Practice...

After my graduating presentation, I attempted to share the surrounding terrain of Fort Worden, including the Pt. Wilson Lighthouse and its nearest Battery, to my parents, but their aging knees made for an uncomfortable stroll. We soon headed back to the hotel, where I dropped them off at the inn near the tides, changed my clothes, and returned to the scenic state park that I had just left. It was time to pay my dues, and my respect, to the land - this land that had fed and nourished me on numerous occasions.

Before turning up towards Artillery Hill, Laurie and I crossed paths. We shared a word or two, and a quick conversation, before I began traversing the sloping hill, walking below towering pines and breathing in the dense foliage of fern leaves and fermenting soil. I strolled above century-old batteries, their thick walls of ashen cement built into verdant green cliffs sitting directly above the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There, on a western facing overlook, I breathed in - the views, the scents, the sounds, the moment - and I began to rock and sway with the energy, as well as with the landscape and the horizon. Soon, I took a break, attempting to capture these moments on two separate cameras, but neither worked.

From there, I meandered over to Memory's Vault, a poetry garden built into the forest side. Rectangular, cement pillars forever entomb the etched engravings of poets, present and past. The sculptures pay homage to ancient Japanese folklore, with an emperor's throne facing an impenetrable portal. Over to the threshold, comprised of three, angular stone blocks, I found myself. It was here where I recited an embodied poem, "I am the wind whispering in your ear, and I am the cold chill shaking its finger in you face...I am the sonnet of a time now past, I can be the word and I can be the page...I am the everything with all that I am, and I am the nothing wit all that I am not."

Again, I moved with the words, with the way the sounds escaped from my lips, with the dance of my song as it moved through the air, the trees, and the land. A private presentation for the the birds, the insects, the Earth, the connection, the relation, the relating, the relationship.

I HAVE ARRIVED.
I HAD ARRIVED.
I AM HERE.
I AM NOW.
I AM PRESENT.
I AM EVERLASTING.



I took my bow, and made my leave. Back down the hill, from above and behind the beach campsites I emerged. Dusk was drawing near. My pattering footfalls led me over to the beach, where I strolled along the Admiralty Inlet. My thoughts also wandered, to any where but here. To the moments just had, to future engagements, to some where else. So, I would

stop


turn

and

face

the water.

I'd breathe in and note
the

silence

the stillness.

I would present

myself
to the moment at hand
to life as it is now.

Then, I'd turn and keep going. For darkness had fallen, and I made my way back...

21st Century Human

i climb a mountain,
and meet a blind man, together
we sing refrains,
favored cat stevens tunes
while our bodies feast
on clear san diego skies
and our moonshadows dance
out and over
an azure pacific.

i miss the warm presence
of a certain bald monk
who would read to me
the centuries old prose
of rumi
while we laid under
arcturus
on dirt dusted driveways
in recently washed workclothes.

i dig in soil in my mama's dress,
my hands,
reverberate
on the land, together
our pulse becomes
one. slowly,
a yard that is not my own
becomes.

i dive in backwards
and upside down
i wash with strawberries
and chocolate syrup
i hold conversations
in sound and words
in music and meaning
in dance and action.

i love a man whose tongue
is not my own
whose words can cut
like a seven-inch blade
and whose behavior can sting
like a good gin and tonic
i acknowledge that he is my/shadow
my counterbalance,
the darkness
i had been running from.

i crave connection
i seek humility
i desire nothing
more
than to reach out
and touch.

i feel desperately
alone
confined
trapped within
skin and bone
muscle and memory
nostalgia and fear.

still, it is the adventure
that keeps me
moving forward
walking new paths
pursuing electric connections
exploring fruitful ideas
and excavating
deep seeded emotions.

9-5
monday-friday
24/7
365
65 years of this
then what?

death
is written in these numbers
and figures which figure
nothing
into my well being
into my depth
of spirit.

success is living
life as adventure
journies taken
relationships pursued
and the pageantry of drama
spelled out explicitly.

life as adventure
is more than just a tenet
it is more than just some ten cent philosophy
that one can pick up
down at the local barber shop.

life as adventure
is not found in the hum drum
of the unconscious
it is not discovered
at the bottom of a beer bottle
in a broken down old bar stool.
life as adventure
is lived
in the rawness of your humanity.

i have stripped myself bare
right down to a bald noggin
with a disregard for panty wearing
and a preference to bleed
without a barrier without
some stupid piece of cotton
stopping me up like a dike.
i have laid down
on some god's marital bed
without a band
and with the only wish to steal
a mere pittance
from the riff raff's jean pockets
in the morning.

i have been caught
transporting hashish
across a foreign border.
i have spent upwards of 36 hours
in an american jail
listening to the tale
of a woman who smuggled crystal meth
via her vagina.

i have bedded down in the shadows between
a boardwalk and a beach
in the darkened corners
of a city at night
and behind sandy rocks
on an elementary school's property.

i have made friends with street urchins,
beautiful, young men who would sell
even their own bodies
just to earn a few disappearing dollars
together, we would throw a beloved toy,
a frisbee disc, around the gardens of a harare park.

i have come to understand
that there are not any actions
that are either above
or below
for my uncle's fate
of calling the streets of los angeles home
for the past twenty years
could just as easily be my own.
i have learned that there is nothing
that separates heaven and hell
from earth.

for i am mammal, flesh and blood
cut from the very same cloth
as my other earthly neighbors
i am homo sapiens
descendant of homo-habilus
wielding tools of milenia past and creating
nothing new under the sun
for i am the son, i am atom,
child of that revolving star
of brilliance and great magnitude
found at the center of our solar system
and i am the father, my seed will beget
more suns, to continue along this great march
of time, for i am also spirit.

i am 21st century human
i live in the future
i have lived before
and i am of the living now.


"and if i ever lose my land,
lose my plow and lose my hand
said if i ever lose my land,
oh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh
i won't have to work no more.
and if i ever lose my legs,
oh i won't moan and i won't beg
said if i ever lose my legs
oh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh
i won't have to walk no more.
and if i ever lose my eyes,
if the colors all run dry,
said if i ever lose my eyes
oh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh
i won't have to cry no more." --cat stevens