Books, Names, Things

I've encompassed myself with literature. I'm double stacking my bookshelves because, until I own a house, it makes little sense buying more bookcases without anywhere worth putting them. Actually, this is one of my favorite and least favorite aspects of Oregon. Powells is awesome. For the last several weekends, I've invested a little time in visiting the Beaverton branch and studying, reading, researching. Powells is a magnificent beast, though beast it is. With such a marvelous new and used bookstore stamping its colossal footprint into the valley, how can smaller bookstores compete? Countless customers flood into the Portland Powells every day, and, though quantitatively less, Beaverton Powells exhibits the same draw (without the intimidating city aspects of parking and entry/exit).
But in the surrounding cities and towns, the quantity and quality of everyday bookstores feels almost non-existent. This is one of the draws of Washington. Half-Price Books was nearly a second home for me, and the Redmond and Sammamish libraries offered vast collections of books for perusal, and an incredible system for inter-library requests in the greater King County region (Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue and a whole host of great libraries besides - though Seattle eventually decided to be lame). Where I am situated in Oregon, counties are bordering on all sides, and each neighboring town seems to claim its own library system. It makes for a miserable me when wanting access to all the vastness of literature immediately.

Erhem. Anyway...

I've little time left. November approaches in tumultuous bounds and my frozen fingers fret over story strings, but my rhythm's off-beat and my prose's pitch poorly sings - my muse's gut requires replacing and a fine-tuned vacation. The only reliable aspect is the metronome clicking in my head, reminding me that time ticks forward inexorably. It's the names, there are too many. Characters dreaming and flying in season, capturing a magic and the mystery of life unto their own. My creativity insufficiently breathes their dusty ink into life. Then the trees: the sugar maples and japanese hedge, the round-lobed leaves of oaks and gyro-copter seeds of maples, the rust hues of cedar and the deceptive camouflage of shaking aspens among the birch - how can I ever remember their names, Old Man Willow?
The flowers, oh so many flowers. Gallant sunflowers, fragile snowdrops, intrepid trilliums, dichotomous roses, delicate daises, gentle germaniums and fragrant violets, lurid and voluptuous tulips, splayed lilies. Would that I might taste with my toes like the butterflies, and see in so many colors that the flowers are a forest, a coral sea of colorful creativity, where each flower paints an invitation to sensory ecstasy.  Would I were a bumbling bee, capturing the world in ultraviolet, where whites are blues and nectar ambrosia is a visually euphoric entreaty of blooming delicacy.
And what of the stars stories and names? Of Cassiopeia vainly boasting in her chair, or ursa major, glancing at his cousins below, bafflingly bereft of tail, or Orion shaking his shield and sword, or bow, and hunting the with the likes of Nimrod. The wind shivers and drags us into the mountains whose names I cannot recall, their silvery peaks smiling as the gods teeth, as a fiery chariot drags that unnamed beacon across the blue vastness of the heavens.
I cannot even remember the animals: the black-tailed deer, the sly bobcat, the eager raccoon, sly as a burglar, the mountain jay and the vexatious starlings tunneling into roof slats, the cougar, the crafty coyote, the industrious beaver, the scampering squirrel, the chattering chipmunks, praying with their hands cutely clasped, the mantis, praying a different prayer of predatory efficiency, the dragonfly with rainbow wings.
Hopefully, if nothing else, I can remember the name of wisdom.

Adventures are coming, distant and many, and I'll be seeking the intricate naming of many things: the touch-smell of the grey wolves racing through alpine woods, the graceful wings of the nighttime sky on the tops of mountains, the coinage of the sun on the steppe, the shifting of the seas of crimson sands.
I'm full of half-thoughts, now and always.

Alabaster and Birch

If the world were etched in alabaster, tinged only as bleached bones, might I know the difference? Could I imagine colors if none such existed? Are there rainbows of reds, if only my eyes could distinguish those tiny stripes, dissecting each hue into a new dimension of flushes and shades and brushes beyond what my vision perceives. What of touch or smell? Smells of fear, love, sweat and must, salt and sulfur, metallic and rust - what layers doth my nose not pierce, my fingers not feel as I trace each digit across lightly grained wood and the ridges and tales seeping into stone like palm lines and annular rings, storying of fires and storms, sunny seasons and pressures of the earth and waters. Might I touch a stone and find my heart broken from its tragedies and travails. Might I unravel the dreams of trees?


http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20732

I was reading various artists of poetry this morning, and stumbled across this piece by Carl Sandburg. Honestly, I think this piece is a bit brilliant. The poetry embedded carefully in exquisite prose is a marvel, and his execution of color and imagery carries me deep into the forest, the wilderness itself.


A surreptitious delight shrouded in brilliant white, a calvacade of birch, upright and majestic, and slippered in lava leaves. Wind brushes along the path, sweeping ember sparks into the air, crinkling autumn stirred aloft for brief moments of twisting flight, as eddies of breeze whirlwind the fallen leaves from the path and deposit them besides. Promenade por Paradiso. Smells of birch and lichens blend with redolent tastes of pine and violets, and the sound-song sings of the crinkling leaves beneath yellowing maple trees. Is this a temple or a time, this chill forest fire, blazing burrs of Autumn rattling my bones. When the moon's yellowed as ancient parchment, the sky's denim blue covers these sanguine woods, fae light conceives a primal world, precious as eve's garden, and no less silent.

New Shoes and Clicking Heels - I'm Home.

A rather shoddily shot picture of my parent's backyard. Yeah, we live in a forest. The maples look positively gorgeous in the late afternoon sunlight. We also live in a valley (which makes running tricky, since I have to go somewhere so I'm not constantly running at 30 degrees up) I'd blame the camera for this shot, but it was actually my fault. I got excited and took the picture as I walked under a fir and quickly scrambled to capture the moment. I did not capture the moment, but at least I captured - for me anyway - something. The apple trees are looking splendid, the pines, firs, maples, birches, all the trees in the backyard are so amazingly beautiful. I needed this vacation. I went and bought running shoes with the mother, had dinner with the family, and then we started playing bananagrams. Turns out, my dad is a secret champ, mother is a bit slow, Sam makes up words, and Phil gets to be a combination of Sam and mother. I think my dad is also siphoning me terrible letters every game (or just not mixing them). Then we played quiddler (rummy with words), and Mother won the first game, Phil the second. It's so good to be home, almost moves me to poetry. I can wait until sunny-tomorrow for that, though. I really wish I had come home earlier in the summer season for more of this. I miss the Redmond (Carnation) country-scape so very much: the valleys, the mountains, the rich greens, the smells of pine and rich soil, the bears trampling our apple trees (just once I think. But he knocked over the whole tree to get apples. Gluttonous bear), the windy hills leading home, the waterfalls and mountains less than an hour away, the half-price books. I admit, the first place I went to was not home, but in fact the bookstore. And half-price books was having a 20% off sale! (2/5's price books?)

It all makes me want to weep with joy, write stories all night long, drink all the apple juice and chips and salsa and oatmeal raisin cookies that my parents treated me. And I want to climb that mountain. I also have a strong desire to see mount rainier.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Mount_Rainier_from_west.jpg

I have a feeling the clouds are rolling in. By Wednesday (my mid-week fun day), I think it might even be too rainy for a good view of the mountain. We'll see.

Several summers ago, when I worked at camp, I was not given much warning or information on what to bring (I only knew I was working at camp for a day before I flew out). One of the (many) things I forgot was a good pair of shoes. I brought old shoes that were almost worn out, and camp destroyed them. Because I did not have time for a lifeguard certification, I did only field activities for the kids: baseball, archery, soccer, running around, and so on. My shoes almost immediately fell apart. Especially since at the start of summer there was still quite a bit of snow (7000 feet up in the mountains?), and it shortly switched to over 100 degree days, I'm fairly certain my shoes just gave up on life. Shoes falling apart was a big deal. The second biggest problem I faced was that there was no cell service for an hour in any direction. Everyone brought calling cards with them so they could use the camp phone. I didn't know about the calling card setup, and had no calling card. I thought about writing a letter - no stamps. That was the easier of the problems, but writing a letter to ask the parents to ship you shoes? (because it was 3 hours to a location that sold shoes as far as I could find out. I had no car). The turn-around time on that is intimidating.

Instead, I borrowed a calling card, and quickly called my parents and asked them to send me shoes. This is where I made another mistake. I forgot to tell them my shoe size. I simply stated, as quickly as possible, that basketball shoes should work just fine. Apparently my parents believe me a clown, and they bought me 10.5 men's shoes. I'm not a short person, but I'm a bit below the national average for males (a little over 5'9"). My foot size, however, is not 10.5. When I got home, I bought some 9.5 sambas, which turned out to be too big also, but lasted me almost 4 years. Two years ago, I bought my current pair of shoes, another pair of sambas that are 8.5s. Today, I finally bought the first pair of shoes that I think truly fits my feet. They are 8s. Yep, 2.5 sizes smaller than my parents believed. I even have some extra wiggle room at the end for my toes.