inches a year
the san andreas fault    *
12 winnebagos at fault
the point reyes coast
point arena
pointing west    

pointing north

June 1980   

Teaching at Horicon School in Annapolis, a one-room school house meant we had an unusual opportunity. Most of the students were Pomo, so we all moved outside for the poetry residency, and wrote about nature. This ditty was written inside a  hollow redwood tree stump, open to the ocean. I don't think it's great, but it is an artifact of the times.  I literally have not seen some of this work since 1980! An odd time capsule. Added 11/16.