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Trail of the Gods

At a particularly unspectacular point in my hike

On a day no different than hundreds

Spent in the forest

North, just off the coast

Ocean fog burning off under a hard sun

I saw: an entrance so subtle

Any other day I would have missed it completely

No trace of a herd path nor cleared brush

But an entrance nonetheless

The undergrowth -- clovers and ferns -- parted

Just enough to catch the mind's eye

Hiker's left at the bottom of the ravine

"Trail of the gods" I whispered out loud

"Trail of the gods" again

I knew, immediately, that few had made this detour

As I stepped onto the trail

Past more clover

Several hundred yards ahead

Invisible from the main trail that I had abandoned

At the base of a steep hill

Lay a monster redwood

Fallen on the hill, cracked at four or five places

The gaps inflection points of concavity

I reached the tree base and climbed

Onto the base of the fallen giant

The height of the severed trunk posing a challenge in its own right

Atop; I hiked onward

Up the tree, segment by segment

Each part steeper against the ravine walls than the last

Until finally at the last segment I was climbing

Hand over hand

Just enough friction under rubber soles

On crumbled bark

As if by design, the last foot of trunk

Resting a short distance from an isolated, flat porch

Carved into the steep ravine wall

I jumped, of course

Onto the ledge, the exposed hillside

Immediately in front of me

I could see a goat path cut into the slope

The trail hardly single file

Quarter file, maybe

Wandered S curves into a cloud

The fog had returned

And cold, too

I hiked along and the fog withdrew enough

To see the massive conifer grove

Clinging to the hillside

The goat path, and me

Cowering in its non-shadow

An owl in the distance (near distance?)

Called out through the chilled air

"Trail of the gods"

In a language I couldn't possibly understand

The narrow trail continued out of the grove

Onto a ridge line

I couldn't see to my left or right

The fog thick, and moving now

With the wind off the mighty Pacific

How far the steep walls to either side of me dropped

I had no idea

But soon I was descending off the peak

And I could see trees, again

And I could see trees fallen

Across the stream beds that bore into the hillside

The trail no longer meandered in and out

But continued straight across the fallen trees

Straight over the dry stream beds

The moss was worn just enough to place a foot in front of another

And walk along the center

Cheating the contours of the hills

Until the dirt trail ended

I took a sharp right, onto another fallen log

But this one was different than all those that I had travelled today

This one stretched directly out into the canopy

Into an abyss of treetops

I walked even more carefully along the horizontal tree path

Hundreds and hundreds of feet into the sky

Onto the top of a tree, onto another log

This one even bigger than the last

And I remembered it, now, this particular log

From earlier in my hike

I had noticed a tree

Taller than all of the rest, by an order of magnitude

I thought it was the tallest in the the forest

But it wasn't; it was fallen

From its base high on the ridge, onto the tops of other trees

And lay suspended prostrate across redwood crowns

A bridge into the skyscape

I crossed it, humbled by serendipity

And the off chance to walk among the highest leaves in the forest

The wind picked up and whisked the clouds away in drawn out sequence

Whispering, while offering warm sunbeams

"Trail of the gods"

I walked on air

To another tree top, and another fallen tree

Perfectly placed to deliver me back onto a steep hillside

This one with tidy switchbacks

Broken only by small trickles of water

That slowly amassed, as I descended the trail

There was a stream, now

Running, alongside the path

I saw a waterfall, and I wandered between boulders

And as the the sound of the water came and then went

I could feel that I was approaching the end of this trail

A juncture with one I had already hiked before - familiar

I don't know exactly where the juncture occurred

But I stopped for a moment, looked around

And knew that I was back on the established path

I was back on the hike I had set out to take, originally

I returned home to the city

To days no different than hundreds before

Fog and hard sun

Unspectacular

Sometimes I look up

An entrance so subtle

#poetry #redwoods #hiking #god #city life

Journal Entry for 1/30/96 - #3

This child is wearing gray sweats and his father's flannel shirt. It is way too big for him but he is old enough to choose and that's the one he picked. The bottom of his socks match his sweats -- the result of walking around the house without shoes, every mother's pet peeve.

He is building a city with legos and micro machines. Carefully, he decides just where each piece of runway, building, and scenery goes. His creations stretch across the whole living room floor, onto the coffee table and under the couch (a cave?). His concentration is intense and he steps across roads carefully to reach what he needs. He sits, stands, kneels, crouches and bends. I am envious of his flexibility. Occasionally, he glances up at the Weather Channel on TV for two seconds and then back to his play. His little fingers fumble and search through a box of legos for the right piece. Crash, thump, tumbling, go rejected pieces back into the box. His head is bent to see better. Up and down goes his tight skinny body. Always in motion.

He knows not to disturb me when I do my homework, but he does it any way jst to tell me what it is he is doing, or is going to do, or did. "Mom..." he always starts his sentence with. Sometimes he looks at me when he speaks and sometimes he doesn't. I guess he trusts that I am listening. His nose is stuffy and he breathes through his mouth. Occasionally, he shakes his long blond bangs off his forehead or brushes his hair to the side of his face with his hand, still gripping a block or a vehicle. His pet cat, Le Mieux, sits down nearby and patiently watches him play.

Pretty soon the city is finished being built and vehicles move about, sometimes flying over roads. Imaginary battles are fought and crash sounds are uttered, as are conversations between pilots and commanders. Pfoosh or whoosh pops out of his mouth as a train derailment occurs. He, or a pretend someone, comes to the rescue. "Don't worry, help is coming..." he relays into an imaginary radio. After awhile, he tires of his game and leaves his toys in search of a snack.

-- Kathleen Alward

#childhood #journal #mom

View from a brook

Like the greatest things in the world

Like the most rewarding elements to life

It was unappreciated from the start

With my partner in crime keeled over, vomiting

I looked straight up into the the sky, for stars

Who were these jokers?

It wasn't just raining; it was a hurricane

The service had issued hurricane warnings

Here, in the Adirondacks

Trying, trying harder, I still couldn't see through the clouds

And there were no stars in sight

Alas - there was my sick friend

We knew how lucky we were, how privileged

To be here under the high peak of Essex

Yet we drank whiskey to sickness

And why not - we had started our trek

Long after the sun had set and the storm had settled

How could we know?

How could we know the light would peak down

On our borrowed cabin, on our gear

On our twisted figures - hungover: an understatement

What jokers, the whole lot

At least ten strong, we had left our cars

Under midnight cover

Eager to reach the cabin, the warm fire

The whiskey, women

Who were these jokers?

Yet when the sun came up

And stirred me from an uncomfortable adolescent bunk

My breath was stolen by the cold morning

I walked sheepishly to the brook

As if I were sleeping, maybe?

The light refracting in pooling water

The whiskey still blasting through my veins

My friend still covered in vomit

Everyone else, still asleep

I stood on a rock six feet out into the brook

That just last night was a river

Angry and torrent with rain

It was clear now, and quiet

It was cold, since it was autumn

I made no sound - there was no one but me

Would God speak to me this morning?

What would he say?

Would she call me a little shit?

For not once setting foot in this majestic valley

Until this very day

Still drunk, having never laid eyes on the high peaks

God was busy judging my cohort

Still asleep in the cabin we had forcefully entered

It had been locked shut for the winter

I was standing on a rock, in a brook

And the sun slowly, but in warming calculation

Illuminated a world that I hadn't known

The birch and black spruce

The bare rock slides off peaks

The rugged unapologetic landscape

A world that I would never had known

If not for a plan hatched barside

Some boots; a pack; adventure

Before me, mountains that I laid my eyes on for the very first time

How could I possibly appreciate them?

With all the whiskey, the impatience of youth?

But I would climb them all

Jokers, God, hurricanes aside

I would climb them

#poetry #adirondack #whiskey #climbing

Blood Brothers

I left and went on a run

One that you and I know well

Along the way

I cut my arm on a bramble of thorn

You were not with me

I was alone

Yet we ran together

As we always have

The blood peeked

And waited

And flowed

And stained

I kept running

Because we always run

Out of necessity

It is our character

You see,

We're blood brothers

Forever

That's how it is

You, and me

#poetry #brother

Starting over

Spring is the least comfortable of all the seasons.

It is not carefree like summer,

Whose long afternoons wander aimlessly into the evening.

Nor is it bountiful like autumn,

Sharing great harvest of everything wonderful.

And it is not heartfelt, like winter,

Offering the warm glow of a fire to cherish.

Spring is the least comfortable of all the seasons.

It is a time anew,

With the strains of growth

And the challenge of starting over again.

#seasons #spring #uncomfortable #starting over #poetry

learning

Young. Trying to write.

Hands trembling

On a bus, enroute to work

Or cold, at a camp.

Ideas screaming for pen

Yet hands

Unable to steady the vibrance of youth

Cannot preserve words.

#poetry #youth #writing #success

east coast / autumn

Surf's up, but it's October.

Blue summer sky is gone.

No towels, no umbrellas cover the sand,

But small black-suited surfers sit past the breakers

Doting the gray seascape.

Summer's over, and the children who ran back and forth

To avoid and chase the flow and ebb

Of high tides have already forgotten

Hazy afternoons and long sunsets.

The air is colder, but the water is slow

To realize the season change.

Salt water nestles between the dark wetsuits and

The skin of surfers.

We stare at the blurry horizon

Undulating with wind chop.

#poetry #surf #atlantic

- untitled -

They say that the weight

is a gift

not a curse.

Without the slightest pause,

I agree.

#poetry #burden

Monopoly men and the dirtbag

Two caricatures of men walked right up to the tent village

Apparently unaware of what it was and why it was there

Too young to have seen a Hooverville

And too old to understand what the hell is going on now.

They were puffing fat, cartoonish cigars

At ten thirty in the morning on a Monday

In fancy suits from a different era

That didn't have smart phones weighing down their breast pockets.

They looked right through the dirtbag

Who was sitting quietly in front of his tent

With no real ambition to do anything at all at that moment in time

Because he truly believes that everything is fucked.

The monopoly men both stopped and looked across the square

At the tents, and the people wandering about the camp

A beautiful San Francisco morning in December

And they couldn't find one smile among the whole lot.

The dirtbag couldn't distinguish the two men

From the passing crowd of programers, financiers and engineers

All briskly moving on the way to their work

And he ignored every hint of a smile he saw emerging from the crowd.

The monopoly men left the square, walking to find an open bar

And the dirtbag continued his occupation of the tent-front

All parties missing the point

And the opportunity to fix this picture.

#poetry #Occupy #monopoly men #dirtbag

Cartoon: Monday Wrecking Ball Crew (12.5.11)

#Monday Wrecking Ball Crew #taxes #cartoon #bridges

Crime

#crime #bike lock #cut

DSO AR Test

Days worth of sales owed

or accounts receivable

trends can show trouble

#accounting #poetry

Cartoon: Monday Wrecking Ball Crew (11.7.11)

#401(k)#403(b)#Monday Wrecking Ball Crew #cartoon #design

Storm above the canopy

the dancing raindrops

that miss thick redwood branches

kiss the forest floor

#poetry #oakland #rain #redwood #forest

Seadrift

the young man woke in the dead of night

or was it just before first light emerged?

he was immediately awake

and did not move slowly

it was cold, too

so he moved to keep warm

he was suited

and he grabbed the surfboard

he did not wear sandals

but put on a sweater

and cotton sweat pants

that dragged along the floor

it was cold

but the pavement felt warm

as he briskly walked down the street

to the easement

to the beach

he walked out on the wet sand

the moon was low

and the tide was low

a sandbar emerged

that wasn't there when the night began

in his suit he walked out to the end of it

into the water

the waves were small

and spread over long periods

they rolled in slowly and gently

and were beautiful shapes in the first light

the young man paddled calmly

and caught a wave without much trouble

he rode the wave

along the sandbar that stuck out into the ocean

after the wave crumbled

he jumped off the board

directly onto the sandbar

and ran a few steps before coming to a stop

his surfboard washed onto the sandbar

and he picked it up

and ran

back out

back into the water

there was a seal at his feet

curiously swimming past him

while he waited

he caught another wave

with the seal

and he rode it along the sandbar

again jumping off onto the sand

he caught many waves

and some time after second light

he was walking back to the house

the pavement still cold on his feet

#poetry #surf #california #spring tide

Cartoon: Monday Wrecking Ball Crew (10.31.11)

#Monday Wrecking Ball Crew #no easy answer #sweep this shit up #cartoon

Kitchen light

#warmth #cheers

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