Bridges - Kubota Garden

Around Art

Spent an afternoon at the De Young Fine Arts Museum in Golden Gate Park...

Shadow garden

Stairway canyon

Planes and shades

Floating world: Book and fan

Andy Goldsworthy crack

View to an exit

The Skyspace

Found verse recipe

Spotted in front of a house during a dusk walk through the Columbia City (Seattle) neighborhood.

Growing the Garden

Shots from the Holy Cross Lutherans' community garden constructed this summer in our neighborhood. Design by Pomegranate.

Not a drop to drink

Less stormy water shots from California.


Koi, Mission at San Juan Capistrano




Huntington Gardens, Pasadena




Seals, La Jolla Cove




Egret, Dana Point




Wife, Seven Springs Inn, Palm Springs

Lovely as a Tree

Well, some poems are lovelier than some trees, at any rate.


Missile Peak

I

The veins of leafless alders arch toward hard weather
As mine stretch into my own occult interior.

We encounter stairs, pavings sober as fishbones, amid
Moss (uproarious, chartreuse), amid profuse but pallid weeds.

Ghost rooms outlined by this simple maze, mystical
Glyphs strewn in the grass for hawks to apprehend.

One day, down came barracks and latrines; now only picnic tables
On the bluff look west where Russkie rockets remained intangible.

From this hill our missiles were to arch to that heavy weather--
Our trusty equipment defending our children, the interior.


II

These America's sacred ruins, scenes of glory: gizmos, dogma, loathing;
Our blighted history, of ever-defunct artillery, vigilance without end.

At Forts Casey, Worden, Ebey, Nisqually, the Great War's sepulchers
Are ammo dumps and concrete bunkers, gun emplacements altars.

Our boy will clamber their cannons, explore each blasted warren
In the cliff, try to heft painted shells jaunty as bollards on the vast lawn.

Tonight we leave the austere park from which Our Boys, no doubt
Disgruntled, carried out their recessional from holy war -- phased out.

Along this forest trail, breezes cruise through lean young trees;
Tonight bullfrogs will chant their love in Tibbett's swollen creek.


If you're interested, here are a few of my not-so-recent works...

Westport Child (Slight Return)

Nocturne, Westport WA

Ha - that one jolted you, didn't it! Relax, you didn't hit the wrong blog and I haven't temporarily lost my mind.

So, as you might deduce, I revisited the coast last weekend. I have to grudgingly admit that a flock o' brown pelicans soaring against a raging Pacific sunset is awesome and beautiful (global warming notwithstanding...there were never pelicans this far north when I was growing up).

However, when I could tear my eyes away from the glories of nature, I was still attracted by the following.


Behind the gift shop, Grayland WA
The shop itself was a wonderful warren of rooms in an ancient house (or two cobbled together?), filled disquietingly - for me, if not my daughter, wife, and mother - with very girly stuff and new-age music. Nice chocolate truffles, though!



Behind the cannery, Westport
Someone must have been thinking for the past fifty years that this might be a good refurbishment project next weekend. Oh well. All the better for the flaneur.



False front, Graham WA
One of a collection of rustic buildings apparently ready for renovation towards a future tourist trap. Or a cleverly disguised meth lab.



Signage, Graham
Local subtleties of anti-vandalism (or anti-meth-lab-discovery).

Wetland

An afternoon at Mercer Slough, named afer one of the founders of Seattle, which occurs in an area that was under water before the City lowered Lake Washington to make the Montlake ship canal.

This is the fish ladder, installed for the pleasure of such local characters as the peamouth minnow, for the annual Day of Spawning.




An attempt at keeping wily rocks in line. I'm reminded of the day I spent at the Paris bird market, where pigeons strutted unconcernedly among cages of budgies and finches.





Slabs of Mystery.





Ah, now I see: This crop of girders has now bloomed, a steel version of the little native ferns.

Holiday Cheer in Lake Heights

Our neighbors are really going over the top with decorations this year.


So Santa traded in the sleigh?



(Yes, Virginia, Santa is an elephant.)

SO, here's a poll, what's your opinion of these decorations?

A. Approve: Representative of typical Yankee Christmas cheer
B. Disapprove: Not American enough, where's the flags?
C. Disapprove: Not Christian enough, where's Jesus?
C. Disapprove: Not enough recognition of alternative faiths and/or atheism
D. Approve: Representative of the Suburban Absurd movement