Pikas in the Year of the Rabbit

Ili pika, Tianshan Mountains, Xingjiang Province, China. Li Weidong photo

A friend posted a photo of a weird-looking ili pika with big furry ears, dubbed the “magic rabbit” by its discoverer, conservationist Weidong Li in 1983. He named the new species Ochotona iliensis, after his hometown, Ili. 

Thought to be endangered 20 years after its discovery, then extinct by 2003, an ili pika was spotted in China in 2014. Few critters make a successful comeback from extirpation! However, they are in serious decline, with a loss of 70% of its species due to climate change (they croak at 80°), the ila pika is circling the drain of extinction, as are all the species of pikas in the world.

The ili pika of the Tianshan Mountains, in the Xinjiang province of China is a lagomorph, same order, but not the same family as hares and rabbits. They are more like distant cousins.

Since bad reprints of the story has eked its way across the internet via dubious websites, it took some doing to find the original story via CNN via Daily Mail (stories are from 2015). Also in Nat Geo. That was seven years ago. How many of the estimated 1000 ila pika still survive? During the past decade, the median world temperature has gotten progressively warmer each year.

When we hiked up Mount Whitney, long, long ago, their cousins, the diminutive American pikas, (we have two surviving N. American species—once there were seven), and burly golden mantled marmots were despotic little monsters ruling the base camp with ear-slitting arias and iron teeth. 

While we made our slow ascent to the top of the mountain, traversing the fabled 97 switchbacks and back again, they ate through the pockets of my backpack, and a massive hole right through the middle of my insulated foam sleeping pad so all I had left to sleep on was the head and feet part. I guess they were mining the foam as insulation for their nests. Sleeping on cold granite above timberline at 12,000 ft., even in late summer, was pure misery. 

Hiding in the talus scree, the pikas whistled and bleated in the pitch of  high A, while making little haystacks in the sunshine, and the golden mantled marmots screamed in the key of Queen of the Night. It was cold. We even had snow flurry in August. Luckily it was clear when we got to the top. 

When we reached the summit, there was a forest fire raging in King’s Canyon and a fighter jet flew so close, I could actually see the pilot’s face inside the cockpit. The stone hut at the top of the mountain, built by the Smithsonian in 1909 after a trail worker was killed by lightning while eating lunch, had a mini glacier parked inside of it. A good thing we didn’t decide to sleep at the top. 

I still can’t believe I made it all the way to the summit of Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain the contiguous continental United States. Was it all a dream? My knees, old before their time, certainly don’t think so. The Paiute name for the mountain is Tumanguya, which means 'very old man.' It is said that the Great Spirit who presides over destiny once lived on the mountain. And now that I am old and grey, I am so glad I once stood on top of the world.

In those days (1974), Mt. Whitney was 14,494 feet. But we now have better tools by which to measure it, and the Sierra Nevada Range is still growing. Now the official elevation is 14,505 feet. But soon even that won’t be tall enough. Our alpine pikas are victims of global warming. An indicator species, they are disappearing all across the west at an alarming rate. 

At least the ili pika live at a higher altitude than our American pikas and northern Yukon collared pikas. Ain’t no mountain high enough in the contiguous continental United States where our American pikas can escape to. They just don’t do heat. And the ambiant world temperatures just keep on rising. Stay safe, little magic rabbits. It’s the year of the rabbit.

I’ve come a long way from first draft! Thanks Marc Nassar

SNOWBANK OR DROUGHT?

So much depends upon
The mad March weather,
Whether or not the snowpack
Melts or holds its own ground
When the depth of snow
Is measured at Lake Tahoe
On April Fool’s Day
In feet or in inches.
In the snowbank account
There are severe drought penalties
For early spring thaws
And late withdrawals.

1/3/23

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

Old maps of California depicting remnants of lakes Tulare, Kern, Buena Vista, and Goose Lakes

Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, was destroyed by the prodigious thirst of farmers, in particular, a voracious cotton king—which led to the destruction of an entire ecosystem. 

Facebook’s California Geology Forum moderator reposted an “imagined map” from another site, Simon shows you maps. Aussie map collector Simon, who was riffing off a 2012 “Big Think” article, said, “The map imagines a satellite view of California is (sic) 1851.” Simon had the poor map imagining itself as being viewed by a “satellite” which had me doubting both its sentience and its veracity, as well as wondering about Simon’s grasp on the English language. Research was required.

I was on a roll. After consulting several old California maps from the 1830s to the 1890s, I can safely say that the fake Google satellite flyby didn’t happen in 1851—perhaps would depict the state of the lake ca. 1875. In 1851, the lake was much, much larger. No, seriously, folks, all that silly steampunking aside, geographer Mark Clark’s imaginary map, though very cool, seems to represent a much later version of the Tule/Tulare Lake(s)—more like something out of the 1880s or ‘90s, when it was being drained. All of which led me on a merry snow goosechase hunting down some of the backstory of Tulare Lake, and co., by way of old maps. The maps and storyline posted below are presented more or less in chronological order. 

For starters, I learned that the depiction that Clark used to represent an imaginary 1851 Google map of Tulare Lake was far too small, as Tulare Lake(s) was something like 8 times larger than Tahoe, at 800 square miles (later 687 mi².) it was shallow, with an average depth of about 40 to 50 feet, but deeper in winter. It was massive. After the demise of archaic Lake Cahuilla (Salton Sea) in the 1700s, Tulare Lake was the largest baddass lake and wetlands West of the Mississippi. It was king.

Tulare Lake 1875 —Wiki

I discovered that prehistoric Tulare Lake—remnant of vast Pleistocene Lake Corcoran—dried up within living memory, after all its tributary rivers were diverted for agriculture in the 1920s and 1930s. The 81-mile-long lake, named for the vast sea of tule rushes (Schoenoplectus acutus) lining its marshes and sloughs, with three other remnant lakes, Buena Vista, Kern, and Goose lakes, was part of one of the largest wetlands in North America. 

The term la ciénaga (or cienaga) has several meanings besides swamp. It was a Spanish Colonial term for spring, or wetlands, in the Am SW. It also meant "drowned land." The Yokuts Tachi name of the lake is Pa'ashi which translates to big water, not exactly a swamp term, and it’s the eponym of the tribe as well. 

 Some Yokuts subtribes called Tulare Lake Pah-ah-see for the way it grew and shrank with the seasons. Pah- is the universal Shoshone word for water. The vast lake ecosystem supported about 60 Yokuts subtribes so there were probably more lake names lost to history.

Tulare Lake also had an archipelago of sand islands, home to the densest population of Native Peoples in California. The Tulare basin, at 16,400 to 20,000 square miles, depending on who’s counting, was so vast, that the lake’s fisheries fed all the major cities of California. It was a major pathway for migrating birds, and also home to the southernmost range of the Chinook salmon on the West Coast. 

There was so much seasonal snowmelt water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains that farmers built dams, levees and canals in the 1880s and 1890s to tame it, in order to farm its rich bottomlands. Check out this 1830s Mexican map of California's Central Valley submerged beneath a 300-mile long, 30-mile wide seasonal lake. There’s a reason why so many Central Valley towns had the word Ferry embedded in their names. I remember reading early pioneer accounts of how the Central Valley turned into a vast inland sea. You can also see a flooded Tulare Lake in this map.

In 1830, the Central Valley was a vast inland sea 30 miles wide & 300 miles long.

Tulare Lake, which wasn’t seasonal, not only supplied fresh fish to San Francisco, it also served as a major water road for paddlewheel ferries during the 1880s-90s. No one ever imagined that the lake would disappear forever.

Apparently, during the 1920s, a southern farmer, JG Boswell, in an act of extreme hubris, drained one of the largest lakes in America to build the biggest little ole cotton empire in the world. It was the coup de la mort, the final blow—even the canals and levees constructed during the 1890s did nowhere near the damage Boswell did in the name of cotton. Look away, Dixieland. California cotton was king. it took a Texan to bring down California’s biggest lake.

That headline is so problematic, it made my eyeteeth hurt. Hysterical juxtaposition. The map itself can’t imagine what happened, no matter how hard it tries. No matter how sentient it thinks it is. The cartographer, Clark, whom we hope is sentient, could, and did imagine it, however, Simon still needs an editor. Let's move on, shall we? But what about the maps?

I just so happened to have a motley collection of old maps on my iPad from the 1830s to the 1860s—they depicted significantly larger bodies of inland water than in Clark’s “imagined” 1851 map. Maybe it was a drought year. Note that the 1873 map is similar to the imagined map.

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).

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

HIKING BACK IN TIME

I had a couple of hard miles ahead of me
up the first two long switchbacks, 
past Carillon Creek, the north fork of Lone Pine Creek
into the deep gorge at the base of Mt. Whitney, 
well above the waterfall at Whitney Portal. 
I gained just enough altitude 
that with each step I hiked backwards in time 
back toward the very beginning of summer.

9/15/17
Mt. Whitney

SUNRISE, MT. WHITNEY

SUNRISE, MT. WHITNEY
     After John O'Donohue's poem, At the end of the day: a mirror of questions

The night dreamed of its own beginning.
My eyes lingered on the spires of mountains
I was blinded by the dawn light.
I was wounded and no one knew
I read the dark script of canyons.
The trees closest to me whispered old secrets.
I forgot about the old speech of the mountains.
I neglected that part of myself
that traversed the secret trail heads, into the past.
What did I begin today that might endure?
These small words, everyday conversations
are meaningless next to that of the ravens at dawn.
I keep forgetting that kindness costs nothing
so I greet everyone and every thing with respect.
And when I smile, my heart is lighter for it.
For I remember the dead today, and every day.

I remember my cousin who died too young in his sleep
whom my family will honor at the Druid's Hall in Nicasio
today, with the cows looking on, while I, here,
gaze upon the face of beauty.
These mountains comb the indigo sky
Sometimes it's the only love I allow myself to receive.
The moment of self, a friend unexpectedly hugs me
on the back side of the Sierras
where the past and the present are one thing,
a deep imprint on the psyche.
The poets see me as I see myself,
a speck of dust in the vastness of what is.
I did not avoid that gift I was given—only to ask:
Why was I given this day?

7/15/17
Lo Inyo High School
With Kathy Evans
Lone Pine, CA
video

Dawn, Mt Whitney, from Lone Pine (photos)

The firebird of dawn only sang for a short moment and Mt Whitney was ablaze. I was not expecting to see the magenta shadow fading to purple. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would've thought the camera was fibbing. The smoke is a prism lens. The edge of the rainbow's spectrum revealed on the face of Mt. Whitney. I watched the shadow of the White Mountains draped on the Alabama Hills, the sun rose in a gap in the White Mountains which followed the contour of Whiitney's foothills. Synchronicity. A cradle of light. 



When I first got up, the mountains were a drab dove grey. I was disappointed. But then, sometimes, when you least expect it, magic happened. Sometimes you just have to wait for the right moments to align with the universe. Channeling pure Galen Rowell light this morning. It's a gift from the gods when you catch a moment like that.

Lone Pine Peak, a band of magenta above the shadows. 

A slightly better photo of Mt. Whitney a few minutes later. 

And then the color was gone. A lone raven in the sky.

Later, I visited Galen’s storefront, Mountain Light, to pay homage. And yes, I was talking to a window with his name on it, to tell him a story of mountain light. I got up early for the next several mornings to witness another roseated dawn on the face of Mt. Whitney. It never glowed like that again. 

CROSSING TIOGA PASS

It snowed at Tioga Pass, just a sprinkling.
The vagaries of weather, still in the high 80s,
back side of the Sierras. No respite from the heat.

When we drove over Tioga Pass at sunset,

the air was so thick with smoke from wildfires,

we could see godbeams piercing the clouds.

I watched the sun set on the crest of Mt. Whitney.
Magical. Dow Villa is loaded with movie memorabilia.
The light still shines on the place where the Duke once slept.

9/14/17
Lone Pine

WHAT ROUTE?

WHAT ROUTE?

So much depends
(no, I'm not there yet)
upon what route
to take to the Eva Conference
to Lone Pine
What deep canyon
to traverse?
The wildfires
are raging,
licking at the venerable
heels of giant sequoias.
What pure poetry combusts
in the form of stardust?

Old poets and lovers debate
on the best route
to take: Highway 50
over Carson Pass,
or ascend 10,000 feet
to Tioga Pass
and risk a blizzard?
Mono Lake eyeing
our descent
to the backside
of the Sierras—
that Range of Light
It's all smoke
and more smoke—
no mirrors
involved.
No weapons, 

other than

the hindsight

of memory.

9/7/2017
Tioga means where it forks

Desert peach (photos)

I found an interesting flowering chapparal shrub. It looks related to cherryplums. It has fruit tree bark. But it's a native species..... some sort of prunus/ Rosaceae. At first I thought it was a peach. Nope. Wrong continent. People suggested wild plums, peaches, crabapples. These are not garden escapees. Native species. Lots of them.

Think plum family. Serviceberrry? chokecherry? Wrong color blossom (it's really pink, like a Japanese quince, or a peach). It has incredibly tiny ovate leaves, and spines. It must flower first, then get leaves. I saw them on Whitney and Mono Lake too. It grows at 4-7000 ft., Eastern Sierras, Mammoth Lakes, so, it's a Great Basin plant, (high, cold desert) shrub vs. a California plant.

At one point I thought it was Prunus subcordata, Klamath plum, Oregon plum, Pacific plum and Sierra plum, is a member of the genus Prunus, native to the western United States in California and western and southern Oregon. But it did not resemble a plum tree. No thicketing. Very much a dense shrub.

After much deduction, I think it's Desert peach, aka Desert almond (Prunus andersonii) (CalFlora) native to Eastern California and Western Nevada. Not a peach per se, as peaches came from northwest China by way of Persia. But it gets heart-shaped drupes that have flesh in moist years, but are more like almonds in dry years.

My botanist friend Katelin Stuart thought I had enhanced the photo. She said your picture is very pink. When did you take it, morning? Or maybe you enhanced it? Or very good rainfall recently?

Those are all different bushes that grow among the sagebrush. They're really showy, and no, most are afternoon pix. I did not enhance it, Very, very pink, At first I mistook it for redbud, until I saw the flower up close. Then I got excited and went all gaga. It's screaming shake your fist pink, not a shy wallflower. I use my camera as a memory aid, and also as a reference. It's an extension of my eye. Sometimes I get lucky and sometimes get a decent photo as well.

I also found wild desert apricot (prunus fremontii), very close, but it was the wrong range, Desert peach (Prunus andersonii) seems to be it!

Katelin Stuart concurred: Hmmm, possible, especially If yours is growing in with sagebruch and atriplex, it tolerates salt and is in a similar micro-clime. 

It took a Facebook village to ID this plant. 

I saw dogwood in bloom too, on Hwy 80, and on 395, in Walker Canyon. No time to stop. Outrunning the storm.

Bishop to Mono Lake (photos)

Leaving Bishop for Mammoth Lakes, beautiful weather.


Mammoth Mountain, storm brewing

Hot Creek

Mono Lake, alkali duststorm, Earth Day, 4/22/2016. That's a very late season snowstorm blowing in as well. We tried to outrun the storm from Mammoth to Reno, we managed to make it over seven passes above 7000 feet, but go caught at Donner Pass. All the other passes, including Hwy 89, which was open in the morning, were closed.


Mother of all storms brewing over Mammoth Lakes


So we headed for Donner Summit, and got caught. A foot of snow fell. we made off-color jokes about potlucks, and bought very expensive snow cables to get over the pass. We also had a slow leak on the rear tire that made it even more exciting....we made it home on a bum rim, running from air pump to air pump across I-80. Flat tire in the morning. I managed to pump up the tire with a bicycle pump.

Whitney Portal

Whitney Portal 7,851'. Hard to believe I once hiked up to the top of Mt. Whitney. My knees would strenuously object. The 99 switchbacks will live on in infamy. The trail crest is about 22 miles, roundtrip. My boyfriend and I clocked in at 27 miles after hiking to the Sierra hut, and around the perimeter. There was a permanent iceberg inside the hut. Elevation: 14,505′ (it's gained some elevation since the 1980s. It used to be 14,495".) It's still growing whereas I'm shrinking in height.

Today is John's birthday. Old habits die hard, my old backpack lock is still set to that date... I said hello to Mt. Whitney for him. I can't believe we actually climbed that mountain. Yeah, another 30 turns around the sun. 

The Whitney Portal road was used in "High Sierra (1941), with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, and The Long, Long Trailer (1954) with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz." I think The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was filmed here too. I like to think of Bogie on the flank of the mountain.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Whitney_Trail

SALT-SEEKING MARMOT, MT. WHITNEY

While we climbed to the summit
of the tallest mountain in the Sierras,

a salt-seeking marmot munched a hole 

right in the middle of my foam mat

stashed in the scree at our base camp.

Sleeping on bare rock that night was no picnic.
My bruised sacrum and hips found no solace
from muller and quern grinding basalt into flour.

I can't imagine the marmot survived the night

after eating that ensolite. Clearly, it tasted
good to him, seasoned with chocolate,
sweat, and the yeast of new love under stars.

I didn't think to cut my holy pad in half 

and marry the two uneaten ends together. 

If only duct tape had been invented, 

if only I'd thought to bring a roll with me. 

But the view from the crest of Mt. Whitney
was a feast for the eyes that nourished
me long after he lost his appetite—
when climbing the tallest mountain
wasn't fodder enough.

8/21/2014

WANTING POEM

WANTING POEM

My first boyfriend and I sat in the back row

of the little theater in Olney Hall, 

amidst human skeletons and dinosaur bones

watching a film series on Buckminster Fuller

envisioning our lives, moving back to the land

and when Bucky said: "The minute you begin 

to do what you really want to do, 

it's really a different kind of life."

We stepped into the sultry evening

and walked in beauty like the night

beneath a cloud of jasmine stars

and we believed in what was possible.

So very young, and sure-footed,

we scaled the heights of the tallest summits:
Mt. Whitney, Lyell Glacier, Cloud's Rest.

That summer we traversed the Range of Light,

the Sierras, our bed, the stars our blanket

and in alpine meadows, we made promises 

to the gods, not knowing the price to be paid.

APRIL 8, 2013

WANTING POEM

I CAN'T GIVE YOU UP

I CAN'T GIVE YOU UP

I sit in the center of my heart's dream
between two worlds, between water and air,
between the two banks of the same creek.

Can't give you up, wilderness.
Can't let go of the stream
or bathing in the same water even once.

Can't give up the rocks
collecting along the banks
where washers lingers
but singing, mostly singing,
talking to me of desert thirst.

Talking to me of the roots of the stream iris,
then the red of willow roots, fanning out like hair.

Earlier, I heard thunder in the mountains
and thought of the odd gods.

I sat midday, midstream, in a creek
called Independence
on the day of the fall solstice,
facing west, midway between
the sun and the new moon.

Mount Williamson and stream
aligned with my hearts stream,
a desert hawk makes his way
across the scree
industrious jays and crows take sudden shelter.

Can't give you up, blue dragonfly,
small tule rushs, and fremontia
reminding the sun not to forget
the color it needs to remember.

My skin turns the color of foxes.
I sit midstream, and I can't give you up
licking my skin like that.
Stream bring me the translation
of your songs so that I may transcribe
the vowels on my heart,
 for the winter that is coming.

I gather barberries and paint an ancient path
to the secret heart of the mountain
where dwells the great spirit of the Paiute Nation,
the stream sings of its purity, assault and light,
glistening precious transformation
of snowmelt and glacier wisdom
destined for the LA aqueduct
and the black base writing of civilization.

Why should I hesitate to bathe
in the stream called Independence
soon to be trapped in the dark pipes of the city?
Menstrual blood offering to sacrifice to snowmelt,
offer myself up with intention to the sun and moon
of this new millennium—how we measure time and age.

Downstream, where an ex-lover will drink my blood,
womb approaching the end of its season,
in retribution for the child we let slip
into the sewers of clinics.

I know now that one can never quite separate
from the other, we shared language undiminished by time,
a migration towards the other, the beloved enemy.

I can't give you up. Just like the stream
can't give up the riverbed.
I find abandoning dells lined with rock barrows.
Soon I will become a more permanent resident
of the landscape. My flesh and bone
nourishing small plants in another cycle.

I fear I've lost my ability to write
but after trying to read my poem aloud to Veronica
I burst into tears. The potency of words.

I can't give you up, even if the art is gone.
All that remains is the poem.

9/23/2000

Lone Pine, CA
added 10/16

VERONICA'S FATHER, and MR RAUTIO'S HANDS — 2 poems

VERONICA'S FATHER

Veronica reads a poem
of her father's poor hands
eclipsed by fossil fuel
supernovaed for one brief second
circling the bread to illuminate
the mechanical soul of engines
how they were articulate
warriors of other muses,
those hands earning daily bread,
with darkness, cuticled in midnight oil
encircling the bread.

Lone Pine, CA

9/23/2000

MR RAUTIO'S HANDS

I was mesmerized by the shape
of Mr. Rautio's rubber hand
as he bent over the hood
of the old yellow school bus,
the gasoline bleaching it
to the color of sunlight.

How it radiated up his arm,
hidden by the mystery of cuff
and sleeve, curled as if in rest,
a dove of peace, by his side
as he performed delicate surgery
and the engine purred into life.

He escaped a world war
that had robbed him of his hand
and I thought of Caesar
who cut off the hands
of the last Aedui warriors,
in that final country of our ancestors,
to teach them a lesson.
What was taught, the lesson learned—
other than the defeat of a nation?
Stories of that one hand
had been given to another,
in a better time, a better place.

Lone Pine, CA
9/23/2000
added 10/16
slightly revised
(I couldn't read all of it).

Journal entry, back side of the Sierras

I am sitting on the backside of of the Sierras, looking into the Owens Valley. Mount Williamson rises up 14,375 feet. The great eastern wall divides California from the Great Basin region. A collision of ecosystems. The bare bones of the White Mountains harbor a different story, and the Inyo fossils dream of ancient seas. this is the land of cloud of consciousness and lava flows where the wind wakes the morning on a thousand miles of sage. The Owens Valley water wars, Chinatown, the Tinemaha reservoir, the beginning of the journey of water to the LA aqueduct. I find myself naming things. As if that could stop time in its tracks. Onion Valley, Kearsarge Pass at 9200 feet, the saddle, the old road ,sedimentary versus volcanic. Kings Canyon, Mt  Gould, and the Bristlecone Pines, Methuselah clocks in at 4700 years, Schulman Grove and the Alabama Hills faulted up from the Sierras in 1872, an 8.1 earthquake, the valley floor dropped 20 feet mount Whitney risers 14,496 feet up touching the sky. A mountain still growing.

9/23/2000