Summer...

I know I've said this before... nothing has changed about my summers, what I want to say..or how I want to say it...

Words are the emmisarys...of what Im thinking...  my ambassadors..

The relay what I see impart what I know...

I want the words to roll across the pages like the leading edge of a monsoon.... I want the reader to taste it, feel the heat an the air getting thick.. then know that moment when you realize..this thing in front of you has worn down mountians gouged out canyons and was here before anything was even alive..and will be here after were all gone...

I want them to be a true representation of the world... summer heat winter cold... and things we can know about the unknowable.... I know I drift and themes recur..so do dreams...

Some dreams are old and call out to be recognised..  especially in the desert..

It  comes from years of watching dust devils in the summer and remembering the sight of Dervishes spinning and turning, chanting prays..

Bring those two thoughts together and try to sound normal......

I have places I go... where I can see the valley floor and watch the dust devils moving back and forth according to whatever laws govern them..

Your hear the wind in the chappral whispering and moaning like a chanting dervish as the column passes....

Its a summer thing... 120+ in the shade and nothing moves except the whirlwinds...

And it is what it is..

Theres more.... velvety blackness.... coyotes howling and sobbing.. shreiking.. screaming. yipping madness..

The scent of clean sweat.. the salt scent of the primal seas..... the irony of making that connection as the you drink and rivulets instantly run down your back....

Ahhh.. some days... I watch the shadows as the sun rises long dark fingers of shadow releasing their grip on the world...slowly retreating...The sun clocks throught the sky... time passes and the fingers reaching out again....slowly claiming the day...

The desert floor an ocean that died eaons ago.... extinct volcanos rising up...and my hiding spot far from the habitations of men....

It puts things in perspective to sit and watch... to measure the day by shadows and have a mountian for a sundial..

All of which is deeply ironic to me...

I read a story written in stone.... not on tablets.... but none the less written by the same hand... continents drift.. mountians rise and fall civilizations die and are lost....

What really matters....... what really lasts..

My daughters scent... and Leighs laugh... that I be me only....

How hard is it to stand fast for the blink of an eye and then gone..
What do I care what anyone thinks..and how long will it last....

Its my world...my life and she is my friend

More Ivory...

More Ivory.........

Then I started collecting tusks..... because.. I dunno... I just sort of have a passion for it..  among other things..

Back further...

My father took me to a rock and gem show.... when I was 3 or 4.. or so I assume... I wasnt in school yet and he left by the time my sister was born... but thats not the story.... and I have a few from then too...:) Learning to read almost before I could speak... chess games with grown men.. being carried home because the snow was too deep for me to walk in...

This one is about the show.... the first time I saw turquoise and met Navajo silversmith....

My father had to hold me up so I could see..... its was then I connected.. minds eye to work.. the act of making something out of raw materials....

I watched him work...  my father wanted to move on.. the Smith said "let him stay" I have a stool he can watch from... He left me there...I watched.. I looked.. sand cast and conchas...eyes blue like mine.. Navajo
dark..big.. that I was a boy and unable to see over the counter didn't matter.. it was about the work... and how smiths are made... and the rest of my life silver has been woven in and out of my world..  the blue of turquoise like a robins egg or a clear sky....

I work on a stump... make my own tools...cut my own stamps.. and remember what I saw... its not about money.... its creation.. and making a piece of self.... repeating older stories than mine.. the migration and 4 directions.. the rain and winds..  the sun.. 

I still think about the Smith and how he took time to show me what he did.... Funny no?

its like that

Some days it moves in and out of focus.....
Fuzzy and blurred then sharp and crisp.

The Irish... and memory..

A few thousand years of oral history.. makes the memory strong no?

The blood runs true in horses, dogs and the Irish.

We don't need to see the green that cradled our race....

Its born in us..   we dream  dreams of places weve never seen..

A race of peculiar people... tribal and drawn to... what everyone else has forgotten..

We don't forget..we cant..

No more than we can stay in one place and not wonder whats round the bend..

Curious no?

We are who we are.. a race of poets, priests, warriors and shamans... sometimes all one and the same

Peat bogs..rolling hills and heather...

Words spoken.... songs sung... stories told.. rebellion and riot...

Submission to the unseen,.

Craving the presence greater than ourselves...

Water of life....

The liar... the cheat.. the thing that robs us.. the counterfit...

Ah..God we loose our way...trying to find you....

Forgive us...

We'll tell you a story and make you laugh...

We are what we are.... and we remember...

We all have our quirks.,.

Let me help with that.....

I collect Gypsy treasure.. silver, jade. netsuke and small ivory carving .. mostly dragons.. cause I can sell them quick..and they take scant room....

But once in a while I go for things that tell a story like a  happy round guy with barrels of.... sake? Rum... Jappo Beer... it  doent really matter about the what.. the carver and I both know the guy.. and given a moment we can probably remember being him.... He even has a beard.. gonna carry one barrel an scoot the other till he gets where he gets....and laugh the whole time....

What if you could..

What if you could have the long slow summer days of a child.... what would you give?

I thought about it...  should I make money or live life..

Should I inhabit my world "now" or wait till I had the money to retire then be free to do as I pleased...........

Then I understood the false promise of the hope and dream for something I already had...

Work 20 years... retire and do all those things you wanted to do as a young man.....but now today... give us your irreplaceable time...give us you strength, give us your wit, your drive, your creativity....give us the only thing of value in the world...... time..

I decided.. the days would be long.. the slow glide of my canoe across a lake.. spring days becoming weeks, drifting into summer...summer into fall....

Days swimming.... fishing.. harvesting mushrooms and plants according to season... nothing wasted.. canning and drying...dragging my traps out of the lake, a diet of crawdads and perch every few days a turtle and jokes about hill-billy canned goods.. ...

The hunt, the stalk.. a single shot and a cooling carcass....

Fairy rings and shafts of light through a green canopy
As quiet as a cathedral..

The whir of humming birds darting here and there..
The only sound...

Dust motes floating, hanging in the air
The whirr again.. the bright flash

Eye to eye with the keeper of the holy
No words to say... a hand extended
And the wee thing takes his rest..

Then whirrs back to his business..

The only sound in a fairy world..

I move...silently wool hunters giving no sound
No keys, no change, no lose straps..

The business of the hunter..

No scent except pine forest, wood smoke and gun oil...

I remember...

The line of a deers back standing out in the trees....
As I move closer, closer and closer still..

Putting distance between self and holy place..
No longer trembling before the hidden..

Now the hunter.... closer and closer still
The deer drops his head to pull at the grasses

I step.. nearer each time...

The shot wont miss.... a dozen yards.
A literal stones toss...
I see the eyes slowly shuttering closed..

And fire....

There is no chase, no blood trail..
It was a thing done before the weapon was raised..

The fast sure work of the knife...
And nothing wasted....

Money really doesnt answer my life
And never has.....

The days went on.....

I made the right choice......

My days are long and.. I know what I know....

Once upon a time..

Years pass but there are things that are never forgotten..... sound, scent, light shadow, taste... the adrenal rush of near death.. the steady quiet of every day... killing heat, and cold so brutal life is measured in minutes....

Then there are the things people think they know..... but don't..  I've been a son.. a husband.. a father an employee a business man an artist and seminary student.. I was trained for command and control.. and have more than 70 certificates of accomplishment awarded by the state and federal Goc....... more that I can remember....Most of my life has been out doors.. and harsh according to some people..

Except..it wasn't harsh to me... heat and cold..wind and rain fair weather and foul.... my life was my choice..

Let me tell you what I remember.. what I saw...

Once upon a time... I lived where water ran... green things grew and life was different than now.. 

Friends.... work.. tribal lands and customs... not the tv land version the real thing.... Shaman in cowboy boots and broad brim hats..

The pow wows...

Buffalo hide drums...  the big ones.. measured in feet not inches.. the ones you never see on tv... the ones that never get shown..

I know the sound of the Buffalo Drum and the rythym I can't forget... the pulse of the people like a heart beat.. the slide shuffle slide of the dance... rise and fall of the old songs the sing song wail of Lakota.. my heart beat matching the drum.... eyes widening ... the tribe Shaman.. coming close.....

Saying "I see you"....."dance with us"....

The Big Drum.... pulsing... a throbbing wall of sound, thats not sound...  a thing felt...

Trance.. fatigue slips away.. hunger, time.... everything except the drum....

I see you......Not that I was one of the tribe..... but one of the real people, acceptable......

He knew I saw him as well..... and I remember..