WOMAN IS OF THE OCEAN

WOMAN IS OF THE OCEAN

As the earth unleashes its hold upon spring,

bees brush morning with their wings.

The eye gathers in clouds of apple blossoms.

Is it a woman's desire to wait upon the land

with the sound of the ocean filling her

leaving only the fish to nourish her

during the long drought?

The whale returns to the north, toward home;

she returns south to mate, to give birth

and to feed upon the krill.

There is where home lies.

Man talks in symbols.

He spreads sperm in damp wings.

The labial fire burns and dies.

Veins carry in the eye of the storm

and the coastline of the mouth 

is treacherous.

4/18/1980
rev 7/1980
Ear to the Ground SSU Poetry Festival chapbook, 1980

BOARDED WINDOWS

Boarded windows
The white eyes of the blind
The migration of sand dunes, grain by grain.
A violation of the land as it tilts
downward into the sea.

4/12/1980
Navarro Ridge
Poetry reading at Doug’s loft, Bill Bradd, Leonard Cirino, River, Sharon Doubiago, Feather, me.

Poetry time log, getting paid was an illusion

I was simultaneously holding down several jobs for SSU, the Public Poetry Center, the InterCultural Center, and also CPITS. I was still under the illusion that I would actually get paid for my work so I kept note, but when I realized it was dust in the wind, I quit worrying about it, and just got on with it. But then I lived for poetry. It defined me. And I was also teaching at several schools as well. This log begins with the dreaded Robert Bly, reading where he mistreated me, and I put on the event for him, got him paid. I never forgave him.

 

Ghost trees, Michael Dow Workshop

During the winter it got dark early, we had double sessions at school and I got home after 5 PM. The cantilevered boughs of the trees reached across the long road that wove in and out of the trunks like a gray snake heading north. There were fallen trees decomposing along either side of the creek that ran alongside the road. My flashlight failed at the bridge. In the twilight, their light bark glowed faintly and they lay in waiting like great lumbering phosphor worms  and my fear rose up within me like a great black cape of smothering darkness.


3/20/1980 ?
added 5/3/2016
Michael Dow Workshop
freewrite

Sonnet Form Michael Dow Workshop

Sonnet Form

Mist morning when it is quiet
and the lips of fog kiss
the sky, beneath it, a riot
of flowers blossom in the dark abyss

The wind rustles the petals in the plum trees
bringing a snowstorm of blossoms in June
the vines are choking the bottom growth, and the peas
blossom—a late frost may strike and prune

the new buds with black tongue
before the growth's barely begun.

3/20/1980
 added 5/3/2016

Michael Dow Workshop

NEWSPAPER

The wind from a passing car
catches the edges of a newspaper
lying by the side of the road
and lifts it up like a startled cat.

AT GOAT ROCK

Light drips from the sky
at Goat Rock, lips of dawn fog
gobble up the sky.

2/24/1980

3 FRAGMENTS, CPITS freewrites

I am a plant walking
along the sunset
my leaves rain
clouds on the ocean

i send roots down
into rocks
they split apart
and I seek light

at the end of my roots
I feel light
it is soft and warm
like guava jelly

My tendrils pluck stars
from the sky
they ignite as I bring them in
closer

Meteor showers
bathe me
as stellar dust
settles in,

2/21/1980


I roll like a velvet green ocean
across the valleys and hills
the open spaces between fields
In the morning I am warmed by the east
at noon I grow toward the sub
as it shows me how
As the sun sets and the dew collects
on myt blades, sheep
graze on me, they pull
my edges up like a moveable feast.

2/21/1980



I wish I could show you
the beating of my heart
the stirring of breath
the pulsing of blood
through the capillaries
veins and arteries
Could you see the heat
rising from my body
and collecting into fog
and the rain coming down?

2/21/1980


CPITS workshops—freewrites (unedited)
Petaluma ES, with Will Staple
Cloverdale HS, with Lee Perron

LOVE, ITSELF

LOVE, ITSELF

Love itself

has no season, no time

to turn the rhythm of our souls.

As if by convection our breath

is  snatched away and suspended

from mist particles along

the pounding shore

2/1980

Page from the Marin Poetry Center anthology 1982?

A POTTER'S FIELD—FOR BETTY WALL

A POTTER'S FIELD
    —for Betty Wall, Dec 25, 1918 to Jan 30,1980

Betty, today you lost your footing
and you fell like a stone into the void
You took in the amniotic ocean
you, who never learned to swim,
you, who loved the sea,

Today, only the ocean
carries the clay chill of death
Only the ocean
is the spawning ground of death
Only the ocean that spawned life,
today, took back a life.

We swim in seminal fluid
We bathe in an amniotic bath
We are born in it
We run rivers to the sea
on a rip tide that churns to land.

We threw your ashes to the wind
from a clay pot that you made
back to the forest. In spring,
rhododendrons will bloom,
and we will pick huckleberries
when you return home,


2/2/1980, rev. 2016
added 10/16
mostly reconstructed from my journal notes, I later found the typed version, below.

Benefit show Guerneville Vetrans Bldg

CPITS benefit reading at Guerneville Vets.

I didn’t realize that Pat Nolan was poetry editor of the Sonoma County Stump before I came along six months later.

HES students peek into past through art

HES students peek into past through art

Healdsburg Elementary School students, along with interested parents, teachers and community members, got a sneak preview Wednesday of the school's upcoming Winter Arts program The presentation was part of the Fourth K program at HES. Artists from Sonoma County, 14 in all, came to the school to demonstrate what they will teach the students while in residency there. • The arts and crafts will help teach history and social studies to the students, in addition to the traditional methods of study. Students will be able to understand foreign cultures by learning the crafts people had to know for survival in past cultures, according to program coordinator Lee Perron. Sixth graders will be studying Japan. China, Russia, Israel. Latin America and various European nations. Fifth graders will study early American history. Fourth graders will lake up the early history of California. Arts and crafts in the winter program include: candle making, soap making by Elwin Millerick, pottery by Tony Evans, mask making by Greer Upton, calligraphy by Maureen Hurley, puppet making by Jan VanSchuyver, leaded glass by Mark Allen, weaving by Lynn Lewbel Mecce, paper making by Deborah Soloman, charcoal drawing by Armondo Gomez, music by Philip VanGelder, pine needle basket making by Marisa de Joseph, silk screening by Kino Novella and spinning and carding by Cynthia Gallager and Linda Gardelto.

MOMENTS STRETCHED LIKE SPUN GLASS

MOMENTS STRETCHED LIKE SPUN GLASS

i want you to feel those moments

between waking and sleeping

when your hands mold mountains from my breasts

like the soft milky clay of china

when your teeth graze the transluscent flesh

of my thighs, my shoulders, my neck as you inhale my flesh

our mouths lose their way in dark forests

yours protecting mine from the darkness of sleep

i want your hands to cradle my hips like a bowl of ripe persimmons

glistening in winter sunlight, becoming sunlight

i want to feel your life bloom against the lining

of our bellies like the desert after the first spring rain

i want to wrap myself in a ceremonial feathered cloak

hear the cry of hawks echo from the snowy peaks of the Andes

and sink my teeth, like some wild animal from the steaming jungle

into your hand until it bleeds the color of my rage

i want your death to brush my cheek

like a cat rubbing against the leg of Captain Ahab

petit mort resting on your eyelashes

like fine ash cinders blurring our vision

or breath condensing on the mirror

your tongue curls snail-like

tracing patterns of seashells in my ear,

it trails along the ridge of my spine

it cleaves the bilateral symmetry of my back

and the front of my body, connecting my mouths

our pulses beating in unison, roaring in our ears

like rivers during spring flood

along such symmetry to the moist path

a sinewy rainforest of pollen, musk, honey

in our nostrils, in our mouths, as we flow to the sea,

our tongues, dolphins at play

bathing us in darkness and in light

this day, a moment stretched like spun glass

between waking and sleeping

but as you feed me this nectar of our bodies

it profanes the air we breathe for you withhold your heart

relenquishing our clear hold upon this day

1/15/1980

Pac's Field

Just past Pac's Field, where Russian wolfhounds test the boundaries of their domain, with the grace of deer, or rippling wind—is an island. No, it's more of a peninsula, where two watery divisions intersect. Nestled between the confluence of two creeks, is the remains of an old deer camp, abandoned a half-century ago, yet a presence is still held in the shadows of bay leaves cloaking the ground and filtering the sunlight.

Watchful leaves guard this place with cool breath, even in summer, when outside, the field grasses and crickets hiss and snap like embers from distant fires. From dry arroyos, comes a small chorus of creeks rippling on a thirsty earth. Leaves guard this place, elliptic sylvan tongues suckling and whispering imprinted in the language of trees; I can't tell if what I hear is the sound of water, or leaves.

Remains of a stone hearth, a rusted coffee can with a baling wire handle, rusted bed springs, a crushed hip flask. Someone called this place home. A rotting food-keeper—each night, generations of hopeful raccoons still probe the shelves with dark hands. Genetic memory is like that; persistent and unremarkable.

Chin-high in the crotch of an oak, a stiff leather strop hangs from a rusted nail, a straight-edge razor, fused shut, and an old shaving mirror—silver back peeling like orange fungus. A thinly veiled message of watery glass, reflects and separates the eye from what's real, as if to keep us from seeing through a jigsaw of red-ochre earth, and the secret history of trees, to the blue ache of summer sky. Nose buried in the sweeping wealth of Califia's tawny grasslands, my horse samples each mouthful as if it were her last.

Though wise in the way of fences, my horse still keeps a practiced eye on the relentless wolfhounds testing the fence. The age-old dance of hunter and prey, ever-present. In the pool, sunning turtles, sport red-stripes on their heads—as if someone took a razor to them. Red, only true color in a landscape awash with the brightness of summer.

More than a mile away from the nearest memory of railway lines, this hobo camp slumbers on an island in time. Steel tracks pulled up during the war years, another addendum to history. Fifty years, a half-life since this place was abandoned, yet a presence is still felt in the leaves, and I can't tell if what I hear is the sound of trees, or the sound of water.

1/15/1980
rev. 2007, 2014

TO STANDARD OIL & OPEC

TO STANDARD OIL AND OPEC

Rusted ’49 chassis
buried in the grass—
its pelvic shape
like the discolored bones
of dinosaurs.

Hip bones of automobiles
crawling back into the earth;
their slow death rattle
is heard in the rain.

1/15/1980 Sonoma County Stump, 12/17/81

HES to kick off winter arts program

HES to kick off winter arts program

Healdsburg Elementary School is opening its doors to all interested parents and residents Wednesday, Jan 16 (or the school’s annual arts demonstration day The event, scheduled for 10 a m -noon and 1-3 p m , is an inauguration for the HES winter arts program The assembly and upcoming program will feature more than a dozen artists donating their time to share crafts with students Among the crafts to the demonstrated will be paper making, mask making, weaving, spinning, calligraphy, clay sculpture, soap carving, quilt making and basket weaving.

Later in the semester, HES students will learn the various crafts as part of the school's social studies through the arts program, funded this year through a grant from the Bank of America In addition to program coordinator and poet Lee Perron, artists participating in the program will include: Greer Upton, Michael Gonzales, Elwin Millerick, Lynn Lubel, Armando Gomez, Philip VanGelder, Jan VanSchuyver, Maureen Hurley. Deborah Soloman, Sharon Robinson, Marisa de Joseph and Wende Williams. All are Sonoma county artists and teachers

Following the demonstrations, a Fourth R planning meeting will make final decisions on the arts program for the remainder of the year

SUNSHINE: THE POET AT 4

SUNSHINE

gather up all the sunshine in the room
& put it in a bowl
& put it outside on the deck
you can cut the sunshine in two
& have two bowls full
& you could take off the lid
& let the sunshine out any time you want
What if the bowl had a hole in it?
would it burn a hole in the floor?
If you took sunshine out in a bucket
could you cut it in half?
& give them sun?
then I'll hammer it back again
The moon never gets cut in half
it's the sun that's white
it's white, and it's little.

1/1980
Fort Bragg, Mendocino

 (a found poem of sorts: I was writing on Pat & Betty Wall's deck in Fort Bragg, and Micaela Carr's four-year-old son, Mateo, came over to tell me all about the sun. So I wrote it down. Sometimes you have to be ready to reassemble the parts.  It's written on 1/1/1980 but I'm not positive of the date. I remember it was a warm day, so the date surprises me.)

ITS HABITS AND ITS NEEDS

ITS HABITS AND ITS NEEDS

it's lean  and lithe    endowed with sharp claws   
                               it is day in these mountains
                                where they feared to tread 
                             they've been here some time

jaguar

red tiger

silver lion

mountain
devil                        it is day in these mountains
                                 where they feared to tread
                              they've been here some time

                               and now it is mostly known

puma           

cougar 

catamount

mountain 
lion                           endowed with sharp claws
                                  it's day in these mountains
                                  where they feared to tread
                                 and now it's mostly known

the big cat requires                      too much room

(and who has seen                      panther tracks?)

there seems to be no                  reasonable doubt

cat of the mountains                          is in trouble

it is almost day                      i n these mountains

now it's mostly known                     they've been

here some time.                     mountain screamer

& it appears            nature hasn't succeeded

it seems likely                        in these mountains

because it is day                     in these mountains
where it is known                       we fear to tread

 date? early work! It was a big deal to get the alignment with a typewriter

FAX SIMILE

FAX SIMILE

Hey word

don't be afraid.

Take a sad fax

and make it flutter.

Remember

to get it into your ink

and you'll think

you'll take it better.

no date

80-84ish

A DROWNING MAN (the stirring of something else)

A drowning man does not need to know

how to carry a staggering load

or that stars may go out

in a single gesture.

He does not need to know

the blue-red tint of his skin's

the color of angry twilight,

or that the foam spewing from his lipsó

the frenzied sea.

He does not need to know

my shadow that once had its sweet hours

in the grass is primordial in its loneliness.

That I wake myself up from sleep

to comprehend the idea of suicide

or that I began to write his poem

seven years before his own death

was predicted on a sunny beach in Chiapas;

his whole family bearing witness 

to the casual departure of life. The 

The men who failed to inspire him

carried his corpse to the waiting pick-up

like an inanimate sack of flesh and lard.

The wide disbelieving eyes

of his young daughters

as they watched their papá carted off

like so much meat from the butchers.

He does not need to know your eyes

repeat the wind's reckless secrets,

the sky fills up with jade beads,

and the stirring of something else—

another small life taken before it's begun.

1980                       7/10/1979?
rev. 88

 (This is from an earlier version so I posted it on the date when it was first written. Since I later witnessed a drowning man's death, the poem was changed to fit the events.)

BELOW THE ROCK

BELOW  THE  ROCK

The loam spreads itself
ankle-deep    bay laurel
roots follow  the  rock's
roots all the way  down
to water.      The barren
tree   stripped of leaves
is a sign       of the long
           drought.

1980
may be earlier
added 10/16

THE SHAPE OF THINGS

THE SHAPE OF THINGS                  

Moisture blesses this valley.  

Following winter's shearing weather,    

trees sprout new growth that conforms   

to the patterns of the wind that dictates    

the shape of things to come.

While waiting for the storm to pass, 

wandering clouds & sheep sculpt                

grassy edges on the mountain-sides.     

Hawks stand still against the inflamed 

wind roaring through the taller pines  

scorched by older fires.      

Fog softening the hillsides   

condenses around my face    

& rises like a storm under my coat    

until I am drenched inside and out.        

Under dark trees, lost souls of moths        

collect & flutter around my face        

as if I were the only pale flame  

flickering in the forest.  
                     

1/80  Forest Knolls   

REV 3/81 for (see below)
The Child in the Bell, CPITS Statewide Anthology, 1981-82
rev. 5/88   see original

The Aftermath of Choice

September crickets throb in unison
they instinctively know from birth how to sing
while you and I must learn it all
some learn it easily
some who don't, carry bitter scars
some are willing to try again
some never recover

we are the living
and we are the ones who kill by choice
we kills with our minds
as our bodies instinctively create life
we rob our bodies
and we suck the blood out of the living
they still die within us
we feel the loss of our empty arms
and our hooded eyes
it was done by choice.

no date, but it's typed on the Olivetti typewriter.
1979-80?

on the back, was the beginning of
MOMENTS STRETCHED LIKE SPUN GLASS
Jan. 15, 1980

JONQUILS IN WINTER

JONQUILS IN WINTER

the sound of moonlight rests

on the branches of pines

and hitches a ride

on the scent of jonquils in winter

moonlight on the tongue

like tasting the song

of nightingales

wresting shadows from darkness.

1/1/1980
could be 1979
Formerly called MOONLIGHT

SEVEN FOR WALLACE STEVENS

SEVEN FOR WALLACE STEVENS  
       —for Ranger Kenneth Patrick slain August 5, 1973

I. Over high mountain passes
Clouds crawl over the forest.
The forest pierces into the flesh
Of their soft underbellies.

II. Deer hide in the mist-filled trees
Waiting for the storm to pass.

III. Underbellies of deer are white clouds
Brushing the tops of dry summer grasses
Growing along the mountain flanks.

 IV. In spring, snowflakes
Rest on the backs of fawns
And lasts until the chill of autumn
Thickens their coats.

V.   In winter, the sun dips into darkness.
The earth becomes barren.
The coats of the deer turn grey.

VI. Like a fawn, death itself 

Is moving slowly
Through the tall grass.

VII. The winter sun illumines
The red-tipped ears of deer
And fawns shake the snow
From their coats.

Limantour Spit, 1980
rev. 12.81?

1982 Ridge Review

Another ascii-filled poem saved from old school Appleworks. At least I had the sense to capitalize the lines so it was easy to restore. I forgot how much I like this poem.
I used to calligraph my poems. No typewriter.

morning begins as one of those clear winter days

morning begins as one of those clear winter days of surreal blue skies after rain and cloud storms. first grass is so green it can be seen with eyes closed, it bathes the lucid green air around it like a pond on a muted foggy day. seeds sprout in mud that has achieved the consistency of butter, in my hand are the seeds of alfalfa hay taken from the mane of my horse–her body was still warm but the stiffness had already set in. the night mist hangs suspended on grey globules dulling her red coat, clouding it over like her eyes. I open my hand and scatter alfalfa seeds about, a cloud empties its gentle rain upon my head, out of the surreal blue, a rainbow stops out from behind a cloud and tucks the seeds back into the mud.

no date

79, 80?

added 2/2017

Short Poems 1980

 JONQUILS IN WINTER

the sound of moonlight rests
on the branches of pines
and hitches a ride
on the scent of jonquils in winter
moonlight on the tongue
like tasting the song
of nightingales
wresting shadows from darkness

1/80


LOVE POEM
         after Suzuki

when love awakens
we  glimpse the infinite
but this love loosens the shell
diverts our desire and
loosens our grasp on the infinite.

1980


LOVE, ITSELF

Love itself
has no season, no time
to turn the rhythm of our souls.
As if by convection our breath
is  snatched away and suspended
from mist particles along
the pounding shore.

2/1980

UNTITLED LOVE POEM seashells

UNTITLED LOVE POEM # 3

emptiness of seashells

mourning for the ocean

trapped within an ear--

my tongue traces snail patterns

in the dark

12/17/1979

Sonoma County Poetry Readings I produced in December, journal

Dec. 4, We produced a big reading at the Cotati Cabaret with Joanne Kyger, David Bromige, Jonathan London, Rob Sharpe, Michelle Rae, and myself, Maureen Hurley. The objective of the reading was to include Sonoma State student poets along with recognized poets. 

Dec 5, We had an Expressive Arts final event and show at Sonoma State with Jack Crimmins, as Coyote, myself, Greg Loew, Andrea Granahan, Rocco Tripodi and others. A poetry bounce.

Then, on Dec. 10, for our grand finale, we all met up at Garbo’s in Greenwood Park for a Public Poetry Center reading event with fellow Expressive Arts students Gregg Loew, Chaz Abate, Lana Costantini, and myself. We were bringing Sonoma State student poets to the Russian River Writers’ Guild. The reading went really well. Gregg and I had read together on Halloween for the Expressive Arts assembly, another solid reading.

I wanted to read on much longer than I had time for. So I read some new material, but I was conscious of Lee standing in the background and I was afraid I might reveal too much, or not enough. I dedicated my latest poem, The Sighs of Women to him as a birthday gift as it was his birthday the next day. We are beginning to move towards each other once again. The initial communication is clearer than his logical assumptions. I snuck into his bed at midnight and was given a warm welcome.

Other readings I attended, and read at Open mike. Dec 22 Grand Piano benefit reading for the Haight Asbury Literary Quarterly, and another HALQ reading on Dec. 28. Where? Joanne Hottchkiss

DAWN POEM

DAWN POEM

to the beauty of the dawn

a lotus opens its wings

winter sun dips into darkness

and we recall our own birth

sprouting seeds

& mud in my hand

12/10/1979

puffin drawing (art)

3 Poems from Michael Dow workshop

I am a shiny raw yolk
bundled up in a clear membrane.
You pick me up, hold me in your hand.
I ooze black ink through the pores
wherever your skin touches mine.

Surprised by the bleeding, you drop me,
and try to pick me up again, carefully.

And my softness eludes you.
I roll off your fingertips, away from your touch.
The blackness spreads over the yellow,
leaving only a flaccid sack behind.

11/28/1979


With leonine head bent
and hair askew
he sits guarded
with arms and legs crossed
His gaze set on his leather shoe
he listens, nodding
as if in agreement.
I wonder how the syllables
rest in his ears.

11/28/1979
Michael Dow workshop


I wake to the dawn
and take my breathing slow
We think by logical deduction
If logic is deduction,
then what is there to conclude?
I learn from the breath
It carries me where I wander
Along a slipstream of thought
liked a snake tasting
a breath a of sunshine.

11/28/1979
Michael Dow workshop

UNTITLED half life of a hippie marriage

UNTITLED

The ocean is the first

circulatory system

of creatures

Could this scorpio moon

newly shaven

stretch its beams

across the continent?

What is the half life

of a hippie marriage?

11/13/79

Benefit reading for California Poets in the Schools in Sonoma County at the Cotati Cabaret, journal

Journal 11/13/1979 

My Cotati Cabaret benefit reading for California Poets in the Schools went well. Poets who read, Marty Goldstein, Pam Rafael, David Bromige, Leonard Cirino, Hunce Voelcker, John Kong, Susan Maxon, Marianne Ware, Boschka Layton, Pat Nolan, Lee Perron, and Jere doing poetry and dance. Second half of the reading was Will Staple, myself, Chaz Abate, Jerome Reiter, Jonathan London etc. 

We made $143 at the gate and it was a great turn out. Also, it was mostly community people not as many students from Sonoma State. Definitely Public Poetry Center’s goals have been met. We are bringing the Sonoma County poets together. River folks participating with town folks and reading poetry and maki g art together. John’s mime piece on suicide was excellent. Lee and Jere’s dance and poetry ensemble, Silent Crow, was superb. 

 I think we will need to tour Sonoma County with this entourage of poets to raise more money for California Poets in the Schools, it was definitely a high night. The poets were wonderful, the audience was wonderful. Next time only two sets I think people started to leave before the third set was finished. I published a chapbook of their work, called The Program as a memento for the audience to take away with them. 

The Cat Wears Red Sneakers

                    —After Kliban

The cat wears red sneakers. He's been hanging around here for some time now. He's heard that on the streets of Guerneville, it's a good place to hang out. He's as good as any punk. As he rolls up his tiger-stripe socks and shirt cuffs with such an air of nonchalance, you suddenly realize that you've met him somewhere before. Was it in the park when the fog rolled in in in grey cat feet? No, he's wearing red sneakers. Still, his feet could be grey underneath. If only you could induce him to remove one sneaker, then you could be sure.  But how can you ask him such an indelicate question? He may take offense, and depending on the moon, he may want to rumble, or even have a good caterwaul. Just look at his tattered ears. You know he can whip out a claw with switchblade precision. Suppose you were a ladycat, you could walk right up to him and drape your tail right across his shoulders and say... How about a little red sneaker, baby? But somehow you sense he's not in the mood, so you stroll up to him real cool, toothpick hanging out of your mouth and say, Hey man, got a light?

9/10/1979
Published in Shadowbox/Sonoma Mandala

FRAGMENT HORSE

I rode her through the years of growing
Her steady black legs carried me forward
into the murkiness of beyond.

9/19/1979

Teaching journal, California Poets in the Schools, Day 1

Oct. 29, 1979 teaching journal for California Poets in the Schools. Observation notebook. My first observation is at Fitch Mountain School, two second grade classes with Lee Perron. today is create a story. He tells a piranha story with a mosquito who says I’m strong, and then we continue the story they were working on last week, and we talk about jungles, lions, elephants. 

Pam Raphael is also observing. We invoke magic and change characters. It’s a free-for-all. Lee asks have you ever been a piranha fish? Somebody tells us they were once a frog. We go with it. And we slog away to the north pole where a polar bear joins us and we keep adding elements to the story. Repetition is the key and that tends to get them enthusiastic enough to finish. Participation is important to draw the individual into the story. Imagination is everything. 

We wrote their own stories down and there were several different endings. It was an enthusiastic class and the kids were very willing to participate, the second class, the kids were more open and finished their stories. The kids then repeated the exercises.

The second class with Mrs. Carroll is a bilingual class. Lee picks up the story where he left off. And the Wolf said I’m going to eat you. Kay said please don’t eat me and then then Kay changed into lion and then Kay and the mosquito began to talk. Mosquito says, hey man I am strong, and you are weak. Lee says, I will tell you the story again later. So this was a continuation from the last class and participation is important to make up another line and make up all the possibilities and what would Kay do or say and everyone makes their own ending and then they draw their story if they can’t write— there are some that are less willing to write the story and I had to ask what it was they drew in order to tell the story.

We go over to Healdsburg Elementary School to meet Mrs. Sugars’ fifth grade class. Lee tells me we need to write up a lesson plan and I am confused because everything is all cattywumpus. He reads a poem from the previous week’s poetry lesson, which involves class participation. He asks who wrote it? And gives positive feedback. I tell the cumulative Welsh tale of Taliesin, the brew of knowledge and how everything changes into something else to escape danger, the knife, the rabbit, the fox, the barn, the rabbit, the stone that fell out of her mouth and rolled down the hill. Someone said she is the pond. 

Everyone makes up a line, and one kid changes into a witch and then runs away and the which changes into a purse, how, I don’t know. It becomes very complex and hard to remember the order. We did the exercise together first in front of the class to start them off. It is Halloween.

I can see there’s some confusion. How to pace oneself. Each class is utterly different. Yet all are willing participants. We visit other artists in the classroom at their invitation. The second grades are so different from each other but it doesn’t mean one is better than the other, both are equally enthusiastic though the progression rate is not the same—probably because of language barriers.

BLUE EYES

Blue eyes have always startled me
As if I could touch them with my hands
Are they cold and is my hand sticking to dry ice
Or is the flesh of my fingertips melting
And assuring itself to their surface?

10/26/1979

RRWG at Garbo’s

JAZZ NOTE

JAZZ NOTE

was that a

blue bird in a

bay tree

or a jay bird

in a blue tree?

10/12/79

I AM A HAWK 3 takes Michael Dow workshop

I am a hawk circling upward in a thermal draft, 

and the sky is blue. You are a cricket on a dusty path in summer.

I am a feather spiraling down to earth from the tail of the red hawk

You are a red leaf floating in the breeze

The pileTed woodpecker knocks on the tree

and we drift into autumn, as one.

10/3/1979

Michael Dow workshop

I am a hawk circling upon a thermal draft and the sky is blue.

I am a feather spiraling downward to earth from the tail of a hawk.

I have rested on the leader limbs of the Inverness pine

And I am the mouse whose tiny paws grew feathers

I become the hawk and launch into space

A blackbird and I head south as the storm approaches.

10/15/1979

The roots of the Inverness pine were planted in t he earth by my grandmother when I was a child. Then, the free was no taller than me. Nearly two decades later, it looms up into the sky, the very symbol of strength and clarity. Many times I have been the hawk resting on the leader branches, I have also been the mouse who climbs up to the top to see what it can see. He is afraid of heights, still he climbs upward. The  top sways in the breeze, he clings to the pine needles, with tiny paws. He sees beyond his scope. His fur sprouts feathers, he becomes the hawk, and launches out into space.

10/19/1979

I think I attempted to make this work several times over, to no avail. What I know now, compared to what I knew then. 11/2/2015