Earth Tremors

The Trick or Treater

2011-10-31T14:55:00.001-07:00

          The SUV headlights cut across their front lawn causing elongating shadows to sprout from leafless trees and dead rosebushes that shudder and lurch like a wounded animal. Swinging into the driveway, Krista hears her boyfriend’s slurred swearing from the back of the rig. Brad had been so quiet the last couple miles she figured he had passed out on the drive home. Krista hears his muffled voice inside the dishwasher cardboard box serving as his robot costume, but the only words she actually understands are, “sons-a-bitches” and “jack o’ lanterns.”

          Krista parks the dark blue vehicle in front of their ranch style home nearly hidden by the abundance of front yard landscaping, tall decorative grasses and sunflowers now flaccid in the late October cold. She opens the back hatch still smiling about the storage area being the only place they could fit Brad once he donned his bulky outfit. Her own sleek black cat ensemble hadn’t been nearly so problematic, neither in transit, nor at the party. Brad, on the other hand, had managed to knock over an unattended beer and a glass of wine, which probably wouldn’t have been a big deal if it weren’t a combined holiday and house warming party for her best friend.

          “What are you shouting about, Mr. Roboto?”

          Brad spills out the back of the rig, nearly losing his footing in the loose gravel before standing to full height and pointing towards the three foot fence separating their front and backyards. In the dim glow emanating from their neighbor’s porch light, Krista sees the three jack o’ lanterns they had spent all of last night carving. The ten pound pumpkins have been toppled from their posts and lay broken on ground.

          “Those little bastards,” he slurs while waddling towards the downed gourds. “Should have known better.”

          “What little bastards?” Krista asks as they stand over their ruined decorations. Each Jack-o’-Lantern is directly below where it was originally placed having hit the ground with just enough force to split the thick walls revealing the pale orange innards. Held close to the earth by the heavy and chilled mountain air, is the earthy smell of pumpkin and the faint lingering odor of extinguished candle.

          “Those punk kids I’ve seen around here and down at the park. Who else would have done it?”

          “I don’t know,” Krista admits, “but I’ve never had any trouble with any of the children in Timberline and I’ve lived here all my life. In this town, everyone knows everyone and word would get out too quickly. Besides, most of them are just way too polite to pull something like this. “

          “Well, at least they didn’t smash them all over the house and sidewalk like they do where I’m from. I guess your bastards are civilized bastards.”

          “I guess so,” Krista admits shaking her head and wondering which of her neighbors would possibly do something so unnecessary and juvenile. No suspects came immediately to mind; as far as she knew they were on great terms with the entire street. Brad is right though; the vandals could have done a lot more damage.

          Shortly after stepping inside and helping Brad out of his robot costume, Krista opens their front door to check on the candy bowl. Knowing they were headed to the party, but not wanting to deny the usual trick-or-treaters, Brad had suggested they leave a small dish on the front porch with enough candy to handle the limited number of annual visitors along with a sign that read, “Please just take one. Happy Halloween!” Krista sees the bowl immediately but it isn’t on the cedar side table where they left it. Down the front steps and out in the front lawn, she sees the dish lying on the ground flipped over. Scattered around the bowl are shreds of Tootsie Roll wrappers.

          She pokes her head inside and calls Brad to the scene. Already a little incensed from the pumpkin mess and still buzzed from the night’s drinking, her boyfriend arrives in the doorway his face instantly turning red at the messy sight before throwing his hands in the air.

          “What the hell? There was enough candy in that dish for every kid in Timberline to have some. Little bastards. And they had the nerve to stand there in our front yard eating it. I swear to God… grrr, how many kids didn’t get any after the thieves took everything. Hell, it was probably some other child leaving here empty-handed that decided to knock over my Jack-o’-Lanterns.”

          Caught between chuckling at Brad’s over-zealous reaction to some pumpkins, a cheap bag of candy, and the genuine disappointment she feels for her small mountain town, Krista just stands there shaking her head. As Brad bends over to gather up the dish and torn wrappers, there is a nearby crash of something hollow and aluminum hitting concrete violating the calm, dark night. The young couple exchange an apprehensive look upon realizing the noise came from around the side of the house where their old shed sits. The small storage unit is even older than their house, having already weathered some forty Timberline winters and long since lost its only door. Brad’s eyebrows suddenly climb to the middle of his forehead as if comprehending something for the first time.

          “The little pigs are still here,” he whispers. “They saw our car pulling up and had no choice but to duck into the side yard and now they are trying to hide in the shed. That sounded like your empty gas can.”

          “Think so?” Krista whispers. “Well they have to know we heard that.”

          “They’re probably shitting bricks as we speak,” Brad says in an equally hushed tone. “This is going to be fun. Here, hand me your key chain so I can use the little flashlight.”

          Krista fumbles through her front pocket and hands over her car keys. Rubbing his fingertips together in anticipation, Krista’s boyfriend slinks into the dark shadows beneath the roof, and slips towards the side yard barely visible. Brad looks back for a split second, offering Krista a wolf-like grin before vanishing around the corner.

          Krista cups her mouth with both hands. “Don’t hurt anyone. Just scare them,” she says unsure if he can even hear her. Not wanting to witness what might be an ugly exchange between her hot-headed boyfriend and some dumb kids, she waits inside their doorway listening intently for the impending encounter.

          After a couple seconds of silence, the young lady hears Brad’s voice utter a quick, “Ah-ha!” followed by a hissing growl, another loud metallic crash and then a startled, high-pitched yelp sounding more like a terrified teenage girl. Krista darts around the corner to see Brad’s shadowy figure scrambling to pick himself off the ground just outside the shed door. So panicked is her boyfriend, he actually peels out upon reaching his feet and nearly falls again, just barely managing to catch himself with one hand before propelling towards Krista with his eyes bulging.

         “There’s a freakin’ bear in your shed,” he gasps as he grabs Krista by the elbow and starts dragging her towards the front door. “I saw its shadow when I flashed the light inside and the damn thing growled at me. A saw its eyes!”

          Krista manages to dislodge Brad’s firm grip. Some pressing notion of incredulous disbelief has her needing to see the wild animal for herself. Black bears aren’t uncommon in Timberline, but she had never had one in her yard before. Turning back just as Brad darts around the front of the house, Krista notices her boyfriend left her tiny flashlight in the shed where he no doubt dropped it upon being startled. The keychain scatters a dim glow out the door of the shed and inside the light, she notices the swelling shadow of what is indeed a shaggy beast getting larger as it approaches the doorway. Krista is just about to chase after her Brad, when the animal pokes its head out of the shed.

          Krista first gasps in surprise upon seeing the beast and then doubles over in laughter as the animal steps out of the doorway into plain sight. Brad must have just seen a quick optical illusion with the light and projected shadows, clearly never getting a good look at the animal itself or he wouldn’t have experienced such an alarmed reaction. At least she hoped so.

          “What are you doing? Get in here!”

          Brad’s terse voice sounds as if it is coming from well inside the house, causing Krista to laugh even harder, tears actually welling in the corners of her eyes as uncontrolled hysteria takes over. The big raccoon standing outside the shed sits back on its haunches and studies her with a guarded expression. The masked animal is missing all but the ragged base of one ear and she instantly takes note of the familiar white scar running in a diagonal line across its skull. For a second, the animal doesn’t seem to recognize her and then Krista remembers her own costume complete with pointy ears, and long tail. She removes her whiskered black mask and smiles down at her seasonal friend.

          Taking a moment to catch her breath between gales of laughter, Krista finally manages, “I see you met Hollyfield. He shows up every year around this time. Come say hello.”

          Upon hearing his name, Hollyfield raises one forearm and stretches out its long, dexterous fingers as if expecting another piece of candy or just offering to shake someone’s hand.

          “I don’t know,” Krista says to the old raccoon still chuckling. “He might need a few minutes before we can do a formal introduction.”

Trick or Treat

2011-10-31T08:05:00.001-07:00

An overactive imagination
Left awake
Waiting
For decades now
On a night
That might take me back
To a holiday
Stolen away
To a time
When I would
Have readily accepted
Unblinking red pupils
From the shadows
Spilling out of my closet
A naked branch
Turned scaly tentacle
Scraping my window
The sulphuric reek
Announcing
A demon’s arrival
Or any terror
Fit to storm the wall
I built between myself
And the real horror
Living one room over
Looking a lot
Like me

Megafauna!

2011-10-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

          Another backcountry trip in Yellowstone means that for the last week, I had to hear about grizzly bears from every person catching wind of my plans. Friends, family, co-workers, and the occasional stranger butting into my conversation, can’t help but offer their warnings and advice for dealing with such a dangerous wild animal. Of course, most of them don’t venture into grizzly country, have never encountered one in the wild, and really have no idea what they’re talking about. They’ve read sensationalist headlines, seen all the books about man-eaters, fell for some politician’s biased bullshit, or watched overly dramatized documentaries about the animal and are now convinced their fear-based perspective is an accurate representation of a complex animal.
          Complicating the issue tenfold is the fact there have been grizzly bear related deaths in the park for the last two summers, something that hadn’t happened in 25 years prior to 2010. Rather than accept the events as an educational opportunity for backcountry travelers, people are manipulating these tragedies to further their own greedy agendas. The Endangered Species Act has been rendered toothless by western politicians who are more focused on “saving our families” from all these wild animal attacks then they are on creating employment opportunities or protecting our shared environment for future generations. Contrary to scientific data proving their immense value to a complete ecosystem, the reckless slaughter of our once protected gray wolves has commenced and it won’t be long until grizzlies are thinned out as well.

          But I grow weary of this topic. For once, I don’t want to talk about bears. When I get on the subject, I get defensive, I get combative, I get ugly, and that isn’t how I should feel when discussing something I cherish. I’m almost hoping my wife and I can avoid any sight of them on our 50 mile walk so my thoughts aren’t dragged down to such a miserable, hopeless place. Not that seeing bears is ever any kind of guarantee, but considering our hike will take us through some of the densest grizzly habitat in the lower 48… Still, maybe I can find something else to think about.

          Something like the megafauna herbivores that are way more likely spotted in Yellowstone than any other National Park. I’m talking elk, moose, and the unmistakable shaggy tanks otherwise known as bison. North America’s grand champion ungulates, all three species leftovers from the last ice age, regularly weighing between one and two thousand pounds. Creatures of such size and magnificence they can steal your breath as readily as a pack of wolves running along the Lamar River. And, while most people think it’s the predators you have to watch out for, it’s actually the horned ones more likely to injure someone. However, I’m certain some 99% of all tourists ever wounded by a large herbivore in Yellowstone had it coming. Jamie and I tend to have a lot more respect for a giant animal’s personal space than do most of the park’s shutterbug crowd. Were I in their hoofs, I would flat out run amuck every time someone so much as approached me, taking out as many slack-jawed buffoons as I possibly could. The rangers would quickly see to my violent end, but it would be fun while it lasted.

          My daydreams of goring tourists are interrupted by the sudden sound of branches snapping and neck-high sagebrush being trampled. A massive blur of brown hair, no doubt having heard the sound of our boots on the hard-packed trail, lurches to its feet in a cloud of dust and pushes through the prickly foliage lining the creek bed. In the seconds it takes for the animal to charge onto the trail before us, I remove the bear spray from Jamie’s pack. The noise had me reaching for the canister just in case we had a grizzly on hand, but now that I can clearly see what we’re dealing with, I’m still reluctant to put it away.

          Upon reaching the path, the shaggy bison stops in its tracks and swivels its rotund head in our direction. His eyes are the same color as the darker tone of chocolate hair covering its head and shoulders. The creature looks less than amused for having been disturbed and I’m beginning to wonder if we’re going to find out how well bear spray works on bison when it finally seems to decide we aren’t worth the trouble. The animal’s body language visibly relaxes and he even ducks his head for a mouthful of grass. Comfortable now that we aren’t a threat, the bison turns and ambles back towards its wallow of overturned earth to resume napping.

          “One down,” I say. “He was a great specimen too. That’s what we’re after, the big boys of all three.”

          “We’d already seen bison before we even hit the trail,” my wife counters. “And why are we only counting the boys? What kind of sexist bullshit is that?”

          “We can’t count anything we saw from our car. This is a backcountry megafauna expedition. And girls just don’t have the same majesty as the boys. Sorry, but were looking for big studs and big racks.”

          “Hey, the bisoness has horns… but I agree it will be nice to spot a big stud for a change.”

          In response, I flex my left arm and kiss my tattooed bicep. “A woman would have to be blind to not notice these guns.”

          Grinning, Jamie and I resume our trek across the rolling meadows of golden grass following Cache Creek towards the Lamar River valley just a few miles west of our location. As usual, the close wildlife encounter has buoyed our spirits and it feels as though we could backpack all day without tiring. It’s the first real animal we’ve spotted since leaving the trailhead, unless you count the ruffled grouse we startled atop Thunderer pass yesterday. But sometimes, that’s just how it is in the backcountry. Not even Yellowstone promises thrilling wildlife encounters, although that isn’t the popular perception. As even I had done at a young age, tourists assume that if they are brave enough to venture beyond the boardwalks, they will be treated to a spectacle of wildlife straight out of their wildest dreams. And sadly, that landscape does only exist in their imagination. As it was across the entire country, Yellowstone was absolutely ransacked by the first waves of European invaders. Wildlife populations were hunted, poisoned, and trapped to extinction, or were pushed so close to the brink they will never recover. If you want to see the Yellowstone of 500 years ago, I’ll guarantee some animal sightings, but you better bring the time machine.

          Having just reached the first creek crossing after intersecting the Lamar River Trail, Jamie and I are sitting on water polished stones swapping our hiking boots for river sandals, when we see our first party of other people descending the steep bank above us. They are three young men who at first glance appear to spend more time in front of computers than they do outdoors. Slight of build, bordering on scrawny, they look dirty and underwhelmed with their hard walking experience. The leader of the group stumbles to the water’s edge letting his pack slide off his shoulders and fall hard to the ground with a metallic clank. He lets out a heavy sigh before following his pack to the earth where he begins working at his dusty shoestrings.

          “So,” I say, trying to hide my smile, “did you guys see a bunch of bison along the Lamar?” The next two days of our own trip will see us hiking along the famous river and I’m curious as to what may be in store. I had overheard a ranger talking to a tourist as we were obtaining our backpacking permit in West Yellowstone, and the young brunette indicated the great beasts were strewn all over the Lamar Valley.

          The younger man peers up at me through some half-assed dreadlocks. His blond hair is already thinning ensuring that the stringy locks he’s managed to produce are as good as they are going to get. “We haven’t seen shit,” is his abrupt reply. “I thought there were animals in this park. I think we saw something that was so far away and in the trees I couldn’t tell if it was moose or elk. Other than that, some birds and squirrels. There’s more wildlife in Ohio than Yellowstone.”

          His companions nod their heads in subdued agreement and I can’t help feeling bad for the young men. They drove a long way thinking they were going to be exposed to something that simply doesn’t exist. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience numerous wild animal encounters in the backcountry of Yellowstone, but I’ve also had to put in the time. Not every walk rewards you with bear and wolf sightings. Hell, the last time Jamie and I hiked the South Boundary Trail, we saw exactly one deer on the whole trek. One deer. I see more wildlife than that on my morning bike rides to work through the north end neighborhoods of Boise. Don’t get me wrong, that deer was nice enough; she hung around the outskirts of our camp for a couple of hours, but still, talk about your disappointments. It was then, I tried to adopt a sense of appreciation for the animals I do see, rather than set myself up with unrealistic expectations.

          During our brief interaction with the hikers, we also learn they have only seen a couple other backpackers. So, I guess you take the good with the bad. If we aren’t to see any wildlife, at least we won’t have to deal with any people either. It also means that we won’t necessarily have to stick to our reservations. Our scheduled campsite for the night is still a long way off and we are nearly ready to call it day. We didn’t stay where we were supposed to last night either, choosing instead a more concealed site that we felt safe to steal after a late arrival and seeing nobody else around. Had a park ranger shown up, or someone with the appropriate permit, we would have been forced to push on for our reserved site, or find a guerrilla camp somewhere off trail.

          The setting but still unseasonably warm September sun is just putting the finishing touches on our browning arms by the time we choose a spot for the evening. The designated site is on a large flat expanse of grass, bordered by evergreen lodge pole pines and aspen trees whose leaves are just beginning their stunning transformation to vivid orange. The trail is cut into the hillside just above the river plain guaranteeing we’ll be spotted if anyone happens by, but with the sunset less than an hour off, we’re fairly certain that won’t be a concern. Jamie and I have barely enough time to strip naked and take what has become our ritualistic plunge after a day of hiking. The Lamar, like all mountain rivers, is torturously cold and we just manage to dry off and change into our nightly fleece before the fiery yellow orb sinks into the ridgeline and the temperature instantly drops ten degrees. Day two of our trip is over, and we have one Bison sighting for all our effort.

          The dawn brings with it a renewed sense of hope, not only do we have full day ahead of us for potentially spotting animals, but because as soon as we were back on the main trail, my wife and I realize we are following a bear. A thick layer of super fine dust covering the path leaves clear evidence of recent activity. So distinct are the imprints in the earth, I am convinced it is a black bear. A griz would leave much larger and deeper claw imprints than what we see before us. The eerily human-like prints sit right on top obscuring the trail’s older sign, and we soon find a fresh pile of loose stool filled with half-digested berries to confirm our suspicions. Our bear walked by within the last couple hours.

          My initial excitement of potentially tracking a bear fades with the usual depressing thoughts that rack my brain whenever I’m on the subject. Feeling my jaded philosophies kicking in, I try to ignore the ursine prints as I crush them beneath my heels. I’m not supposed to be thinking about bears, I’m supposed to be looking for megafauna. A modest goal it would seem, but one proving increasingly difficult. By the time we have settled on another camp for night three, again, not one we actually reserved, Jamie and I are beginning to feel alone in the park. Not only did we never see our bear, we never saw another sign of life all day, unless, like our Ohio travelers, we’re counting the occasional bird and squirrel. Our route for the day had taken us off the Lamar River Trail and onto the Hoodoo Basin Trail following Miller Creek. It’s a good thing the warm September weather hasn’t produced a single cloud in days and the scenery has been subtly gorgeous, otherwise even my patience would be rapidly dissolving.

          The animal tease continues after we have set up camp, douse ourselves in the stream, eat dinner, and pull up a seat around a small campfire to ward off the evening chill. From the swelling shadows just north of our camp, a deep mono-syllabic grunt cuts through the silence. And then again. It sounds like a large animal clearing its throat one forced cough at a time. While Jamie and I perk up our ears, we hear the repeated noise only this time from a slightly different location.

          “You hearing that?” Jamie asks. “What is that?”

          “There’s a moose out there circling our camp,” I reply without hesitation. I’m honestly not certain, but having automatically ruled out bear, bison, and elk, I’m not sure what else could possibly create such a loud deep bass grunt.

          “Think so?”

          I shrug my shoulders. We can poke around the dark forest if you like. See if we can find it…”

          Jamie’s eyes take on a distant look of contemplation before she finally shakes her head. “No, I don’t think I feel like startling anything big enough to be making that sound.”

          “Good idea. Maybe tomorrow we can find its tracks.”

          The breaking dawn finds us having forgotten about the eerie noise from the night before. It isn’t until Jamie is cleaning up our breakfast and I have wandered out into the meadow of chest high grass still wet with dew bordering our campsite to relive my insistent bladder that we hear the sound again. On the heels of the noise, I hear the practiced bird whistle Jamie and I use to communicate from a distance. I look back at my wife to see her holding up one index finger to indicate a solitary animal. Next she places her thumbs against her temples and spreads her hands wide to represent big antlers. Finally, she points to a dense stand of trees, some fifty yards from where I’m standing. It takes a minute or two to find the massive creature totally still amongst the underbrush and lower ponderosa branches. The dark silhouette is looking right at me.

          Naturally curious and having apparently dismissed us as posing zero threat, the pre-historic beast steps into a break in the trees allowing a wide open look at our grunting friend. Even from this distance, the massive animal ranks amongst the largest bull moose I have ever seen. The hump above its front shoulders has to be as tall as my 6’2” frame and its multi-pronged rack is nearly the length of my outstretched arms. White socks turn to black hair at the bull’s shins and it’s more chocolate colored winter coat has begun breaking through the ebony sheen in streaking patches. So impressed am I with the magnificent creature’s appearance, it takes me a few moments to realize my exposed position in the meadow isn’t exactly ideal. If the moose decided to charge, I’d be hard pressed to race back to the tree line in time.

          Despite their somewhat volatile temperament and reputation, my close encounters with moose have always been peaceful. Unlike deer and elk, they don’t tend to panic in the presence of humans. Instead of choosing between fight or flight in a sudden, decision-making situation, moose have adopted a third option and it’s seemingly one of intellectual understanding preceding any action. Our giant visitor seems as content as we do to stand there staring at each other across the meadow. Finally bored with the exchange, the bull crosses the grassy field with impossibly long strides eating up the terrain in a manner that defies the casualness of its pace.

          “Two down,” I say to Jamie with a huge smile as I stroll back into camp, my pant legs wet from the meadow’s morning dew.

          “Unbelievable,” she says. “Did you see the size of that sucker? You were making me a little nervous out there.”

          “Yeah, I was making myself a little nervous. Glad he’s in a good mood. I think he might be on the prowl for a mate.”

          “I think that’s what he’s been talking about,” Jamie agrees. “Check me out ladies; have you ever seen a rack this big? If he had his woman with him, he might be a little testier. Typical for you men to try and impress your girlfriends.”

          Our morning excitement quickly fades into another hot and sweaty march as we gradually gain elevation on our climb to the top of the pass that will eventually dump us out in Hoodoo Basin. The Hoodoos are bizarre formations of rock that look like misshapen pillars or oddly sculpted towers. The Nez Perce Indians, native to these hunting grounds, believed the silent sentinels of stone were what became of their ancestors after death. Jamie and I have been looking forward to the unique basin since first reading of it long ago.

          Sometime just after our lunch break we run into only the second party of backpackers we’ve seen all trip. They are a sunburnt and sweaty couple from New Zealand and they too wear expressions of discontent. Already suspecting I know the answer, I ask them if they’ve had any memorable wildlife encounters.

          “Are there really animals in this park?” is the young man’s response, his bright blue eyes looking defeated. I assume the ones we saw on the drive to the trailhead were just automated cardboard cutouts for tourists.”

          Ouch. More products of magazine articles and television documentaries. Even people from the rainforests of New Zealand, an island bursting with colorful and unique wildlife, think they are missing out on something after hearing something about this park. And these folks didn’t drive here from Ohio, they flew halfway around the world to sweat their asses off in a desolate landscape while vainly hoping for a once in a lifetime grizzly bear or gray wolf encounter. I hate to break it to the tired couple, but their chances of spotting wildlife in Yellowstone are much greater from the road than the backcountry. Thousands of human eyes intently scrutinizing the landscape, coupled with covering ground at a much higher rate of speed, automatically ensures the front country as the best opportunity for animal sighting. The sudden walls of slow or unmoving traffic around every other bend, commonly referred to as “bear jams,” are a dead giveaway for nearby wildlife.

          “It all depends on the time of year and which part of the park you’re in…” I say in a lame attempt at consolation. I decide to keep our bison and moose sightings secret rather than rub any salt in their wounds. In the backcountry, it also helps to know what you’re looking for, what you’re listening for, and even smelling at times. Both Jamie and I have been caught standing right next to large, potentially dangerous animal, and had no idea until the creature suddenly moved revealing its hidden location. I wonder if the New Zealanders have noticed the fresh bear tracks that have been underfoot since yesterday, obvious in the trail dust more often than not. Would a bear print, something they aren’t used to seeing, even stand out considering the manner in which their vision and brains have been programmed to recognize the world?

          “Keep your eyes peeled,” Jamie shouts back at them as we part ways. “They’re out there somewhere.”

          And out there they are. We here the whistling and nasal honking of the bull elk a couple hours later as we approach the very headwaters of the Lamar River atop the Hoodoo Basin pass at nearly 10,000 feet of elevation. Judging from the commotion, the rut is already in full swing and he is singing his own praises to whatever harem he’s managed to gather this season.

          Even scouring the scrub brush covered hillsides in full anticipation of the herd, and despite the fact they are standing out in the open, we don’t see them until they are startled into motion by our presence. Just up the sloping hillside, about twenty head of fat, healthy ladies instantly charge for the nearest stand of trees. Jamie and I both cringe slightly in anticipation of what happens next. The bull, an absolute grand champion, charges out of the trees where his ladies just vanished and thunders towards us. He stops at the point where I begin reaching for Jamie’s bear spray and arches his neck to let out a long crude sounding bellow. He follows the extended grunting with a series of high-pitched whistles that seems to call his herd back from the trees and send them sprinting in the other direction.

          While his ladies scamper for safety, the bull elk continues watching us occasionally lowering and then raising his seven-point rack in a defiant gesture. He seems to be suggesting that he wouldn’t mind showing us those horns at a much closer distance. Impressed with his bold display of protection and aggression, we just stand there unmoving and watch the herd leader’s antics. Once the ladies have all fled up the mountain, the big male finally releases us from his gaze and follows them into the tree line.

          “Megafauna!” I shout once the herd has vanished. “That’s all three. Holy crap, I’m not sure which of our samples was truly king. They were all freakin’ huge. Total badasses. Did you see the way he stared at us? Thought he might want to start some shit there for a second.”

          “I liked the way he had to tell his ladies they were running in the wrong direction. He was probably thinkin’, ‘Goddamn women’,” Jamie says.

          “Pimpin’ ain’t easy,” I laugh.

          So what if we haven’t seen any lions, wolves, or bears on this trip. There is more to the animal kingdom than just the predators and a lot of the “prey” is much bigger, stronger, and just as visually striking as their bloodthirsty counterparts. Watching that bull elk take care of his herd was no less dramatic than seeing a grizzly protect her cub. Knowing that these animals continue to thrive, especially all these years after wolf re-introduction speaks volumes, of how well adapted these animals are to each other. They evolved together over thousands of years, and it is in the presence of every last one of them that the natural systems continue to work. The hunters, the hunted, the squirrels and birds, all the way up to Yellowstone’s megafuana are equally important, equally beautiful, and if our trip’s wildlife spotting has come to an end, so be it; as always, the privilege was ours.

Slipped Chain

2011-10-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

Convulsive commotion
Beneath a mesh canopy
Intended to keep
You away from plump
Purple bunches
Of in utero wine
Instead have trapped
Your pounding breast
Within

A succulent cell
Possibly worthy
Of clipped wings
Were it not for
The dogged hawk
And her impotent efforts
To set you free

Not a relationship
For man’s hand
But with the hunter
Not understanding
Why its tools
Fail to find purchase
And you
Having to experience
That blood rush
Of certain doom
Only to be left
Still flapping
The system feels
Somehow marred

With all of our
Instincts betrayed
And being
Unable to witness
The awkward
Sterile exchange
I drive the raptor back
And lift the net
So the two might continue
Their natural choreography
Unhindered

Always a Noose Attached

2011-10-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

It is a presence
Lingering between
The towers and alleys
Of this Northwest giant
An invisible force
Chasing me through a
Gridlock maze
Somehow overpowering
The burning rubber
And dinosaur remains

Following my nose
Like some fox
In a hunt
I allow myself led
To a campus
Littered instead
With flowerbeds
Neon hedges and
Old growth cedar

Here in a circle
Of misplaced sequoia
Titans holding hands
And stretching up
Into a labyrinth of
Golden limbs
I can almost escape
This dogged hunter

Sorry Portland
But for all your finery
Open-mindedness
Quaint coffee shops
Bookstores and
Sex shows
Your city still
Smells like piss

The Price of Dignity

2011-10-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

He is young
Baggy shorts and a O.U. cap
Standing by a BMX bike
Next to a downtown pay phone
Asking me
If I might have a quarter

His face yet to feel
The years of weather
worry and whatever
Chemicals on the mind
Works the angle and
He hears the pocket jingle
Before asking for
Whatever I can afford

Use it while you can
I suppose
Just know
That you've ruined it
For the next grifter
Over a meager score
And it won't be long
Before everyone can smell
Your game
From two blocks away

Back to the Backbone (of the World)

2011-09-30T14:32:00.001-07:00

          For once, the backcountry permit process within a major National Park goes relatively smoothly. By that I mean, we are still unable to secure any of the ten possible hikes we planned due to the crowded reservations of other tourists, but at least Jamie manages to get out of the office in less than an hour. I have barely begun my ritual of glaring at people and pacing when she hands me the printed permit. Swinging our truck out of the crowded parking lot, I can't help ribbing my wife.

          “Ever gonna drop that extra twenty dollars for advance reservations?”

          “Pfft,” Jamie snorts. “It already costs a fortune to pack in Glacier. We just spent close to a hundred bucks.”

          “Uh-huh, and now we're not doing any of the hikes we mapped out. Not plan B. Not plan C. Hell, it wasn't a plan at all. You just worked it out by what was available.”

          “Yeah. So? There are no bad hikes in Glacier.”

          “That’s mostly true,” I agree, dutifully ignoring my first trip to the park while honeymooning with the ex-wife, “but why spend all that time planning when we know it won't matter? We never get the hikes we want because we don't make reservations.”

          Jamie unrolls her window and turns to the coral pink and jade green mountaintops still dotted with winter's last stubborn snowfields. The towering peaks absolutely dominate the skyline. From their sheer faces, waterfalls drop into eternity, some of silver ribbons unraveling into windblown mist before they touch ground. The fragrance of white pine fills our lungs with rich air that somehow defies the oxygen depleted elevation.

          “If you aren't satisfied by journey's end, you can ask for your money back,” Jamie says.

          “Don’t think I won’t if you have me slogging through another mosquito infested bog of overgrown thimbleberries.”

          Our last hike in Glacier saw us spend the first two days pushing through a humid Montana jungle before we finally reached the alpine zone and the staggering panoramic views upon which this park has built its legend. People specifically make Glacier a destination for the scenery, not the rock climbing, not the wildlife, well… except for the bears. They do come for the bears and there are plenty of those around.

          On the first night of our previous trip, my wife and I were awoken in the middle of a moonless night to the repeated exhales of a disturbed grizzly. The bear got within twenty feet of our tent before I politely asked the unseen predator to be on its way. Fortunately for us, he obliged, because unbeknownst to me, the safety strap that holds the bear spray in its holster had flipped in front of the nozzle. Had I discharged the weapon, it would have blown up in my face. Much to the amusement of the grizzly, I’m sure.

          National Park policy pretty much insists that people encountering bears, immediately report the incident to the nearest ranger. Did we? No, and hell no. I have an entirely different philosophy on the subject. The bears can do whatever they want in their house and that includes eating someone for all I care. I mean, that obviously sucks for the individual and their family, but as far as I’m concerned, no ursine should answer to a human. They don’t need to justify their behavior. Bears aren’t the ones rendering this planet uninhabitable. Eat all you want, griz. I guarantee we’ll make more.

          The path leading in and out of that campsite was covered with a variety of ripe berry bushes, so really, we were parked in the bear’s supermarket aisle and it had every reason to be put off by our intrusion. Although already certain of what we’d heard, I still researched bear sounds after arriving home until I was satisfied our midnight marauder was none other than the king of the forest. To this day, the experience ranks right up there with being caught in a mountain goat stampede for sheer thrills and chills.

          As it was with our previous trip, the Packer’s Roost trailhead starts right in the midst of a humid, dense, and shadowed forest providing ideal habitat for the season’s remaining mosquitos. With our field of vision limited to the wall of trees and undergrowth on both sides of the muddy trail, we begin a climb to better views.

          Also as it was with our last Glacier hike, I am sweating, sticky, and mumbling under my breath before finally breaking free from the tree line. Up next is a ruthless, sun exposed climb, switching back every hundred yards, until we are tempted to plow straight up the loose dirt and slippery rock of the steep mountainside. The forest here was devastated by wildfire a few years back and the sun bleached spears still standing do little to shade us from the afternoon heat.

          Only six miles to our first campsite, it still feels like ten by the time we drag our tired butts into Flat Top, one of Glacier’s communal backcountry sites. Hoping against hope the other hikers holding reservations have either been lost or eaten proves fruitless. All but one site is taken by the time we arrive, but through some quirky force of human habit that I’ll never understand, the one isolated spot is still free. The other parties elected to camp right on top of one another.

          Jamie and I experience the same phenomena when eating out at a restaurant. It never fails that, even in a seat yourself establishment, no matter what corner we hide in, no matter how late or lacking in business, the next party though the door elects to sit at the table right next to us. And this despite my ability to radiate a sense of pure malevolent unpleasantness. I don’t get it. Go the hell away. I don’t want to hear anything you’re talking about, and I don’t want you overhearing me. Just leave us alone. Why is that so hard?

          Don’t get me wrong. Most backpackers are nice enough people, and a lot of them even share similar philosophies on life and nature, but I still don’t go to the woods to meet people. I go to the woods to meet animals if anyone, and it isn’t long before I realize our campsite has adopted some of the local mule deer. Sadly, even these creatures have been spoiled by man. A healthy four-spike and his two doe companions wander from site to site looking for handouts, clearly indicating that others have been feeding them. Seems even the more eco-minded backpacking sect can’t resist sharing their rations with the wildlife, eventually creating beggars that don’t act wild at all.

          In the front country this is an on-going problem for many parks. In the backcountry, it’s only an issue where hikers are prone to take breaks or camp for the night. Considering the immense square mileage of a place like Glacier, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the problem areas are exactly where people like me tend to wind up. At a popular rest site atop Two Medicine Pass, just southeast of where we’re currently camped, a golden mantle ground squirrel once snatched my almonds in the time it took me to set the small bag on a rock and fish something out of my pocket.

          Before I could blink, the striped bandit was dragging his prize towards the precipitous cliff edge. Bounding after, I leapt off the top of the first ledge landing some eight feet below on a narrow shelf dizzily overlooking what was easily a fatal fall to the talus slope below. Almost inadvertently squashing the poor fellow in the process, the panicked squirrel spat out the stolen goods and darted over the edge clinging to the vertical wall in a way I could only dream. I retrieved my almonds before fully assessing the potential scenarios that could have just played out.

          “Find your nuts?” Jamie asked as my pale face peeked back up over the ledge.

          “They’re habanero flavored,” I managed to reply. “I didn’t want the poor guy burning his mouth.”

          Glacier isn’t the only national park with issues. We’ve battled hoary marmots on Death Canyon Shelf in the Tetons over a lunch of homemade meatballs. That’s right, hoary marmots apparently love barbeque sauce. There are campsites so overrun with the giant rodents, rangers are at a loss for what to do about it. I’ve also had a mouse climb my leg while trying to eat a Thanksgiving feast of cheesy potato soup in the bowels of Grand Canyon, a park where if the rodents don’t get your food, the dexterous ring-tail cats will.

          Once the animals in a given environment associate people with food, they not only become a problem, they are actually capable of passing this behavior down to their children. It becomes generational knowledge within specific populations. Of course, when there is some kind of encounter between people and an animal used to receiving handouts, whom do you suppose gets the short end of that stick? Embracing a philosophy I also can’t understand, park rangers are apparently reluctant to shoot the people at fault.

          The deer here at Flat Top are all but tame with the buck following me around attached to my hip as if I had him on an invisible leash. Despite the fact that a group of gregarious easterners oddly spend their time in the food prep area rather than their own camp, I still speak more words to my hooved neighbors than I do them. I try to remind the deer of what they are and that people are not to be trusted. During our own dinner, Jamie patiently fields questions from the other hikers and asks a few of her own. I stare off at my surroundings hoping to spot something of interest and wonder what our journey has in store.

          Day two finds us awake at first light tearing through our instant oatmeal. With equal determination, we break camp, load our packs, and are the first party out of Flat Top. Today is the first of what our itinerary suggests are back to back twenty mile days. Well, technically today’s march is just over eighteen, but honestly, anything surpassing the 15 mile mark can be a physical challenge… especially depending on the terrain. Thankfully, with the exception of the first five miles or so, the majority of our day will be spent heading downhill. Somewhat frustrating considering yesterday’s march to reach this elevation, but such are the hikes in tall mountains. By their very nature they go up and down, even if you manage to secure a ridgeline trail.

          We eventually leaved the burned forest surrounding Flat Top and climb until our views are nothing less than staggering. By the time we reach 50, a campsite named for its panoramic views of over 50 nearby snow-spotted peaks, we can easily understand why this particular campsite is so highly sought after. By not making reservations for our hike, we were certain of finding this place booked for the duration, but at least we get to catch the scenery.

          In addition to the mountaintop views, 50 has a giant rolling grass-covered meadow stretching out to the north and west nearly as far as the eye can wander. These high open spaces are ideal grizzly habitat and the few hikers we pass make mention of recent sightings. All we see of the giant ursine population is a monstrous pile of scat as fresh as any I have ever encountered. The sight causes Jamie and I to break into our bluesy bear song.

Black bear way down low
Grizzly bear way up high
You know we love you both
And that ain’t no lie
Hey bear
We’re just passin’ through
Hey bear
Don’t wanna bother you

          On the far side of the rolling meadow, we encounter the ruins of what might have been an old ranger outpost or lookout tower. About three feet of heavy stone and thickly mortared walls are all that is left, but what remains creates a nice windbreak for a lunch. Here we are beset upon by a family of Columbia ground squirrels. Working together, one attempts to distract us with ridiculously cute poses, while its cousins try to sneak up on our backsides.

          Hovering close to our food supply, Jamie and I realize we forgot to grab a couple of items from the portable cooler in our truck. We remembered the tortillas and bread for our lunches, but forgot to grab the cheese and honey-peanut butter mix that will actually sustain us. It’s a real problem considering the miles we need to walk and the fact that Jamie and I don’t pack extra meals “just in case.”

          Our system is fine-tuned and includes no wasted weight. Now, it seems, our usual approach might be a problem. I can get by without enough food for some time, but Jamie has an insane metabolism and has to keep fueling that fire. Without sustenance, she wilts like a cut flower. Having no other choice, except for a possible ground squirrel shish kabob, we eat our dry tortillas and continue knowing the next twelve miles will be one knee-busting trek downhill until we are at an even lower elevation than where we started yesterday.

          By the time we reach the shores of Waterton Lake and stagger through the last two kilometers to our campsite, I am exhausted and Jamie has taken on a pale and gaunt appearance. There is one other gentleman sitting in the food prep area, but we ignore him until after we have established our campsite well away from his and jumped into the creek for a quick bath. With the sun having already set, we shiver on the shoreline until the light breeze has mostly dried us off.

          “That was ballsy,” says our new neighbor as we head to the fire pit to eat dinner and raise the rest of our rations up the bear pole. The man seems to be about our age, about my height, has a thick head of black hair shaved nearly to the scalp, and seems a tad bit soft for backpacker. We quickly learn he is very friendly, extremely talkative, and isn’t shy about displaying his somewhat effeminate nature. We both assume the guy is gay before he openly confirms our suspicions. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. His name is John, and we soon realize that not only is he a flamboyantly homosexual backpacker, a rare find in my experience, he is also racially intolerant. Shortly after sitting down, he is bagging on the Mexican population back in Vegas where he lives. Everything about the guy seems a little contradictory, but I guess it truly does take all types.

          John works for REI back in Vegas, and his pack is loaded with all the latest lightweight gear. Proving his issues with duality, he has off-set his ultra-light load with almost thirty pounds of food. Thirty pounds of food for what he says is a five day expeditions is about three times more than necessary. I can understand being cautious and bringing an extra meal, but an additional twenty pounds is just crazy. However, once John finds out about our lack of real lunch sustenance, he begins rummaging through his pack for all sorts of items. Before long we have snagged a bag of cooked chicken, peanut butter packets, electrolyte pills, and even some candy.

          Jamie, in her exhausted, half-starved state, says to John without thinking, “My God, you must be some kind of food fairy.” After a split second of awkward silence where I fix my wife with questioning look, the declaration sends our new friend into fits of laughter that soon spreads to all three of us.

          “Never heard that one before,” he cackles, “But I guess there’s no sense living in denial.”

          Throughout the course of the evening, John learns of tomorrow’s plan to hike twenty more miles despite Jamie’s exhausted countenance. He does his best to talk us out of it and piggyback on his permit for the next day or two. Having already expressed his relief that he wouldn’t have to camp here alone, I suspect John is a little nervous at the thought of sleeping by himself in grizzly country. And, while his reserved itinerary would actually make more sense for our own journey, we have yet to hear the man let a moment of silence go unfilled. That just won’t do. Not for us. His constant blabbing would be a good bear deterrent on the trail, but at some point, I’d rather let a grizzly eat me than have to endure non-stop chatter.

          We luck out the next morning when, after having returned to the edge of Waterton Lake, John realizes he has forgotten something back at camp. He tells us not to wait for him, and although we had zero intention of doing so, we pretend to be disappointed his idea isn’t going to work. Feigning reluctant waves, we hit the trail almost running just in case he has plans of catching us. After remembering the guy is carrying a sixty pound pack, we slow to our usual pace. John isn’t going to match our speed unless he can convince a bear to carry his load.

          After a few miles back the same way we came in, we pass an intersection taking us left up a new trail towards another series of steep switchbacks that we have been dreading since spying the route on our topographic map. The climb to the top of Stoney Indian Pass is going to be a bitch; there’s really no way around it. Not only that, once we exhaust ourselves on the ascent, we’re supposed to walk twelve more miles to our next reserved site. Although we never shared our plan with John, Jamie and I never had any intention of adhering to the official itinerary. We could force it out if we had to, arriving at camp after sunset, but we have a better idea.

          The ascent to the top of Stoney Indian is everything we feared, and by the time we have crested the ridgeline to look into the next massive drainage, my wife and I are ready to be done for the day. Keeping our eyes peeled for a suitable location, we drop down the other side for maybe a mile before we find what we are looking for. Beneath the backdrop of the cascading Atsina Falls, Jamie and I slip off the trail and sneak around a small rise affording the best views of the dramatic cirque. Like an amphitheater for the Gods, the water, mist, sheer rocks walls once carved by the park’s namesake, and vividly colorful mountain peaks create an outdoor cathedral like nothing man has ever, or will ever, create.

            Our guerrilla camp is totally not copasetic with park officials, but with the Leave-No-Trace principles that Jamie and I adhere to, nobody will ever know of our trespass. Well, unless I do something stupid like write about it. As it is with other endeavors, the master craftsman knows the rules well enough that he also knows when to break them. In the Northern Tetons, the officials expect you to create your own campsites because there are no official ones. Nowhere in Glacier is that the case, but we know what we’re doing from ample practice in our usual stomping grounds. Besides, for one night at least, our questionable behavior might very well land us the best seat in the park.

           Basking in our isolated surroundings, Jamie and I eat a hearty dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes before retiring with the appearance of the evening’s first stars. As night closes in, sounds from the falls begin to take on the eerie qualities of human whispers. We decide the spooky voices belong to the area’s Blackfeet ancestors, still asking the visitors of today to remember the tragic past of this land lest history repeat itself. Mankind is far from finished with its conquering, raping, and killing of the natural world and the ever-vigilant ghosts living here know it.

           Having slept as well as we ever have in the backcountry, Jamie and I awake at dawn bursting with energy, possibly enhanced by two mugs of stout coffee from our French press. We’re not even in the same ballpark as John, but there are some luxuries we refuse to forgo no matter how much extra weight it means. However, despite the temptation to doddle in our private campsite, we can’t afford to linger. Cutting yesterday short means we get to make up for it today.

           It doesn’t take long to drop below the exposed mountainsides and back into the predictable overgrowth of thimbleberries and ferns. Once again, our vision becomes limited to the trail just in front of us and what little we can make out through the dense foliage on either side. Jamie tends to be our navigator in the backcountry, keeping her vision at eye level looking for trail sign, or on nearby peaks to ensure our course jives with the topographical maps we always carry. I am the wildlife spotter, constantly checking the ground for sign of recent activity, examining the tree limbs overhead for evidence of canopy life, and occasionally studying the clouds for distant raptors. I may occasionally stub a toe on an obvious rock, but my vigilance does have some advantages.

          Just after our mid-day break, we are still pushing through the bush, wishing we’d brought machetes, when I spot movement on the uphill side of our path no more than forty feet ahead. All I see are what looks like brown, hairy shoulders, and rounded ears behind a fallen tree running perpendicular to our trail. While I can’t tell for certain what the creature is, we’re on an intersecting course, and something about its gait prompts me to grab Jamie and stop her short. Before she can question me, I point out the animal’s movement and yank a canister of bear spray from her pack’s side pocket. I remove the safety cap and place my finger on the trigger just as the animal comes into full sight.

          “Hey bear,” says Jamie as a young grizzly steps onto the trail. The juvenile animal instantly turns to face us rising on its back legs to full height. The bear is maybe five feet tall and possibly pushing two hundred and fifty pounds, but that’s still more grizzly than I ever want to tangle with in hand to hand combat. Our new bear friend is of a similar mindset. A split second after standing up to check us out, the bear is back on all fours tearing down the trail in the opposite direction. In an instant, the animal charges into the dense brush and is gone. We barely hear a single branch breaking as the grizzly makes its get away.

          “I never get tired of that,” Jamie says with a broad grin.

          “What’s that,” I ask, “seeing me scare grizzly bears half to death with my fierce persona?”

          “Something like that,” my wife says laughing. “Or, he just thought it would be embarrassing to whip your ass in front of your special lady friend and decided to spare you any hurt feelings.”

          Her theory is probably the more accurate of the two and I’m glad there was no trouble. I don’t want to injure a bear with the painful spray any more than I want one of them chewing on us. Ultimately, we both feel blessed with back to back close range grizzly encounters on our last two Glacier hikes. This one didn’t have quite the elements of drama and suspense as the last one, but at least we got a great look at this bear in broad daylight.

          Whether you actually see one or not, even the possibility of spotting these great animals is what brings people to this magnificent park. Don’t get me wrong, the scenery is second to none, but it’s also a guarantee. A bear sighting, on the other hand, is far from a safe bet. Few would argue that a grizzly encounters are one of the most memorable thrills anyone could ask for, at least as long as you don’t wind up as pepper-spray flavored dung. Jamie and I still have a couple more strenuous days of climbing passes, including the exhausting trek up to the Ptarmigan Tunnel and down the other side, but I imagine last night’s guerrilla camp and today’s bear are to be the highlights of this Glacier expedition.

          Maybe not. Who knows? The one thing I can guarantee is that we’ll be back for more at some point. Just as this stretch of the Northern Rockies was once dubbed the Backbone of the World by the Blackfeet Indians, outdoor excursions like this Glacier trek are the support system of our very lives.

Can't Kill What is Already Dead

2011-09-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

No tourniquet or
White hot cauterization
Ever eased this
Self-inflicted flow
Of severing limbs
To silence the page

Trying to carve the muse
From this heart
With one hand remaining
While poisoning the tumors
In my brain
Left the ink
That much darker
And harder to read

All my efforts
Just a sticky
Delicious mess
Beneath the lingering
Pleasant odor
Of burnt hair

Rendezvous of Ghosts

2011-09-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Following ancient footsteps
Of the Nez Perce
And snake eaters
Tracking game
On their summer migration
Into the mythical
Basin of boiling mud
Ancestral Spirits and
Spouting geyser

The land of megafauna
Hoof and horn
And the hairy eyeball
Shoulder to shoulder with
Their constant escort
Of claw
Fang and tracks
That in the gathering dusk
Walk across your grave
Right into your spirit

In this rare air
It becomes easy
To imagine ourselves
Somewhere
Back in time painted
With the stain of berry
And flower
Wearing the leather
Eating the flesh
Of our providers
And channeling gratitude
Into a nightly song
Danced around our fire
To the beat of a drum
All but forgotten

Generation Why

2011-09-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

You have celebrated
Your own emasculation
Handing over the keys
Of destiny
While believing
You are still behind the wheel
You have boldly agreed
With another man’s idea
About temporary employment
Superseding the critical condition
Of a planet’s fading pulse
You have stood idly in place
While an economic gap
Opened beneath your feet
Swallowing generations whole
Thinking the lottery dream
Is attainable
To the true believer
You have bled for a flag
Doubled as a blindfold
And used by the firing squad
To sell you on the success
Of their weaponry
You have turned your back
On facts
Figures and immutable law
Replacing knowledge with
Rhetoric
Propaganda and randomly
Applied blame
And yet you still
Have the nerve to sit there
Demanding others
To participate in a solution
Handed down to us
By the problem

Like Monster Like Son

2011-09-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

The concrete my father
Once finished
Turned out more durable
Than he ever could and
Walking across his work
Some thirty years later
I pass through his bent ghost
Down on aching knees

Some of his craft
Is beginning to flake
And crumble
But still holds true
To its original form
Something
He did as well
Only his mold was cast
In the hands of
Blood most hateful
Bound to deteriorate
Before its time

Watching him waste away
Through eyes
He robbed of innocence
I understand
That having never stood
On a solid foundation
He never had a chance
Of crafting one himself

Descending from cracked streets
I too
Seek a lasting legacy
But as it was with him
My best work
Is better off unnoticed
Beneath the feet
Of so many passerby’s

Nightly Prayers

2011-09-17T06:50:00.001-07:00

Can't sleep
Murderous electricity
Shocking my veins
Another gash
On mankind's soul
Another meal lost
To the cancerous hyena
And my faith
Has become the conviction
There is nothing
Within our limited scope
Worthy of rapture

Let the ice sheets melt
Help oceans rise
Open molten rifts
In your geologic puzzle
Blast ash
Around your womanly figure
Turn acid rain to
Unbreathable poison
Allow tsunamis to strike
Take trailer parks
In your twister's embrace
Topple the towers
Of every nation
Wipe this slate
And remove your
Undeserved presence
From the fingers
Of this scab picking plague

Rock the Mountain

2011-08-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

          “Rooooock the Mountaaaaaaiiiiiiin!”

          The hoarse call knifes across the nomadic city of brightly colored tents, through the drone of a distant speed metal band, and the battle cry is immediately echoed by hundreds of nearby campers. The handful of us sitting in a smoker's huddle, submerged to our waists in Grimes Creek, raise our drinks for the countless time to toast the weekend mantra. Rock the mountain indeed. I’m not sure how I was talked into coming back to this annual festival, but the perseverance is just getting underway. Rock the Mountain isn’t so much a celebration of all things heavy metal as it is a gauntlet of sheer attrition. Three days of brutal July temperatures, hellish hangovers, and music played at ear-shattering decibels tests the mettle of even the strongest man and only the foolish come back for more.

          Mixing a blessing with a curse, pain is a fleeting memory. I once read that if women could accurately remember the sensations of childbirth, they'd never willingly get pregnant again. Rock the Mountain works in a similar sort of fashion. That's the only excuse I can think of for recognizing so many, of what to me our now, regulars. Some of them recall me as well. I see it in their eyes... and overtly hear it their voices, like when a security guard couldn't comprehend the fact I wasn't there to perform. Hoping to give me a confidence boost before taking the stage, I instead became a sort of leprous beggar after explaining that my heart just wasn't in the music anymore. For a moment I thought he might tear the neon wristband from my arm and send me packing. I guess some circles are harder to escape than others.

          An invite to this event is no doubt laced with promises of free flowing alcohol, cheap drugs, and rampant nudity, making it the ideal mecca for scores of disenchanted, testosterone dripping young males and the occasional lady they talk into three days of filth, heat exhaustion, vocals that were never intended to be in any sort of key, and hearing loss inducing amplifiers. Hell, my wife attended the festival exactly once and fled the debauchery before it was over, vowing never to return. I’ve said on more than one occasion that my wife is smarter than me. Every year, I come home dead tired, dehydrated, hung over, strung out, and suffering from a mild case of sun stroke. Almost impossible to comprehend is the fact I am back for the sixth time.

          The first five trips can be excused. As previously alluded, I was actually one of the performers during that half-decade reign. Through some cosmic chance and circumstance, I found myself fronting a pseudo-political four piece and occasionally playing some rhythm guitar. For a garage rock band operating in the anemic Boise music scene, Rock the Mountain is about as good a gig as one can expect. Granted, you don’t get paid, but you do at least get an audience that doesn't consist of your circle of friends being subjected to your act for the one-hundredth time. Outside of weekends, and in just a handful of venues, the same can rarely be said for even a money making show during the week. Idahoans aren't really known for their late night, free-spirited, club-hopping ways. Surly, pragmatic, and conservative are adjectives coming more readily to mind and our musicians don't fall far from the apple tree.

          The performers at Rock the Mountain tend to embrace an ideology of either violence or depression, although the more creative acts figure out a way to blend the two. In all fairness though, efforts have been made in recent years to somewhat diversify the acts. Still, for the majority of bands, there is very little in the way of vocal melody structure, tone rich acoustics, or lyrics pondering social concerns, politics, or god forbid, environmental concerns. This is Idaho after all.

          The occasional deciphered growl is more geared towards self-loathing, hating others, and telling the world to piss off, and they are usually delivered by some beer-bellied screamer trying to act tough. Like I said, I should know because I was one of them. Although, rest assured, my tough guy act was genuine. The powers governing the universe won’t let you front a band called GuerrillaWrench unless you can rock out the camouflage shorts with some sense of soldier like authority. And if I didn’t, piss off, let me go about believing that I did.

          After the drama-filled conclusion of GuerrillaWrench, a door through which all bands must pass, the bass player and drummer (also my little brother), forged ahead with a new band christened Boss Hawg and the Short Bus. As the name implies, the theory of political correctness doesn’t register on their radar. They are carving out their own crass niche in the Boise music scene with classics like “Ball Gags are Fun,” “The Ballad of the Chigronese,” and the You-Tube inspired, “Monkey Fuckin’ a Toad.” As you may have guessed, there are zero sacred cows in their paradigm. Just ask the one-legged lady who recently complained about their crudity only to wind up with a song written in her honor. Cruel? Yes. Sophomoric? Yes. Funny? I am going straight to Hell, but yes. That’s just how the Short Bus rolls…

          As it was with GuerrillaWrench’s first Rock the Mountain performance, Boss Hawg was handed a crappy time slot during the hottest part of the day. Like true rockers, they performed their sweaty hearts out to me, the guitar player’s new girlfriend, and a bunch of spectators hiding in the shade about fifty yards away. Despite the handicap, they gradually won over the distant crowd and even managed to slap a cherry on top with a spirited finale called “Hard-Core Puppet Porn.” A song that had even the true metal heads throwing up the devil horns. GuerrillaWrench managed a superior performance on each subsequent trip to Rock the Mountain and I suspect it will be the same for Boss Hawg and the Short Bus.

          Sitting in Grimes Creek after their performance, I offer my honest appraisal of their set, which I know my little brother appreciates. I mix in the good with the bad, but mostly, I am just happy to see my family and friends still doing what they love. What has replaced my affinity for band practice, landing gigs, and rocking out in a live setting, is really what makes this weekend such a unique festival - the mountains. We aren't deep in Idaho backcountry by any means, but we are out in the sticks and surrounded on all sides by densely pine covered hillsides. There isn't a city light or paved road as far the eye can see. I had to leave my backpack at home or the temptation to flee the hectic scene and vanish into the woods might have been overwhelming. Instead, I'll settle for drinking my nervous energy and naturally reclusive nature into submission.

          What I do appreciate about this outdoor musical festival is that it actually forces people to camp. There are no cabins or hotels around these parts. However, despite Idaho being a mecca for all things wilderness related, most of the aforementioned “regulars” are not exactly what I'd call experienced backwoodsmen. If campfires were allowed, there is no way I'd even attend. I have no desire to burn to death with a bunch of screaming dipshits who still haven't figured out the rudimentary basics of fire, something even our caveman ancestors had mastered.

          Our camp once saved the entire valley from burning when some jackasses kicked their flaming propane stove into a meadow of dry grass. Were it not for Boss Hawg's future guitar player having brought a fire extinguisher, the entire treasure valley would have been cleansed of its metal-head population. Something the cops would cheer, except that they'd lose a couple of their own in the hypothetical blaze; they do make their presence known at Rock the Mountain.

          A couple years back, my little brother, who as a child, I affectionately dubbed “Hawg”, fished one of these greenhorns out of Ol' Grimey. We had renamed the creek for its penchant of running disturbingly warm and the wasted savages always sitting upstream. In any case, the young kid had been tripping balls on acid, been separated from his friends, and had no idea where he was in the moonless night. Little did he know, the kid was probably better off staying in the creek.

          Shivering cold he hunkered down in a chair while Hawg graciously hooked him up with a steaming mug of tea. Only problem, it was mushroom tea and before long the psychedelic madness took hold once more and off he went spiraling into the dark on his magical quest to find home. From our individual tents, we all vividly recount hearing his voice at the crack of dawn over by the wall of overflowing urinals screaming, “My name is John and I don't know where I am!” A desperate and panicked admission that left us all chuckling in our sleep deprived state.

          It may have been GuerrillaWrench's last gig at Rock the Mountain that resolved any lingering doubts I had about ending my career as a musician and it wasn't because we played a bad show. Quite the opposite, in fact. Our thirty minute set around dusk woke the crowd up for the first time all day and we upstaged several better known acts in the process. We also nearly literally destroyed the stage with our frenetic bouncing and foot stomping.

          My fondest memory was making eye contact with the bass player, and nodding towards the hole he was tearing in the stage floor, only for him to respond in all earnest with an “I don't give a fuck.” I remember turning to the audience with a shit-eating grin and announcing at the top of my lungs, “We're GuerrillaWrench and we don't give a fuck.” As the crowd cheered, and a front row wave of flashing breasts nearly tripped up the song, I realized our band was at the peak of its existence. It wasn't going to get any better than it was at that moment and I was at peace with moving on. Besides, beyond the sweaty masses, beyond the temporary town of tents, even above and beyond Ol' Grimey, I could already hear the mountains calling my name.

          I no longer belong amongst humanity, not for any length of time anyway. The thrill I once experienced from making music with a tight-knit bunch of genuine friends has been replaced with an overwhelming desire to seek out the most isolated and quiet stretches of wilderness left on our dying planet. Removing myself from the root cause of our mother's sickness is about the only way I can keep from dying myself, or even worse, being unable to resist the temptation to help her cleanse our environment of the worst offenders. Although a writer these days, if I get the music itch, I can still take my acoustic deep into woods and play a one man show for the bears and wolves. At this point, I suspect they're the only ones who'd understand any art of my creation.

Lyrical excerpt from “Trash Fiction” by GuerrillaWrench

The rigid heads
In today’s traffic jam
Accept the latest delay
Were I half the man
I claim to be
I would walk away
From you soulless machines

But as long as we sit here
Enduring the end
And this deliberate suffocation
The bad guys always win

Selling the Dream

2011-08-31T09:54:00.000-07:00

Pay no attention
To the transparent overlords
Stealing bread
Straight off your table
While the opportunities
They purportedly create
From their wealth exemptions
Forever fail to materialize

Ignore the widening gap
Like some oceanic trench
Where the continents pull apart
Removing all power
From our collective grasp
And placing it in offshore accounts
Of American nobility

Turn a deaf eye
To the cries of our forests
Oceans and mountains
And with a blind heart
Continue to punish a landscape
Easily capable of sustaining
Excessive demands
As though our children
Were somehow her fault

Despise the messenger
For suggesting a better way
When you so desperately
Need to believe
The true minority
Is one day going to provide
The handshake and secret knock
To an exclusive club
That never actively recruits
A new member

Divine Solution

2011-08-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

My bottomless bottle
Of delectable red
Has improved upon perfection
By breathing uncorked
In the electrical storm
And shimmering heat wave
For another year

Harvested from elderberry
Wolf hair
And lion breath
She is the secret recipe
Hand crafted in the distillery
Of heaven
Sent to earth
For one mortal’s glimpse
Into ever expanding eternity

Beyond my lips
And across my tongue
Down to the molten core
Of primordial acid
She is the only elixir
To coat this daily indigestion
And hold my deliriums
From their tremors

The Blind Leading the Numb

2011-08-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Rolling back the audacity
Of those who dared hope
Old man cracker
Has once again employed
The transparent
Bait and switch somehow
Convincing punch cards
To aim blame everywhere
But the target
That might do some good

Cover to cover
Back to front
Upside down and inside out
This book has been digested
By billions
Standing strong and question less
For a single letter
They barely understand
While both sides
Pick clean the pockets
Of the distracted
Desert wanderers
Shielding themselves
From the sun
By plucking out both eyes
And turning them over
To the nearest vulture

Return of the Kid

2011-08-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

          Nobody likes a trilogy. Let me rephrase that. Nobody likes the third installment of a trilogy. Don’t believe me? Name one that people hold in the same regard as the original and initial sequel. Hell, by the time any kind of follow-up rolls around, the once captivating idea has typically grown stale. Still, if some novelist or movie director is fortunate enough to get through back to back related stories with some degree of success, they almost seem obligated to force out a third.

          I wince inwardly as this realization lands home. This is exactly what I am trying to do. Vainly hoping another story will materialize for me in the Lynx Creek drainage of the rugged Sawtooths just a few miles above Atlanta, Idaho. The last two trips to this mountainous location on the Middle Fork of the Boise River led to first a heart-pounding, and then a heart-breaking, experience with the local mountain goats. The first time, while searching for Lynx Creek hot spring, my wife and I were caught in a stampede of the shaggy white beasts after they were spooked by unleashed dogs. Although a bit terrifying, the once-in-a-lifetime encounter, and my faceoff with the angry herd leader, reignited a passion for writing that I have embraced ever since.

          On our return visit the following July, we ran into a half-dressed, wild woman who had lost her Siberian husky in the same drainage. We never saw the dog, but I did find fresh, mid-sized canine prints in the mud around the geothermal seeps where the goats hang out. Later that afternoon, we were haunted by the cries of a lost baby goat perched on a cliff above our campsite. After spotting each other, the yearling began descending the sheer rock walls as if Jamie and I were going to be its new family. Like true warriors, we hid as the whimpering goat circled our foliage concealed tent. Leaving us emotionally traumatized, the youngster finally retreated up the rocks while we theorized it was another unleashed dog that caused the herd to panic and separate our fuzzy little supplicant from its family.

          Clearly, we have some kind of cosmic connection with this place involving mountain goat drama and that’s the reason it has been two years since our last visit. Subconsciously deciding we couldn’t handle witnessing more stress for the herd, we gave Lynx Creek a break last summer. Now, feeling the pressure to come up with a new outdoor adventure article, I have convinced my wife to revisit our old stomping grounds and the heart of my craft’s inspiration. It may be an act of desperation, hoping some worthwhile trilogy will unfold, but it’s the Fourth of July weekend and our reclusive nature insists we be somewhere far removed from the drunken idiots with their loud, colorful gunpowder and Lynx Creek is an ideal location even if nothing occurs.

          “Remember that couple we kept seeing on the trail the first time we came up here?” Jamie asks, interrupting my train of thought.

          My response is a bray of laughter. How could I forget? We should have known our Lynx Creek saga was going to be a little Twilight-Zone-ish from their presence alone. Jamie and I had been walking past their car camp on our way to the trailhead when the guy initiated a conversation with us. He was still young, in his mid-thirties, but had already grown soft. Not overweight by any means, just not in any kind of shape either. He briefly recollected aloud about all the hardcore backpacking trips he once endured, and as we chatted, his eyes took on a distant, competitive fire. His nearby wife, wearing caked on make-up and overly styled hair, didn’t look as if she had ever spent a day in the backcountry, nor did she look compelled to start.

          It was during our first break of the morning, resting a hundred feet from the path, when we saw them march by. Well, he was marching and she was reluctantly in tow. More humorous was the gear they had elected to bring. The doughy old-school adventurer carried nothing but a machete and a length of rope coiled about his shoulder. His wife held a pink, hard-shelled piece of carry-on luggage. Not sure what he intended on chopping with that big blade, or doing with that rope, and neither appeared to have water, but I guess I’ll never know what was in the small suitcase.

          We missed the hidden trail descending to Lynx Creek a few times before finding our way down, while the other couple kept missing the path to a higher lake, causing us to pass each other a few times throughout the day. Each time, the man did his best to puff out his chest and pick up the pace, while his lady made no effort to disguise her exhaustion and disgust. By the last time we saw them, the sun had just set behind the towering Sawtooth ridgeline, they were miles from their campsite, and the woman looked as if she was reevaluating their entire relationship. Between fits of laughter, we felt a little bad for them.

          In an attempt to avoid any annoying or amusing encounters with other people, Jamie and I are using a different route to access the drainage. On a map of the area, we noticed an old road paralleling the opposite side of the river, and while it came to an abrupt stop far short of our destination leaving us no choice but to forge our own path through dense underbrush and across loose talus, we have somehow successfully circumvented our fellow man on this busy holiday weekend.

          Approximately a mile from our destination, Jamie suddenly stops and points towards the closest cliff rising above the thick and prickly maze of buck brush we are trying to navigate. Shielding her eyes from the intense sun and squinting towards the rock wall, she asks, “Is that what I think it is?”

          I look up just in time to see a shaggy white blur disappearing behind a stand of trees atop the cliff. I only catch a momentary glimpse, but it is enough. “Yep,” I answer, “that’s one of our friends alright. Man, what is with this place? We can’t take two steps without tripping over a mountain goat.”

          Jamie’s smile could light up a black hole. “Maybe it’s that same one who tried to adopt us last time,” she says impishly.

          “We should have caught that goat when we had the chance,” I say while cinching up the waist belt of my backpack to get some of the pressure off my shoulders. “It could be carrying most of our gear about now.”

          After pushing through the labyrinth of buck brush, Jamie and I take a break on a rocky outcrop above the raging middle fork. As I quench my thirst, I survey the near and distant ridgelines. I see nothing until I repeat the process and then, from atop a nearby ledge I had just scouted, I spot our mountain goat for the second time. Only visible from the neck up, the animal is peering at us over the top of a boulder with his head cocked sideways.

          “Looks like someone is following us,” I say and nod my head in the direction of our observer.

          Jamie spots the white animal after a few seconds of searching. “Pretty sneaky,” she says. “I think he’s leading us to Lynx Creek.”

          Determining the sex of a distant mountain goat is all but impossible, but I believe Jamie to be correct. Males tend to live by themselves once they reach a certain age, while the females live amongst extended families containing multiple generations. Whipping out the binoculars for a quick look, I can positively say that our onlooker is two to three years old at the most. His goatee and horns pale in comparison to the herd leader with whom I experienced my standoff and he is half the size of that great beast.

          Standing up and pulling Jamie to her feet, I say, “Well, if the goat knows the way, let’s race him there.”

          The rest of the trek is a pleasant walk just above the river on an established, but rarely used trail. Downed trees slow our progress but before long we are once again standing on the banks of the swollen middle fork, looking across the impassable torrent towards the small hot spring on the other side. As predicted, the shallow pool is still swamped by the voluminous runoff, validating our decision to approach the drainage from this side; we weren’t going to be able to soak anyway.

          Neither of us notices our mountain goat escort until we have set up our tent and stripped naked for a cleansing plunge into a small eddy just downriver from camp. As we stand there working up the courage to jump into the freezing water, Jamie points to the top of a sheer granite wall towering over our camp with a gargantuan grin spreading across her face. I look up in time to see our goat friend pulling up a comfortable resting spot on his rocky overlook. Lying on its belly, the animal peers over the cliff for a bird’s eye of the Lynx Creek drainage.

          “Do you see where that goat just laid down?” I ask Jamie, my own smile beginning to match hers.

          “Yep,” she replies. “He is in the exact same location we first noticed that freaked out baby last time. I’m really starting to wonder if that is our goat.”

          Although I don’t want to vocalize my crazy suspicion, as it seems way too coincidental, but I feel an unexplainable certainty that our voyeur is none other than that panic-stricken yearling from two years ago. It’s almost like the animal recognized us on our hike in and purposefully headed to this precise location as if to let us know that he is, in fact, ok. We no longer need to worry; the lions and wolves never found him despite the echoing racket Jamie and I last heard. The distant mountain goat sits frozen in place while we swim and it isn’t until we are in the process of getting dressed that we notice the young billy has vanished once again.

          “Alright,” I say, re-thinking my earlier assessment, “so maybe this goat is just a pervert and it’s pure coincidence that he happened to be sitting on the same rock ledge as our last one.”

          “Only one way to find out,” she replies. “Get naked again and see if it comes back.”

          “I kind of doubt he would have been spying on us for my naked butt. I think he might have a crush on you though,” I say, “which means I might be eating mountain goat for dinner.”

          Normally primetime for mosquitos, Jamie and I take full advantage of the long cool spring having put off the bloodsucker’s arrival by spending our evening next to the river instead of hiding from the swarms in our small tent. Later we drift off to the sound of the almost hypnotic, fluctuating flow of the river and sleep the deserved sleep of the backpacker.

          The following morning, Jamie and I eat instant oatmeal and plan our day. We decide to make the off-trail push straight up the mountainside towards the headwaters of Lynx Creek. With snow still visible on the peaks all around us, we begin the arduous climb. Within the first hour, we have a four foot gopher snake slither right between us and spot two of the green and tan racer snakes, as they rear up at each other and square off like a couple of skinny sock puppets. The smaller one instantly backs down and honoring its namesake, tears off in a streaking blur through the sagebrush dotting our exposed climb.

          Later, as our route finding takes us back into a more forested area, we find a large hard plastic barrel tucked away in a stand of fallen timber. It is the type of storage container used to bait bears, a hunting practice I find particularly loathsome; almost on par with shooting treed lions from point blank range. That isn’t hunting, that’s the equivalent of me challenging a quadriplegic to a game of one-on-one basketball. Near the ambush site, we also find discarded dishes and rusting cooking pots. Looks like the hunters in this drainage are lazy on multiple levels. I am more willing to forgive the ignorance of your average person than I am the slob who claims to be an “outdoorsman” while being unable to hunt an animal without cheating and trashing the wilderness.

          Thinking we have found our headwaters, or at least a small lake, our ascent comes to an end when we crest a talus strewn slope only to find a massive cirque of angular pinkish boulders, some the size of cars. It looks as though a once rocky peak collapsed on itself, inverting the entire mountain top. There are a few melting snowfields, but otherwise, there is no water in the giant bowl. The headwaters are still above us, possibly over the next rise, but we have grown tired and hungry from the climb. We make the long retreat back to camp in time for another dip in the river and a hot meal of instant mashed potatoes and chicken.

          As dusk settles over the valley, we decide to head downriver for a better view of the rocky ledge overlooking our campsite, hoping for one last glimpse of our goat before bed. So fixated on the distant cliff, I fail to notice the shaggy white and black-horned beast drinking from the banks of the middle fork no more than forty feet in front of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I pick up on the slightest bit of motion and turn my head in time to lock eyes with the adult mountain goat as it raises its head in alarm. Both of us freeze in our tracks, somehow hoping the other has yet to notice.

          I try to catch Jamie’s attention with a subtle wave of my hand, but the movement is enough for the goat. Moving with astonishing speed, the animal slips behind a low sagebrush covered rise and vanishes from sight. A moment later, from the uphill side of the mound, appears a baby goat and on its heels a trailing yearling. Jamie and I watch with our mouths agape as a line of mountain goats, each one bigger than the last, charges into view and then up the mountainside into a shallow ravine full of tall undergrowth and a mixture of live and dead trees. The goat I had first seen is second to last, trailed only by a significantly larger herd leader. Within seconds, the spooked family has vanished into the foliage and shadows leaving us alone in the thickening twilight.

          The heart-racing experience immediately transports me back in time to the rage I felt on both previous excursions when some inconsiderate person let their dogs terrify the poor goat family. Only this time, we are the guilty party and we don’t even have a mutt to blame. Although purely accidental, our intentions don’t really matter when the end result is still a panicked herd. The last thing Jamie and I desire is to scare these noble creatures, but at least none were separated in the momentary chaos. I imagine the family will recover from our sudden appearance shortly after catching their breath. On our way back to camp, we check the cliffs one last time, possibly hoping to ensure our young rogue male didn’t witness us harassing his relatives. Thankfully, the ledge is deserted.

          “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Jamie offers sensing my regret. “I’m sure these goats have seen their share of people. It’s not like they thought we were wolves or anything. They’ll be fine.”

          “I suppose so,” I say, “but I wasn’t paying full attention to my surroundings like I should have been. I feel like an amateur.”

          The images of the fleeing goats sits in the forefront of my mind until I finally drift off into a peaceful slumber. Thankfully, my dreams aren’t haunted by the suffering of mountain goats. In fact, I don’t remember dreaming at all. After breaking camp the next morning and packing up for the march back to our truck, Jamie and I scan the rock walls, but there are no signs of life.

          Shortly before our departing hike takes us beyond the views of exposed mountainside and drops us into the dense trees, I steal one last glance over my shoulder towards the distant ridgeline. It is probably just my imagination, but for a split second, I am almost positive there is a familiar white blur in the process of turning away from us and slipping back into the rocks. Whatever I noticed is gone before I can point it out to Jamie and I’m left wondering if I saw anything at all. It’s crazy, but I want to believe it really might have been our goat, knowing our times together were at an end, seeing us off with a final farewell. I return the gesture with one lingering, concluding wave before turning my back on the Lynx Creek drainage, possibly for the very last time.

Ad Nauseum

2011-08-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

Lidless these eyes
Wishing they could close
Or even blink
I am the great shark
Unchanged across millennia
A death design unmatched
After a billion years

Without sleep
Without dreams
There is nothing to imagine
No kaleidoscope
Of colorful possibility
There is only
The next scent
The hunt
And the expressionless
Ending of more life
Before I vanish
Back into the black water
This cycle
Forever set to repeat

Yosemite Disenchantment

2011-07-31T16:45:00.001-07:00

          This is hilarious. I’m gonna die. A few feet in front of me, I can just make out the faint silhouette of my wife on her mountain bike as she floats across a sea of darkness. The faint white glow of her headlamp creates a barely visible nimbus around her head giving me something to focus on in the moonless night. If I don’t keep the front wheel of my bike all but rubbing the back wheel of hers, I will veer off the narrow bike path and into one of the countless rocks or exposed tree roots lining both sides. With no helmet or pads, the crash is certain to hurt.

          For some reason, possibly the buzz from two chalices of dank IPA, the revelation regarding my mortality strikes me as more humorous than concerning. I can’t stop smiling. Or, maybe it’s because the dark forest feels like an actual wilderness for the first time all day. This is our inaugural trip to Yosemite and we’ve had to redefine certain expectations of a National Park. The only animals we’ve seen are people, tons and tons of people, and this is the first time either of us has experienced gridlock in the mountains.

          I suspect the average Californian doesn’t blink an eye at the chaotic zoo that is this basin, but for a native Idahoan and Wyomingite, the traffic and crowds are all but unbearable. No strangers to other parks, we’ve seen Yellowstone and Glacier at their worst, but Yosemite is on a whole different level. At the last second, I let Jamie talk me into cramming bikes in the truck along with the rest of our camping and backpacking gear, and I’m thankful I did. Were they not at our disposal, I might have already killed someone. This is one Snakeduck that does not do well in traffic.

          As we made our way into the heart of Yosemite, we were met with a wall of cars and progress slowed to a near standstill. With our vehicle inching along, and my intolerance already through the roof, I managed to pull over and just barely fit our truck on the shoulder of the one way loop and left her there. We stopped back by a few times throughout the day only to find the traffic even worse. All we could see through shimmering waves of stinking emissions was an endless line of faces fixing us with death stares for having the foresight to bring bikes.

          Several hours later, we are making our way back to the truck from the backpacker’s communal campground, and hoping to finally move our truck to an actual parking spot for the night. Naturally, to kill time after spending the afternoon biking around the hot basin, we endured the jostling lines of a saloon to drown our deserved thirst with local microbrews. During our stay amongst the herd having to share a table with strangers, we met an old timer who had worked for the park when they still conducted the nightly fire fall ritual.

          Back in the day, a massive bonfire would be lit on top of Glacier Point, and as night settled over the valley, park employees would topple the blazing mass of embers off the cliff for a visually mesmerizing 1,500 foot waterfall of fire. Over the years, as the granite walls turned black from accumulating ash, the ritual was finally discontinued. I’m glad they did away with the whole thing, but listening to the guy’s excited recollections, I wish we could have seen the flaming spectacle just once.

          Somehow pushing through the dark without crashing, we finally bike clear of the forest trail and onto a main road. In the last couple of hours the traffic has gone from insane to almost non-existent. The day trippers have gone home and most of the overnighters are back at their respective campsites. When we finally reach our truck, the road is all but deserted for the first time all day. We stash our bikes in the covered bed and make the short drive to the general parking area closest to the backpacker’s campground.

          As we pull in, Jamie and I notice a young couple standing outside a Subaru hatchback just a few empty spots down from us. Parked on the far side of them is a law enforcement vehicle and a cop is questioning the two individuals. I’m tempted to find another parking space, but in addition to leaving our vehicle behind, we also need to utilize the nearby steel lockers so we don’t wind up with a nocturnal visitor breaking into our rig. Yosemite’s black bears have a reputation as being the cleverest thieves of any ursine population in the world, but they certainly aren’t above a smash and grab job.

          As I jump out of our truck to round up perishables from the backseat to stash in one of the communal bear boxes, I can overhear the conversation between the cop and the twenty-something man and woman. They too have backpacking gear in their car and considering their ratty clothes and unkempt hair, they resemble our kind of folk.

          “This is bad, this is bad,” I hear the dark-haired woman repeating.

          “Do either of you have a marijuana medicinal card?” the cop asks before lowering his voice to an inaudible level and speaking into his walkie-talkie.

          The young couple exchange nervous glances, before the man finally answers. “No sir, they don’t have those where we’re from.”

          The cop looks them up and down like one might a leper. “I’ve never met you people before so I’m calling for backup to watch you while I conduct my search. Before I examine your vehicle, tell me where it is and how much I can expect to find.”

          Having stopped in my tracks to witness the exchange, the officer fixes me with a disapproving stare. I return the look with as much vehemence as I feel I can get away with. “Just go about your business, sir,” he says to me.

          The cop is short and scrawny and obviously using a fake deep voice to project some kind of authority. In any other situation, he would intimidate absolutely nobody. “And why don’t you mind your own business, Napoleon,” I think to myself while turning my attention to the cooler in my backseat.

          As I gather up what little food is inside, I continue my eavesdropping. I have worked with too many cops and had too many friends physically abused or had evidence planted on them to have much faith in law enforcement. I am secretly wishing the couple the best of luck, but I know full well they’re screwed. They can thank their lucky stars we aren’t in Wyoming or Idaho, or being screwed would be a colossal understatement. Despite the fact that doctors in neighboring states prescribe the plant as medicine, where we’re from, marijuana is classified no differently than crack cocaine. Frankly, it’s almost as pathetic as our rancher, hunter, and politician crybaby attitude towards wolves and grizzlies. Then again, it’s to be expected when barely literate hicks run the joint.

          The cop’s backup, a big ol’ bubba with a walrus mustache, arrives shortly after and takes over the watching of the perps while his diminutive partner begins rummaging through their hatchback. Having witnessed enough, Jamie says, “Let’s get our shit squared away and get out of here before something makes me sick.”

          “Good call,’ I say as we once again remove our bikes from the crowded truck bed and ride over to the row of heavy steel boxes with our small sack of edibles. Unlike gym lockers, these bear boxes cannot be locked or reserved. Anyone, at any time, could open one and help themselves to whatever’s inside. Being naturally paranoid of my fellow man, I’d have an issue using the communal storage if we were stashing anything more than a couple pieces of fruit and a box of crackers. I just don’t like the idea of someone stealing from me when there is no chance I’ll be able to catch them in the act.

          Following another harrowing, and possibly hair-brained, bike ride through the dark, we arrive back at the backpacker’s campground. My beer buzz, dampened by witnessing the cops harass the young couple, is now all but completely gone and in its place I feel a headache slowly building. There are a limited number of actual campsites, but in a situation where there are far more hikers than camps, the entire area is littered with tents. As people who tend to get up early in order to beat the heat of the day, the site is already quiet. Jamie and I slink through the maze of colorful fabric pushing our bikes. Despite having a good idea of where we erected our tent, it still takes us almost five minutes to locate our portable home in the pitch black. Ten minutes after that we both slip off into an alcohol aided slumber.

          Seemingly seconds after closing our eyes, the first light of morning drags us back to the land of consciousness and pain. I can’t decide which is worse, my headache, the shriveled state of my dehydrated tongue, or the sporadic waves of nausea. What was in that brew? One of our best friends back home is a brewer for the best microbrewery in Boise, so we’re not strangers to powerful beer, but Jamie and I suddenly feel like drinking rookies. The last thing either of us feels like doing is hitting a trail that will take us from the basin of Yosemite all the way to the granite dome peaks, but we spent over fifteen hours in our truck with the solitary intention of doing just that. We probably deserve the punishment, so we force ourselves out of bed, break camp, and bike back to our truck.

          By the time we arrive, our condition has considerably worsened. Feeling as though we could vomit at any second, and with our headaches refusing to wane, my wife and I drive to a vacant day-use picnic area and park in the shade. After unloading and re-arranging our gear, we climb into the covered shell for a nap. We’re not going anywhere until we can sleep off at least some of this hangover. The hike will have to wait, but the necessity of more sleep means our climb won’t start during the cool morning hours like we initially planned.

          Three hours later we are no longer sleepy, but little has changed in the nausea and headache department. From the air-conditioned cab, we try to ignore the fiery orb climbing higher into the sky causing the shade to slowly disappear. It’s really just the natural angle of the sun as it marches across the sky, but it creates the illusion that even shadows can wilt in the midday heat. Parking our truck at Pohono trailhead, we waste little time on the scorching asphalt before we have shouldered our packs and begun the steep ascent towards the spectacular granite domes capping this visually stunning expanse of wilderness.

          I use the word “wilderness” a little loosely in regards to Yosemite because of its lack of large mammals. If there aren’t grizzly bears and wolves in the vicinity, I am hard pressed to consider any natural landscape as truly wild. Not to mention the lack of elk, moose, bison, and mountain goats. As it was in all of our “protected” parks, Europeans first decimated the native animal populations, many species now regionally extinct throughout North America, before the senseless slaughter was reluctantly curtailed. Black bear and deer are pretty much the only survivors of Yosemite’s genocide.

          To me, this national park feels like it exists for people, not for the natural flora or fauna or for any sense of preserving an ecosystem. I detect a spiritual vacuum in the absence of my large mammal friends and I believe the old trees radiate a particular sadness as well. What Yosemite does still have is an impressive array of giant Ponderosa, Cedar, Sequoia, and Redwood trees, and these ancient sentries must miss the hunters and hunted who once perpetuated that primordial dance beneath their collective canopy.

          People assume that the absence of large mammals biting, clawing, goring, and trampling folks would ensure Yosemite a safer bet than Glacier, Grand Teton, or Yellowstone. Truth is, animals are very rarely a problem, and Yosemite is a magnet for the most dangerous creature there is – a human who thinks they’re invincible. Splattered all over this park are the stains of rock climbers who made a mistake, or had some critical piece of gear malfunction, but that’s to be understood; rock climbing is a dangerous sport. Harder to comprehend are all the people who have drowned in the rivers, and even more incredulously, were swept over waterfalls. Apparently, people can’t resist thinking and behaving like jackasses in the rivers directly above the various falls and Yosemite has a plethora of these towering cascades. Nearly 1,000 people have died in the park since it first opened. Guess how many have been killed by the dangerous bears and mountain lions? The answer can’t get any lower because the number is zero.

          Instead of mammals, we see different species of lizards darting all over the ground and less than ten minutes into the journey, what we initially believe to be a colorfully banded coral snake. However, neither of us can definitively recall the helpful little saying to keep them and their non-venomous visually similar counterparts separated. Is it “red to yellow and you’re dead fellow?” Our snake is red to black and Jamie finally decides that makes him a “friend to Jack” and therefore not a coral snake at all. After racking my brain for a few minutes, I seem to recall pictures of a king snake from the Sierras with a similar banded look. I also seem to recall that coral snakes are strictly an east coast inhabitant. In any case, the sedate reptile slithers slowly across our path and doesn’t seem to mind as I close in for a few photographs.

          Later on, maybe a mile into a journey, Jamie and I are both suffering. In addition to the sweltering heat, the exertion of climbing the ridiculously steep trail in our hung-over condition is taking a serious toll. On top of that, my left foot is beginning to scream in pain. I can almost hear it whining aloud. A serious case of plantar fasciitis, coupled with the protruding foot bone of a tailor’s bunion finally prompted me to the surgical table for a couple of procedures during the early springtime. The doctors shaved a tendon on both sides, cut some bone from my foot, and after inserting a few screws to hold everything back together, they sent me on my way. And this was on the heels of a vasectomy. Take that, Edward Abbey. You may be one of my heroes, but you still fathered five children while having the nerve to lecture others on irresponsible breeding.

          The series of operations all but wiped out my snowboarding season and left me house bound for over two months. My strength and conditioning suffered immensely as a result. I can’t decide which is worse, my hangover, the physical exertion, this heat, my current state of bloat and sloth, or the deep rooted ache pulsating through my foot. This is not how I usually feel when backpacking; I typically enjoy the hard work and pain, but the converging crises are beginning to plague my mind with doubts. We still have some elevation to gain, several days to hike, and over thirty miles left in front of us. The hangover will fade, and once we hit the ridgeline, the hike will get easier, but my foot and conditioning won’t be improving anytime soon.

          If anything, the brutal hike quickly gets worse. Jamie soon looks more pale and drained than she did when we started, and while my physical sickness has flat lined, the pain in my surgically reconstructed foot is becoming a problem. By the time we reach the snowline, maybe four miles into what is supposed to be our epic journey, we are ready to call it a day. We find a campsite off-trail, erect our tent, and lay down to catch our breath. Jamie pulls out our map and scrutinizes it, her face getting more angry by the minute.

          “That backcountry ranger insisted we should trim a day from our itinerary, so now if we stop here for the night, the trip will be impossible. We’d have to push on for several more miles. If I could manage to eat something, I think I’d have the energy to make it, but even the thought of food is making me ill.”

          I can tell she is disappointed in how things are shaking out, and I’d like to inspire her to greater heights, but the reality of my healing foot is becoming more apparent by the minute. Even after removing my pack and boots, the appendage still throbs.

          “If we had that extra night, I might be able to limp through this, but as it is, I don’t think I can make it.”

           My voice quakes a little as I speak. Although there isn’t much I could have done differently, I feel disgusted with myself for being out of shape and injured. I hate the idea of retreating from a hike and I know Jamie does as well. It’s only happened one other time and that too was because of my messed up freak foot . The aggressive side of me wants to march on even if it means causing some irreparable harm, and were I younger, I might do just that. Pushing forty though, and already suffering from several arthritic aches due to injuries I never let heal, I can hear the voice of reason slipping past my stubbornness.

          “I miss the Sawtooths and the Wind River Range,” Jamie says. “If we have to call this off, let’s just go home to some of our mountains where there aren’t so many people… and traffic… and cops.”

          “You mean somewhere with actual wildlife?” I add.

          Jamie’s sick and pale countenance brightens at the thought. “I’ve heard this place is better in the winter anyway. Maybe we can come back for an epic snowshoeing trek for Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

          “Well, at least my foot should be healed by then. Six weeks of recovery time, my ass. I think we’re close to three months now.”

          “Don’t let it get you down,” Jamie says, trying to ease my frustration with a disarming smile. “You’ll be back to the real woods wrestling real bears before you know it. Besides, I don’t think either of us are cut out to be Californians.”

Due Time

2011-07-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

Always the last time
And the promise
Of tomorrow
Just a joke
At which nobody
Ever laughed
Has finally preceded
A great sigh
Of relief

Instead of the fear
Regret and wondering
If ever again
The nights
Will feel as magical
As once they did
There is only remorse
Of time wasted
Coupled with disbelief
At the sick
Young man's distorted smile
Through the rum bottle
In faded photographs
As if mortality
Had yet to find him

Deserter

2011-07-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

Raised to believe
It is more important
To fight the battle
Than it is to win the war
I could once
Accept this unyielding
String of defeats
As something necessary
For spiritual survival
But the losses
Have spilled over
And the gains
Have become something
So insubstantial
I can’t imagine
They were ever anything
More than delusions
Of some
Post traumatic syndrome

The war is over
The battle lost
And without a victor
There are no medals
To separate the heroes
From cowards

We are all just awaiting
A bullets arrival
From a trigger pulled
Long before the
Chinese ever invented
Gunpowder

Bad Medicine

2011-07-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

There are faces of braves
Chiefs and shamans
In the rocks
In the tree trunks
In the clouds overhead
A tribe
Still with us
Still watching
And waiting for a lesson
To be applied

There is no judgment
In those empty eyes
No resentment
Or anger
Just overwhelming sorrow
For a world
That once was
And could have always been
Had the natives
To somewhere
Never reared their
Ugly countenance
To accept this toxic apathy
As fate inevitable

'Shroom Huntin'

2011-07-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

          I am halfway across the fallen spruce, inching along on my butt, sandaled feet dangling in a raging torrent closer resembling a river than a creek, when it occurs to me that our intended reward might not be worth this level of risk. In order to move, I have to place both palms on the bouncing bridge between my thighs, put the combined weight of my body and forty pound backpack into my shoulders while lifting and pulling myself forward a couple inches at a time. Twice already my hands have slipped on the wet bark causing a gut-wrenching instance of imbalance before recovering with a slow exhale and shaking of the head.

          Just downstream from my precarious perch, half submerged in the bubbling froth is a logjam of deadly strainers, fallen trees with branches still attached guaranteed to pin someone against, or under, one of these traps should they slip into the icy runoff. My pack has all of its buckles unfastened, but I’d still be lucky to get it off my shoulders before the current swept me into a life-threatening situation. What’s worse is knowing that once across, I’ll have to stand helplessly on the other side while my wife attempts the same feat.

          So enthralling is the creek ford, I don’t realize how badly my frozen feet hurt until I hit the far side. Hopping in place on the creek bank to bring some life back to my aching toes, I watch Jamie straddle the log and begin her own crossing. When she reaches the halfway point, I swallow hard against the frigid torture and wade out into the powerful flow as far as sanity allows. At this point, if she falls there is a chance I’ll be able to reach out and snag her before the current drags my wife into the nest of ominous strainers. My plan is to grab whatever part of her, or her pack, I can get ahold of and then throw myself backwards in hopes that the combination of my momentum and weight is somehow a match for the current.

          Thankfully, none of my planning is necessary. Jamie makes it across safe and sound and shaking slightly from the adrenaline rush. The pins-n’-needles sensation of our feet and legs thawing has us gritting our teeth for a full thirty seconds before the pained grimaces dissolve into a shared expression of nervous relief.

          “That was sketchy,” she says as we swap our river sandals for hiking boots. “Maybe on the way back we should look for another crossing.”

          “Yeah,” I reply, “besides, I’m not sure if the runoff has hit its peak. If the water gets any higher, we’ll have to find a different route.”

          “Let’s just keep the end result in mind,” Jamie suggests. “We’re out here to forage because we want to. We aren’t starving to death, so let’s not get ourselves killed.”

          She is correct, of course, but if there is a wild food worth dying for, it just might be a particular, highly sought after mushroom. No, not the magic kind. Although, I have found the hallucinogenic variety on Idaho’s public lands before. The primary target of our hunt thrives in areas of well-drained, sandy soil and recent forest fire activity. It possesses a meaty texture and earthy flavor that is impossible to beat, especially when sautéed with garlic butter, or better yet, battered and fried in bacon grease. The finest meal I can recall was a cheeseburger loaded with freshly picked ones that Jamie and I grilled up after a few exhausting days spent hunting the sometimes elusive treat. Ah, the mighty morel mushroom, or as I like to say, “King of the forest cuisine.”

          Due to their grid-like network of ridges and pits, giving the fungus a distinct honeycomb look, morels are easy to identify and thus, one of the safest wild foods to harvest. Something in their size and tan to brown colors remind me of toads, only slightly misshapen to also resemble a conical gnome hat. There is a fake morel that is similar, although the stem is longer and the cap more round, giving it a microphone-like appearance, and while some claim they cause gastrointestinal issues, other people eat them like potato chips. In any case, accidently including a couple of fake ones in your bounty won’t kill anybody. And, while morels are the holy grail of our June quest into the mountains above the South Fork of the Salmon River, foraging conditions for a variety of edible flora is at its prime.

          In a plastic bag attached to the outside of my pack, I have already collected a variety of leaves for a salad, and inside my pack is a small plastic tub of butter, garlic, and onions to accompany our planned mushroom feast. I brought the sauté fixings despite the fact we might find some wild onions and garlic, mostly because I can guarantee we won’t stumble across any butter out here. In a third bag, I have also harvested a collection of huckleberry and strawberry leaves for an anti-oxidant, after-dinner tea. In the absence of ripened fruit this early in the season, their leaves will have to do.

          The majority of my salad gatherings consist of wild mint with a slight smoky taste, the delicate pedals of strawberry flowers, and the more subtle flavor of young dandelion leaves. The mint looks a bit like stinging nettle, and you certainly do not want to confuse the two. Actually, even stinging nettle is quite savory, but it must first be boiled to destroy the plant’s tiny needles and itchy toxin.

          Shortly after the creek crossing, I find our first edible wild mushroom, although something has beaten us to it. The fist-sized puffball has had its white dome top neatly removed by the gentle bite of an animal, most likely a black bear, leaving a shallow bowl filled to the rim with what looks like a smooth chocolate surface. Unlike sand grains, the individual spores are so fine the naked eye is unable to differentiate one from the other making the collection of particles appear solid. I bend at the waist and blow out a quick breath through pursed lips. The spores scatter in a small brown cloud, some of them instantly snagged by the faint breeze and carried away, hopefully landing somewhere favorable for producing more of the tasty fungi.

          Like a bear, I have basically learned what wild plants are edible through trial and error. While walking backcountry trails, I sample random leaves that appear to have digestible potential. This isn’t a process I necessarily recommend, but it works for me. Basically, I let taste and texture serve as my guide while adhering to a few simple rules. First, while a lot of green plants have a disagreeable flavor, there are very few in the Rocky Mountains that will truly sicken you if ingested. As far as I know, and from what I’ve read, there isn’t a single plant that tastes good but is also poisonous. Toxic plants taste terrible and you should know the second one touches your tongue. Same goes for harvesting wild berries. Poison berries are gross, although it’s worth mentioning that even some of the edible berries don’t have a particularly pleasant taste, especially prior to ripening.

          Such is the case of the elder berry. This purple fruit grows in clusters resembling tiny grapes and while it can be processed into tasty wines and marmalades, the berry itself runs a tad bitter. Actually, because a lot of wild flora tends to taste sour, I keep plenty of water on hand to wash out the flavor of anything nasty. Also, if a particular leaf actually tastes agreeable, I will only eat a small sample the first time around and then wait to see if I experience any kind of adverse reaction. Never eat more than a bite of something until you are sure it is safe and even then, gradually increase the amounts until you are certain an actual portion can be consumed risk free.

          While this taste testing strategy may work on plants and fruits, I do not push my luck with the immense variety of mushrooms. When it comes to fungi, I will only eat, or even taste, what I can positively identify. Thankfully, the edible mushrooms are fairly easy to recognize. Again, while my harvesting techniques have yet to land me in any kind of trouble, I have spent my life in the forest, possess a certain familiarity with the common flora, and make no claim this system will work for others. Besides the inherent risk of eating wild plants, there are other concerns to consider, especially this time of year.

          “Tick!” Jamie says suddenly stopping in mid-stride. The tone of her voice is laced with disgust. She plucks the flat red arachnid off her shirt and while grinding her teeth in anger, crushes the blood sucker between her thumbnail and index finger. “Die you bastard!”

          Ticks and the potentially life-long blood diseases some carry, have zero diplomatic immunity in our eyes. Despite a two week anti-biotic treatment, the last bite Jamie suffered led to an entire year of swollen lymph nodes and periodic outbreaks of itchy bumps. So, when we see one, it dies. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile our more Buddhist like beliefs with our blood lust for ticks, but no spiritual philosophy is complete without a few hypocritical quirks. Besides, if someone can point out a useful role they serve in the grand scheme of things, I’d be willing to reconsider my prejudice.

          Jamie’s tick is the first of many. The higher we climb the more we find, appearing from seemingly out of nowhere to lurch across our clothes, backpacks, and exposed flesh searching for some warm, hair-covered crevice to call home. Each one is met with a similar, and hopefully painful, fate. Their peak season typically runs from March to May, but it really depends on the weather and elevation. Ticks do not like the heat and by the end of June are much harder to find. Or, as I should say, the less they tend to find you. Despite the lateness of their season, we are approaching the lingering snowline and up here, the little devils remain abundant.

          In addition to ticks, other harvesters, particularly mushroom hunters, have a surly reputation when it comes to protecting their favorite patches. I have heard of firearms being drawn and vehicles sabotaged more than once. As Jamie and I round a bend and come face to face with two young men in dirty hiking clothes, I wonder if we have encountered some fellow foragers. One of them has a wicked looking knife on his belt and the other is holding a broken branch that is much too heavy to be an effective walking stick, otherwise they carry no gear. Instinctually, my left hand slips into my pocket to ensure the razor sharp blade I always carry is where it’s supposed to be.

          “Nice day for a hike,” Jamie says in her usual beguiling manner. My wife is nicer than I am and thus the communicator. My job is to look intimidating and only talk if I have to when encountering strangers in the total isolation of Idaho’s backcountry.

          As it turns out, the two aren’t harvesters, but rather two city kids, one from Dallas, the other from Las Vegas, out to prove something to themselves by experiencing genuine wilderness for the first time. They are on an epic hiking quest throughout the Pacific Northwest, trying to hit as many broad expanses of backcountry as they can. At least that is their story, but the young man with the sheaved knife keeps throwing harsh looks at his companion as details of their trip drop readily from the other guy’s tongue. The talkative fellow has a blond beard, rosy cheeks, and must weigh close to three hundred pounds. He is easily the heaviest individual I have ever seen this high in the mountains. Part of me is struck with a sense of admiration, but the more suspicious side, knowing how hard this sort of physical activity can be for even a lean individual, can’t help wondering if they are on the run and hiding out for some reason.

          “So you guys do have actual supplies?”’ Jamie asks, fishing for information. “You must have a camp nearby…”

          The blond fellow opens his mouth to speak, but is cutoff by his friend. “We’re camped back that way,” he says, vaguely motioning down the trail from where we just came. “Where are you two headed?”

          Jamie tries to reply, but like our new acquaintance just did to his buddy, I interrupt her with an equally obscure gesture pointing towards the snow-covered mountain tops, “We’ll be up there somewhere.” After a few more awkward pleasantries, we move on with me sneaking glances over my shoulder. “What do you make of those two?” I ask.

          “Not sure,” she replies. “I hope they know what they’re doing, but Dallas and Las Vegas? Not sure their backgrounds have prepared them for something like this. Why, do you think they were lying?”

          I shrug. “Not sure about lying, but I get the sense we weren’t hearing the whole truth. In any case, let’s create some distance between us and them, shall we?”

          Shortly after our encounter with the two young men, Jamie and I jump over a small stream and notice a fresh bear track in the mud lining the bank. The track is as large as one of my outstretched hands, its claws unmistakable in the damp earth. A quarter mile later, we find an even fresher pile of bear scat. Unlike domesticated horses, our wild and furry friend had the good manners to turn his body sideways and drop his business just off the steep trail side. The massive pile is bright green indicating that we’re not the only ones out foraging for plants; our omnivorous neighbor has clearly eaten its fill.

          With my attention somewhat scattered by the prospects of strange men and bears, I walk right past the first few morels before realizing we are standing in an actual patch. We planned on doing some off-trail mushroom hunting once we reached a certain elevation, but clearly, Jamie and I are the first to venture this high this year or the bounty at our feet would have been already harvested. Like ticks, morels don’t like the heat and are usually past their season by mid-June, but the cool mountain tops are where their season extends a little longer. Even so, half of the morels are already beyond their prime. The ones having already dried out, we pick, pull apart, and scatter to create more next year. The rest, still heavy with moisture, are carefully cut at the top of their stems and deposited in a plastic container for safe storage. All in all, the morel harvest is fairly meager, but we have enough to transform a couple of meals into a king’s banquet.

          Another hour into our hike, we draw even with the snowline on the opposite side of the drainage. It being the southern aspect and receiving less direct sun, the snow still covers most of the mountain face. On our northern side, we are just entering the elevation where sporadic snow banks still shadowed by trees cling to life. Predictably accompanying the retreating snow, we soon find ourselves in the midst of a sizable patch of tannish-orange calf brain mushrooms. Less predictable is the sheer volume and size of these hardy fungi. Never have I seen so many of the delicacies and some are actually larger than the gray matter of your average bovine.

          While not as tasty as the legendary morel, they do possess a similar hardy texture and are just as easy to identify. If you see what appears to be the scooped out innards of something’s skull, somewhere between the circumference of a silver dollar and cantaloupe, lying on the ground near melting snow, you have found a calf brain. As it is with the fake morel, some people insist they contain a mild toxin, but I, and other people I‘ve met, have been eating them practically our whole lives and have yet to experience any kind of problem.

          After gathering enough “brains” to make a zombie jealous, we return to our hike. With ample foraging success, we now need a camp for the night. Still removing the occasional tick before it can bite one of us, Jamie and I climb high enough we are approaching the northern slope’s snowline. It is at this point in our journey that Jamie suddenly stops short in front of me causing me to run into her backpack. I hear the problem before I have a chance to ask what’s wrong. The distinct sound of claws scraping wood reaches my ears and over the top of Jamie’s head, I see a shaggy animal pulling itself into view up a sun bleached ponderosa snag right next to the trail before us.

          My initial reaction is to grab Jamie by the shoulders and start pulling her backwards. A second later, I realize the creature itself poses us no threat and we stop in our tracks to admire a yearling bear cub staring down at us with frightened eyes. Although technically a black bear, the animal is easily the blondest of the species I have ever seen. The young bear looks like a juvenile grizzly, or at least as though it has been to a salon for a summer dye job. An instant later, operating on some mutual wavelength, Jamie and I begin swiveling our heads in every direction for what has to be a nearby mom while we continue our back peddling.

          Fifty yards is too close to a bear cub, thirty feet is just stupidly pushing one’s luck. As we withdraw, the young animal shimmies down the tree, leaps back onto the trail and charges uphill quickly disappearing out of sight. We don’t see any sign of the mother and are left wondering if the cub has been orphaned. Bears have some of the most devoted and protective mothers in the wild, so only a serious, possibly fatal incident would have separated the two. We choose to believe, she is just ahead of us on the trail, and no doubt, joined her baby as it scampered past. The alternative is pretty grim to consider as most cubs need a couple years with their mothers before fully learning the ropes of the wilderness.

          Not wishing to cause more stress to the bear, or its mother, we opt to turn around and head back to the last flat piece of ground we can remember for our night’s campsite. Both of us are eager for supper and tired of removing the blood sucking arachnids that have been with us for the last several miles and are developing a case of tick fever. The symptoms of this illness are really more mental where every little breeze blown hair feels like something crawling across one’s skin. Tick fever also results in a lot of anxious dreams and restless nights. Not wishing to succumb to a full blown case, we descend down the mountain along with the lengthening shadows of a setting sun.

          After setting up camp, we prep our salad fixings and whip up a hot dish containing two kinds of sautéed mushrooms. The meal is a godsend, delicious in every way, but it still pales to our memory of that morel infused cheeseburger. Oh well, just another reason to keep harvesting, and besides, our foraged supper beats anything we are carrying in our packs. Our backup plan, had we been unable to find food, is beef jerky and trail mix so we are happy to be eating something other than the packing staples we have long grown sick of.

          It won’t be long until Jamie and I return to the mountains to not only gather more salad fixings and mushrooms, but to also wallow in our sizable berry picking addiction. We aren’t afraid to compete with grizzlies for the most delectable and abundant patches, and have even ran afoul of the Rocky Mountain King while foraging in Glacier National Park. However, if you’ve ever taken a plump huckleberry and crammed it inside the cavernous pit of a ripe thimbleberry and eaten both at the same time, you will never again question why otherwise level-headed individuals are willing to dodge bears, mix it up with dubious foragers, and risk their lives to get one sticky finger on Idaho’s glorious backcountry bounty.

The Lonely Devil

2011-07-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

There is no team
In I
No rag tag collection
Of likeminded renegades
No partner in crime
No third eye
Covering my backside

Because I subscribe
To nothing
And the ether therein
Any allegiance
Is strictly a matter
Of nebulas circumstance
Easily misplaced
Amongst the shifting sands

It is my footprints
And mine alone
Tracking a line back
Along the beach
For as far as I can see
Or remember

Too heavy
For anyone to carry
I drag my baggage
Over the castles
Of other people’s dreams
Fabrications and delusions
Forever chasing
A long lost horizon
Large enough for two

Loud Colors

2011-07-05T08:14:00.001-07:00

Sorting through the ash
Acrid smoke
And spent cardboard artillery
Of last night’s
Country wide war
City streets blackened
And left in ruin
Somehow
Suitably encapsulating
Our precious freedom
To set the world aflame
Just as Jesus
Surely intended

Like everything else
Stolen and made stupider
This Chinese invention
Washed down
With all the lager
Lips and assholes
Any God fearing glutton
Can stomach
While the rest
Are left to the battlefields
Wondering
How an exploding carnival
Is supposed to represent
The best
Our tribe has to offer

Inexorable Horizon

2011-06-30T20:43:00.001-07:00

We invented your face
And swinging arms
To make sense
Of the enveloping chaos
And though
You react accordingly
When observed and measured
There is something subversive
Taking place
When our backs are turned
Or eyelids drop
Some paradox
Of perpetual motion
Gaining velocity
When it’s presence
Isn’t even possible

I blinked
And blew out a candle
As a dozen birthdays
Turned to dust
Friends rotted on the vine
Blood turned bitter kerosene
Lovers fled a time
Space and matter
Consuming black hole
Possibly thinking
This void was something
Of my design
Rather than the
Downhill building emptiness
Through which we all pass

Muir's Nightmare

2011-06-29T15:28:00.000-07:00

Polished granite domes
Of inconceivable size
And character
Silver skull caps
Swarming with insects
Sit in silent contemplation
Above ancient intermingling
Redwood
Ponderosa and cedar

Titans of rock and wood
And long defeated flesh
Now look down on this valley
With a sense of weathered
Resignation

Whitewater and winter storms
Fall through a vacuum
Its captors
Would have you believe
Still exists
The remains
A forgotten skeleton
Left flattened
At the base
Of a towering temple
Now treated
As a threat
To insecure egos

One man’s sanctuary
Turned carnival
A unique consciousness
Abandoned and left disfigured
By those who shadowed
His trail
But never
Followed the leader

Wilderness is Where you Find It

2011-06-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

          From a branch thirty feet in the air, a juvenile great horned owl leans forward until its momentum is about to carry the predator off its ponderosa perch. At the last second, the raptor changes its mind, and with a panicked flapping of developing wings, manages to balance itself once again. The young owl has successfully flown a couple of times, but despite its natural instincts, is still far from comfortable with the idea. I don’t blame him, those first steps into thin air constitute a leap of faith most of us can barely imagine. Despite the aborted hunt, the owl’s golden eyes remain riveted on two squirrels darting around my feet. The feathered carnivore’s head bobs up and down and swivels in circles seemingly independent of its shoulders. Thinking I might have a treat, the rodents are oblivious to the fact I am actually trying to get one of them eaten.

          “C’mon, Bubbles,” I say. “You can do it. Mom isn’t gonna help anymore and Squeak is tired of you stealing her food. “

          I hear footsteps on the sidewalk behind me and turn to see a middle-aged, blond lady escorting an older gentleman with a cane. The gaunt, white bearded man is dressed in a black leather jacket adorned with faded military patches, and the elbow of his free hand is hooked around the woman’s arm for support. They step off the sidewalk giving me a wide birth, possibly wondering why I am staring at the sky and talking to myself. Not surprising. Some of the regulars on these grounds don’t possess the well-groomed, manicured thought processes you might associate with the perfect lawns and flowerbeds. Some folks here are visibly damaged, while others suffer from demons unseen. I hear her say something about “aggressive squirrels” and realize it is actually the free-loading rodents they are trying to circumvent.

          “I’m trying to thin out their numbers,” I offer, “but my great horned attack owl is still in training.”

          As I have come to expect over the last two months, the woman’s face brightens with curiosity. “A great horned owl?” she asks, forgetting about the squirrels. Stepping shoulder to shoulder with me she peers into the branches overhead. “Where?”

          Although the young owl is sitting in plain sight, almost nobody can spot them right away. Even when I point them out, people still struggle to see them. Humans are no longer programmed to truly take note of their natural surroundings, and why should they? It isn’t like we need to worry about sabre-tooth tigers. Because of our gradual separation from the outside world over the last 10,000 years, our environmentally regulated homes, and a former wilderness now almost entirely subjugated to mankind’s indomitable will, we rarely pay attention to nature’s subtle cycles, account for the changing seasons, or wonder what marvelous wildlife might be sitting directly overhead. However, once I point out one of my owls, the reaction from strangers is quite predictable.

          “Oh my,” she exclaims, “would you look at that. Dad, do you see the owl?” she asks, her voice laced with enthusiasm. The man’s eyes light up as he locates the brown and tan creature barely visible against the identically colored tree bark.

          “Now that’s some camouflage,” he says admiring the bird, “those squirrels don’t stand a chance.”

          “Ol’ Bubbles has a big sister around here somewhere,” I tell them. “This one is the more cautious of the two. He can barely fly at this point and tends to let Squeak do the hunting while mooching the rewards.”

          “Bubbles?” the lady laughs. “And Squeak?

          “Yeah,” I say, and can’t resist tacking on my usual joke, “Bubbles is the serious one.”

          I have been watching the owls since early spring when they were small football shaped mounds of down bouncing around in their nest just outside the entrance to the Veterans Affairs Hospital. Working for the State Veterans’ Home on the same property allows me the opportunity to check on them during my morning and afternoon breaks. However, now that the kids are flying and the trees have filled out with plush greenery, the young owls are much harder to find. Between the two kids and mated parents, I am fortunate to spot one of the four owls during any given walk.

          In addition to serving military vets, one of the reasons I chose to work for the Division of Veterans Services is the quiet, expansive grounds nestled in at the very edge of the Rocky Mountain foothills in Boise. Years ago, I lived a few blocks away and would jog here as morning broke over the city. At the time, the entire complex was overrun with adorable wild rabbits. I would see patients, family members, and employees feeding the bunnies during those tranquil dawns and I remember thinking it somehow odd that an area built for military personnel could radiate such an overwhelming sense of peace. Although barely separated from a major city’s downtown madness, the towering old trees and lush expansive lawns feel like an outdoor cathedral for the wounded warriors and their dedicated healers. The hospital and home radiate a quiet sense of respect not always found in the medical field or long term care facilities.

          Although not a military veteran, I too feel the need for this quiet removal from the chaos of everyday life. When it comes to crowds, traffic, and noise, I am the proverbial long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Without constant retreats into the isolated Idaho backcountry, I would lose my mind altogether and the results wouldn’t be pretty. That’s no exaggeration. I have struggled with mental illness most my life, fighting a battle against an enemy I barely understand. I don’t know if there is a technical diagnosis for what ails me, but because I refuse mind and mood altering medication, the only cure I have found is recharging my batteries in the wild. Thankfully, only a handful of people have seen me on days when I am in danger of losing the war altogether, and I a regret having ever involved innocent bystanders in the collateral damage of my internal conflict.

          I detect similar upheaval in some of the veterans walking these grounds. As a testament to their training, intestinal fortitude, and inherent character, the majority have somehow weathered their individual storms with good humor and laughing eyes; they nod at passersby’s, are quick to smile, and often times, despite some readily apparent disability, look like they are quite willing to stare the world square in the face and ask, “What else you got?”

          Other veterans shuffle by, trapped in their own nightmare, staring at their feet and looking as though as stiff wind could topple them over. A few even remind me of the skittish mule deer who work their way down from the foothills and spend the spring raising their fawns on our sea of lush grass. And who can blame them? I’ve never seen combat and still, depending on which side of the bed I wake up on, my thought processes are loaded with anxiety, violence, and paranoia. Despite this chemical imbalance, I can’t begin to imagine the sights, sounds, and smells some of these soldiers have been subjected to, or what might have happened with my own mental state had I ever experienced anything even remotely similar.

          There are all sorts of hell out there in the world, all types of trauma that can reduce the strongest man to a shadow of his former self, and sometimes, that is just the inescapable reality of war. All we can do is help pick up the pieces, honor their sacrifices, and do our best to make their daily lives as free from pain and fear as we possibly can. By working here, volunteering, or just visiting, one can’t help but adopt the mission statement of “Caring for America’s Heroes.”

          As the blond woman and her father move on, I continue my walk around the V.A. Hospital wondering what ever happened to all those rabbits. I haven’t seen one in years. I suspect there was human intervention at some point as breeding bunnies can quickly spiral out of control, but I bet prior to that they were making regular meals for the fox and coyote who patrol these grounds. I have seen these wild canines make a meal of our quail and squirrel hordes with brutal, bloody efficiency.

          Hunters like them, my owls, and one particularly sassy feral orange cat who enjoys taking naps on warm car hoods, create a peculiar dichotomy on these grounds designed for healing. I have even heard a nurse wonder aloud as to why predator and prey populations can’t get along. Of course, she said this after I showed her the severed face of squirrel with its brain eaten out as an example of what my great horned owls are capable of. The vets I have taught to locate owls by searching the base of trees for their pellets of half-digested victims, simply find the carnage fascinating. Even those who have seen their share of violence, still accept the natural order without blinking an eye.

          Rounding the back corner of the V.A. grounds, I am greeted by the inevitability of a hospital and long term care facility. An older man lies on the sun baked asphalt between a strip of parking spots and the hospital’s main entrance. He has collapsed in the street and there is a nurse at his side, cradling the man’s head and whispering in his ear. On the narrow road, cars have piled up behind the two people, some people impatiently inching their car to one side to see if they can slip around. A couple police officers, standing still as statues, serve as living hazard cones behind unblinking sunglasses, but do nothing to physically assist the man.

          As I approach the almost surreal scene, I can hear the man apologizing for the traffic jam. Showing his true veteran colors, he is more concerned about momentarily interfering with the lives of others than whatever ailment dropped him straight to the ground in the middle of a busy street. Meanwhile, the auburn-haired nurse tries to assure him the cars can wait and that everything will be okay. Feeling somewhat useless, I continue past the huddled group without breaking stride. Approaching me on the sidewalk is another old timer dressed in a weathered unbuttoned camouflage jacket about two sizes too small and a black Harley Davidson t-shirt. With expressionless eyes he surveys the situation and just as we pass, I hear him break into song beneath his breath. In a flat, mono-tone voice, he quietly chants the chorus to Queen’s classic, “Another One Bites the Dust.”

          My initial reaction is take offense at the man’s callous indifference of what is clearly another human being suffering, and not only that, a fellow veteran. However, it’s then I realize, the fact it is a vet might very well be what led to such a response. Veterans tend to have a more realistic and familiar relationship with death. Many have seen it up close and have long abandoned the foolish notion that any of us are getting out of this mission alive. Death is the great equalizer of all life be one rich, poor, white, black, man, woman, animal, plant, civilian or soldier. The nature of a vet’s occupation ensures they are more prepared to deal with that reality than others. There is no glee, or twisted humor in the singing man’s eyes, but rather just a sense of resignation knowing a similar fate awaits us all.

          The man’s response ultimately reminds me of my own when I recently discovered the mangled body of a baby owl. There were three of the great horned raptors growing up in that nest at one time, but as it often times happens in nature, one of the young ones fell from its sanctuary to impending death below. A midnight marauder, most likely fox or coyote, sniffing around tree trunks for the ripe feathered fruit of early spring found the helpless infant and tore it to pieces. An exposed rib cage and some bare legs ending in budding black talons were all I found. A grisly scene for sure, but one I was prepared to deal with after a lifetime of experiencing the raw Idaho wilderness. The natural order of things teaches that every miracle of birth also guarantees a future death; it’s just a matter of time and circumstance.

          I like to believe that despite our obvious differences, I have something in common with these old soldiers. In the absence of backcountry wilderness, the aura radiating from the V.A. campus is one I find myself craving. I feel a similar soul cleansing when strolling these grounds, a calming effect that is more precious to me than I can possibly quantify or explain. The vets, their families, the nurses and other employees feel this sensation as well, of that I am certain. We may come from different backgrounds, we may have walked vastly different paths, we may have differing opinions on politics and war, but when I see the eyes of a stranger open wide to experience the simple joy of a great horned owl infiltrating civilization, I know on some base level we all need a little help to ease our mind’s burden of turmoil and keep our lives in perspective.

Yosemite Dreams

2011-06-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

For the first time
California is calling
Across state lines
A rainbow of black bears
And ivory snowfields of her
High Sierras
Whispering names
Welcoming the arrival
Of two she has yet to greet

She smells
Our blood type
Right through distant veins
And feels us coming
To ford her swollen creeks
Ignore her trampled trails
Climb to a breathless height
Somewhere above
Her half invested audience
For some candid face time
With a God
Of our American Olympus

The Fourth Act

2011-06-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

One too many
Chemical cocktails
A natural regression
Another persona taking hold
Or have I just adopted
The zero tolerance policy
Found in my fiction’s
Most admired

In this movie
The perceived enemy
And object of my
Convictions
Is just flesh and bone
With children
I could leave fatherless
A husband
Whose widow would
Never understand
These hollow points
At my dispersal

Come to expect
The storm inside
To be apparent
Across my entire visage
Nearly selling myself
On the notion
That those who tease
The cyclone
Will witness the climax
They paid to see

Rocky Canyon (Ode to a Hot Spring)

2011-05-31T15:06:00.000-07:00

          With another smoke belching demon breathing down our heels, Nature Fox and I are forced to snowshoe to the very edge of the backcountry road. Hell’s storm troopers, hiding behind jumpsuits and tinted visors barely slow as their snowmobiles scream past, plastic heads swiveling to fix us with an unblinking Cyclops eye, their mechanical steeds leaving a violated forest to choke on burning oil and disregard. The very picture of a serene winter wonderland shattered like so much crystal. Probably causing some stressed wolverine to abandon a nearby den and condemn her pups to certain death. Just another piece of ugly collateral damage that nobody notices.

          Honoring an age old tradition of animosity between those who like to walk, silently appreciating nature’s inherent worth, and those who see wilderness as their own private racetrack, I counter their contempt with a look of pure malevolence. I don’t like you, I spit with my eyes. That’s right, I may be a tree-hugging greenie, but that doesn’t mean I’m a pacifist. I’d love to see one of you get off your lazy asses and say something. I’d stab you in the eye with my trekking pole before you could take one step.

          “Are you glaring at people again?” My wife’s voice interrupts my surly train of thought.

          “They aren’t people,” I explain. “Like Darth Vader, these bastards are more robot than flesh. I can be as hostile as I like.”

          “We’re a little outnumbered. You might want to keep that in mind.”

          “They’re a little outclassed,” I retort. “They might want to keep that in mind.”

          The bad news is that we have to deal with the chaotic intruders for a couple more miles. The good news is that we’ll be camping out here in this winter landscape while our fair weather friends will pack up their machines before nightfall and retreat to the safety of their homes. That, and at one point we will wade across an icy river bare-legged to reach our evening’s destination, a route no snowmobile can possibly undertake, and one I have yet to see any of their riders even attempt. Walkers are simply a tougher breed. Or, the line between stupidity and bravery could be finer than I like to believe. In any case, we should be alone at some point for one hot evening… even with the nightly temperatures guaranteed to drop below zero.

          We hear the building roar of more snowmobiles, only this time ahead of our position, and once again, we barely make it to the edge of the road before the procession of dark machines fly by. A quarter-mile behind the rest of the noise parade, and moving at half the speed, is a solitary snowmobiler dressed all in black. The slender cyborg slows even further and swings towards us at the last second before coming to a sudden halt.

          “Oh, here we go,” I whisper, one hand reaching for my pocket.

          While I’m trying to decide if I should attempt the clumsy removal of snowshoes for the pending confrontation, the dark rider removes their helmet to reveal an old lady with long silver hair pulled back in a ponytail. Despite her age, the woman is a natural beauty, possessing the kind of face that would seem marred with the application of make-up. Deep wrinkles and tan skin betray a life spent in the sun and wind.

          “I can’t even keep up on one these infernal contraptions,” she says breathing heavy plumes of steam and beaming at us with a rosy-cheeked smile. “Even my great grandniece is leaving me in the dust. Still, I can’t imagine not being out here. Does anything compare to all this beauty?”

          “How would you know?” I mutter just loud enough for Nature Fox to hear. The train of thought continues inside my head. How do you appreciate anything with your eyes focused on the trail while your ears and nose are choked with clamor and smoke?

          “What’s that?” she asks, the sweetness in her tone never wavering.

          “He said he’s jealous,” says Nature Fox, half-stepping in front of me. “You’ve probably covered ten times the distance we have… and in a fraction of the time.”

          “Well dearie, if I have learned anything in all my years, it’s that anything worth doing is worth taking your own sweet time. Speakin’ of which, it’s been a long time since I could hack snowshoeing. You walkin’ in to Rocky Canyon?”

          “Yep.”

          “Can you believe what that guy has done? I’ve never seen anything like it. Wish he had built those up when I was still young enough to attempt that crossing.”

          My wife nods her head in agreement. “They’re the best in all of Idaho. Now if we can just keep the jackholes out of there, we should be ok.”

          “Jackholes?” the woman asks, her smile broadening even further. “That’s a new one. But yeah, some folks be itchin’ to trash everything in sight. I’ll never understand it. Anyway, you two have a blast. I better catch up before they send someone back for me.”

          With that, the old lady throws her helmet on and fires up the high-pitched scream of her snowmobile. As she takes off down the road after her comrades, Jamie fixes me with a comically raised eyebrow.

          “Can you believe the nerve of that monster?” she laughs. “I thought for sure we were about to come to blows.”

          Even though I am chuckling right along with my wife on the inside, my response is a dead-pan, “I could have taken her. I’m not afraid to push an old woman down.”

          “C’mon tough guy. We’ve still got some ground to cover.”

          My wife is right. I do feel a stab of envy when we’re several hours into the backcountry, sweating our asses off and carrying heavy loads when all the sudden some damn machine goes racing by. It feels like losing a fight to someone possessing half the strength, size, skill, and sheer will. Of course, I prefer walking because I believe that is how one truly connects with the natural world, but there are times when I wouldn’t mind some of those hard-earned miles to fly by a bit faster. Nature Fox and I can afford the toys, but could never rectify their co-existence with our environmental philosophies. By the time I’m the old woman’s age, they better have invented a silent hover board that is powered by my perpetual sense of animosity, and the damn thing needs to navigate itself so I can float through the mountains paying attention to my surroundings and not the road ahead.

          Despite our excitement to reach Rocky Canyon, there is a building sensation of apprehension as we march ever closer. There will be a toll to pay in the price of agonizing pain before we’ll experience the unparalleled pleasure of our journey's end. An hour after saying goodbye to the old woman, we round a bend in the snow covered road and see the root source of our dread and enthusiasm. Just across the icy river from our position, the steamy Shangri-La of Idaho’s best public hot spring awaits our arrival.

          The super-heated flow originates a hundred feet above the riverbank, cascading down a steep mountainside from one hand built soak to the next until finally joining the cold river. There are seven pools altogether, each one capable of holding three to four people, and all were built by a single man with a heart of gold and some serious determination. Constructed with environmental aesthetics in mind, even from our close vantage point, it is hard to separate the mortared pools from the natural rocks of the drainage. Even as long-time hot spring aficionados who have seen some of the world’s most spectacular pools, Jamie and I are still taken back with each visit to Rocky Canyon. It took a couple of years to complete, and the scope of the project is almost unfathomable, especially when considering how hard it would have been for a solitary individual to lug the necessary concrete across the river during the runoff season.

          At the lowest flow of the season, the current won’t be a huge concern for us, but we still have to be mindful of our footing. If one of us goes down and a backpack is submerged, our night’s trip will be over. We’ll have no choice but to beat a hasty retreat to our truck and its heater before nightfall. Standing on the riverbank, steeling ourselves for the ford, we notice a tent on the opposite bank and a couple of people in the upper most pool. Looks like we might have company for the evening after all. Oh well, experience has taught me that the most hardcore backpackers and winter campers, tend to be good, quiet people. Let’s hope so.

          Moving quickly, Jamie and I set our packs on a frozen tree stump while we strip out of boots and socks. The icy bank is frigid on bare feet but nothing compared to what awaits us. After switching into our river sandals, we hike up our pant legs, re-shoulder our packs, and drape the heavy footwear around our necks. We leave the waist and chest straps on our backpacks unbuckled. If one of us does go down, we don’t want to wind up our backs in the torturous ice melt like a stuck turtle. Especially me. There’s no way in hell my petite wife could lift me and all my wet gear, even helping me to my feet would be difficult. Across the river, I see the two soakers giving us their full attention. I understand. Sometimes, it’s fun to watch others suffer.

          “You ready?” I ask my wife while dancing in place to keep warm.

          “No,” she replies interlocking an elbow with one of mine, “but I’m not getting any readier. Let’s do this.”

          Holding onto each other for balance, we step off the bank and into the shin deep flow of ice cold water. The discomfort turns positively hurtful before we have taken half a dozen steps. The trick is to move quickly without moving fast, an endeavor further complicated because we have to find secure footing with one sandal before the other leg can follow. There is also a temptation to lift your foot entirely out of the river with each step for a second of relief, but invariably either the act of pulling out, or putting back in, causes water to splash on the bottom of your backpack.

          We are almost a third of the way across before the first true wave of pain washes over us. Now, there are all different sorts of pain in life and I have experienced my share. From third degree burns, to biting my tongue in half, to being left stranded hunched over a ski lodge bar with broken ribs while nature Fox finished her day of snowboarding, I am right familiar with the concept. And truth be told, I’ve always had a rather masochistic relationship with pain; I kind of like it. Makes me feel alive. For some reason though, the acute ache of snowmelt on submerged skin is one even I struggle to tolerate for any length of time. By the halfway point, I am crushing my wife’s hand as if her fingers are a branch to bite on while having an appendage amputated.

          “Mother of God have mercy,” I hiss through gritting teeth. My lovely wife supplements my assessment with a string of f-bomb laced expletives capable of making the Devil uncomfortable.

          Only twenty feet away now, I can hear the pooling geothermal water at the opposite bank calling my name. The sulfur has never smelled sweeter. Meanwhile, the water is getting deeper, the current stronger. The freezing torture has climbed over my kneecaps and is halfway up Jamie’s thigh. We press the pace, causing both of us to slip, and for one breathless second it feels like we are going to jerk each other off our feet. We somehow recover at the last second, and with our very bones screaming in agony, plow through the final ten feet of river and plunge our feet into the first algae ridden puddle of hot water.

          It takes a moment for our brains to realize the torture is over, but in a manner of seconds we are able to quit clenching our fists and cursing the gods. Were it not for the merciful relief of the hot spring, our feet would have continued the unbearable ache for at least another minute. At the top off the rocky drainage, looking like boiled lobsters, the two soakers offer us a round of applause. Good. Anyone making that ford without rubber waders deserves some recognition. Nature Fox and I wave back at them and once our lower legs are thoroughly warm, begin scouring the narrow strip of river bank for a suitable tent site.

          The other couple had erected their camp on a patch of exposed boulders directly in the path of the billowing steam. Interesting decision. I mean, they do have a plastic tarp draped over their tent, but I can’t imagine the dampness not seeping through the seams and eventually getting everything wet. That, or when the temperature really drops, they’ll wake up to a layer of ice over their shelter so thick they might find themselves trapped in an igloo with no door. Not to mention that it would take a couple of king sized mattresses stacked together to not feel the lumpy rocks beneath their bed.

          Jamie and I move downstream from the vapor cloud and set up our tent on top of a crusty snow bank. We place our plastic tarp below the tent. Sure, the ground is freezing, but our Thermarest sleeping pads will keep the cold at bay, and at least we’ll have level ground. We have just finished establishing our site and are eating a quick snack when the other couple descends from the top pool wrapped in large beach towels. Their visible skin is bright red and letting off steam like they have become one with the geothermal water.

          Ready for our own soak, we pass the other couple on our way to the pools. The other man and I make momentary eye contact, two naturally guarded men of the wild assessing the other with a penetrating glance. I realize I know him and my hard look instantly softens. We had only chatted on one other occasion, but he is none other than the designer and builder of the stupefying luxury before us. He too must go out of his way to avoid crowds. The last time we spoke he was working like a beaver on meth to finish mortaring the last couple soaks, barely taking a moment for any chitchat.

          “Hey, we know you,” my wife interjects. “I can’t even tell you what an amazing thing you have done here. I mean the whole thing is just awesome!”

          “Top three public soaks in all Idaho,’ I add. “We didn’t expect to see anybody else doing an overnighter though.”

          “Neither did we,” says the red haired woman at his side. Her tone betrays a subtle disappointment and I don’t blame her. I am feeling it too. For some reason, I am hard pressed to consider a soaking experience a true success unless it was done in relative privacy. Obviously, if anybody has my blessing to share this location, it’s him. He has no reason to feel the same way about us, but our complimentary nature seems to have won him over.

          “Enjoy it while you can,” he says as his pleasant expression turns suddenly bitter. “The Forest Service is threatening to have the whole thing ripped out.”

          My wife and I stare at him stupidly for a second as if he just told us about the existence of man-eating river sharks. “What? Why?” Jamie finally sputters.

          “That doesn’t make any sense,” I say. It’s not like you snuck in these pools overnight. They watched you build it for a couple of years… and now they have a problem?”

          “I know,” he replies. “Wish they would have stopped me before I lugged thousands of pounds of concrete across the river… wasting a ton of my time and money if they blow her up.”

          “But why?” Jamie asks again. “Don’t they know the trash pit this place used to be? All those plastic tarps and broken bottles. Most people actually take care of Rocky Canyon these days and that’s totally because of what you have done.”

          “Each time it’s a different reason. They’re saying the tribes have a problem with it, that it was built without a permit, and that it’s an ‘attractant’… whatever that means.”

          “Well, of course, it’s an attractant, that’s why we’re here,” I say. “The Forest Service is run by crooks. Hell, all of Idaho is governed by crooks.”

          Sensing the beginning of a long tirade on the Gem State’s anti-environmental conservative leanings, my wife attempts to cuts me off with a question. “Don’t you work for the state of Idaho?”

          “Yes. Yes, I do. And the boss of my boss is the most evil, ignorant, wanna-be cowboy of the bunch. And the sad thing is that I would normally tell you the inefficiencies of government would delay or prevent them from ever actually doing anything but blabbing about this place, but when it comes to making ill-informed, destructive decisions, they tend to proceed full steam.”

          Galvanized over our little political cause out in the middle of the Idaho wilderness, the four of us rant and rave for a good half hour before parting ways, them heading to camp for dinner and us heading up the drainage to finally soak. Proving the old adage correct, we start at the highest, hottest pool and then move down testing three soaks before finding one of perfect temperature. In our rock-walled bath, Jamie and I lay back and let the hot water work its considerable magic on our tired naked bodies.

          Forgetting about the obnoxious snowmobiles, the brutal river ford, unexpected company, and potentially devastating news, I do my very best to think about not thinking at all. Normally impossible for my incessantly chattering brain, but in the blissful steam and super-heated geothermal pool, out-of-body experiences feel like the norm. Setting aside my usual cynicism, I become one with the mountainous landscape, and on some deep spiritual level I find the faith to believe all this too shall pass; our planet will one day shake off mankind’s sickness like a wet dog drying its fur and everything will revert to a balanced state. A new Eden where an evolved version of our species lives in harmony with the planet and understands our role in the cosmic spider web.

          My spiraling thoughts are reluctantly dragged back to reality by the distant whine of more snowmobiles. Across the river a party of three howls by, headlights flashing as dusk settles over the river valley. The sight of them reminds me that we have to walk back out tomorrow, no doubt dealing with an endless parade of the wailing smoke machines. I also find myself thinking about making the river crossing again. Unlike today, there will be no warm pool awaiting our frozen legs on the far side, making today’s pain seem almost trivial. Then again, there are some pleasures in life worth the torture, no matter how unbearable it might feel at the time. Sliding down deeper in our natural hot tub as the noise of the last snowmobilers fades, I smile at my wife. Is it too much to wish certain moments, certain places, and certain loves could last forever?

A Bullet with my Name

2011-05-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

Born in the barrel
Of a .44
With one good eye
And like the stinging bee
Lucky to get its shot off
I am
Smoking breath to live
And take
A solitary synapse
Entombing second chance
In a flash of primer
Preceding inescapable trajectory

A white hot
Messenger on the lips
Of black powder kisses
This hollow point
Blossoming holes
In all that
Never would have been
Had my casing
Rolled off the assembly line
Unengaged

Life Support

2011-05-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

The eyes of an owl
An undeniable depth
To those black holes
A miracle to me
Capable of swooping down
And tearing the war
From before my face
Making me believe
This replanted forest
Might outlive
Its harvesters
Might overspill
Its impeccably planted rows
Split apart the concrete carpet
Expose suffocating soil
For a second chance
And live to be
An old growth haunt
For one of my soul savers
Once again

Falling on Swords

2011-05-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

          Peering over a three foot fence and holding back a lilac branch with the remains of his right hand, Spencer Rayne hears a burst of laughter slice through the still afternoon air. Sounding like the cackles of young boys, it appears to emanate from the abandoned house next door, and he can’t help wondering if his mind is up to its usual tricks. The laughs sound again, louder this time, and Spencer is about to change his view to a hole in the side fence when the mailwoman rounds the corner. Spencer glances at his watch. 13:35. Right on time. The woman is older than Spencer, blond hair showing the first streaks of white, but defined calves and shapely lower thighs climbing into the hems of her blue shorts reveal a woman still very much in shape. As she approaches his neighbor’s mailbox, Spencer hears the voices again except, instead of laughing, they are now chanting, “Kitty, kitty, kitty.”

          He glances around for his own Maine Coon. Mrs. Piggy, named for her unusual size and temperament, had been weaving through his legs in dizzying figure eights just minutes ago. A familiar hiss knifes through the air and Spencer doesn’t bother confirming his suspicions before he is on the move. With that excited energy he grew addicted to while conducting house sweeps in Baghdad, the young man darts along his fence line until he has a visual on the neighboring backyard. In the far corner of the lot, four teenagers are gathered around an old tin shed with the doors rusted wide open. The largest of the kids is using a long willow branch to poke at something inside the storage unit. Between their legs, he catches a glimpse of Mrs. Piggy pinned against the wall. She is puffed out to twice her normal size and baring her fangs as if daring any of the boys to make a move.

          Spencer’s mind is instantly filled with the sound of small-arms fire and concussive explosions. Ash and smoke obscure his vision a split second before everything turns red. The next thing he sees are two children, pale faces filled unholy terror, running past him as they might flee a descending Tomahawk helicopter. Another boy tries to back away, hands shielding his face, but instead, stumbles over his heels and winds up on his ass inside the shed.

          The largest boy, frozen in terror, has the willow ripped from his grasp so violently it leaves a burn across his palm. In the next instant, the chubby teenager is on his backside next to his friend. Stooping over the cowering youth is a camouflaged, black-bearded demon clutching the kid’s shirt in one fist while the only remaining finger on Spencer’s mutilated hand begins poking the boy’s forehead with every syllable he speaks. His voice, a barely audible hiss.

          “If I ever so much as see you walking down my street again, I will cut you in half. Do you understand?”

          There’s no way they could understand. There’s no way they could know. In the recesses of his nightmares, Spencer is picturing what is left of a young Iraqi boy holding a plastic machinegun while his commanding officer barks in his ear. The older man is trying to convince the young soldier he had made the correct choice. The only choice, given the circumstances.

          “You will have no one to blame but yourselves, if you ever get within a mile of my cat again.”

          The color continues to drain from the teenagers’ faces as if they are bleeding out, becoming ghosts, like the walking dead survivors of an I.E.D. slowly seeping from a hundred tiny holes. A dark spots appears and begins to spread in a circular manner across the crotch of the larger kid’s jeans. Something about the smell reminds Spencer of the post battle adrenaline rush, a moment when the thunder and adrenaline subsides and the shit, piss, and blood of war sets in.

          With the battle subsiding in his mind, Spencer is able to see himself through the boys’ naïve, petrified eyes. Suddenly aware of his grotesque finger, the young soldier slides his pink claw into a deep cargo pocket. Fighting off a flood of foolishness, Spencer steps back and straightens himself with a long, deep breath. Even Mrs. Piggy had shrunk against the wall in the wake of his radiating malevolence. The fat cat, recognizing her owner once again, takes the opportunity to leap across the two boys and then, defying her rotund appearance, bounds up over the fence separating the properties.

          Spencer drags both boys to their feet, and with a final, “Get the hell out of here,” shoves them towards the street. As the two boys trip over each other getting to full-speed, the older man realizes the mail carrier is standing in the road staring at him. The woman holds his gaze with a slightly cocked head before realizing they are making eye contact and quickly looks away. She misses Spencer’s awkward shrug, and hustles towards the next house on her route.

          “Real smooth,” he mutters, “the cops should be here any second. Screw it. Let ‘em come. I didn’t do anything. I could have… I should have, but didn’t. They can all go to hell.”

          Still grumbling under his breath, Spencer marches off to his backyard to check on Mrs. Piggy. Because of her tough nature, he half-expects to find her already taking a nap in a warm spring sunbeam. Instead, he rounds the back corner of his house to see his giant cat still fluffed to maximum size, turned sideways, and slowly advancing on his woodpile. Her hiss turning into a deep throated growl the likes of which Spencer had never heard.

          The young man’s first instinct is to make a joke about also hating the stack of cedar rounds because his intended firewood had been buried beneath a freakishly early snowstorm relegating them to expensive gas heat all winter. He decides the feline won’t appreciate his humor.

          “What’s with you? Still pissed about those punks? You could have taken at least two of them without my help.”

          The noises permeating from his twenty pound cat turn absolutely demonic as she approaches the base of the woodpile. Spencer begins considering the possibility of Mrs. Piggy having suffered some head trauma when he notices movement near the top of the mound. A grinning set of razor-sharp teeth emerges from the shadows of a hole tucked between the top logs and Spencer realizes his cat is only responsible for half the wretched, violent racket. The intruding beast, now extracting itself from the burrow with a set of three inch claws, is making sounds that would give Satan nightmares.

          Mrs. Piggy freezes in her tracks as the creature pulls itself into the light. Spencer recognizes the animal from a recent television documentary. As far as he knows, it is the first ever sighting in the small mountain town of Timberline and it is happening in his own backyard. The masked wolverine creeps towards the man and cat, spitting and gnashing its teeth in a manner every bit as intimidating as any legend of the predator would have people believe. Afraid to bend over and attempt to manage a squirming cat in one hand, Spencer backs away from the woodpile’s new king. Sensing her backup’s withdrawal, and for once displaying common sense, Mrs. Piggy retreats alongside her owner.

          The soldier almost bursts into maniacal laughter upon realizing his first instinct is to lob a grenade into the animal’s hole. In the next instant, he is locking eyes with the shaggy brown creature, its dark pupils shooting sparks from some inner fire. Spencer recognizes something coldly familiar in the creature’s unflinching gaze. As the animal reaches the base of the woodpile, the young man realizes the wolverine is dragging its hindquarters. Although there is no visible blood or bone, one of its legs is badly broken, the appendage hanging limp and useless from the wolverine’s hip socket.

          With a distant voice screaming, “Medic!” the young man notices the creature’s gaunt ribcage threatening to push through its tightly stretched hide. The predator’s fur is matted down in greasy patches, looking as though it has given up on grooming itself. Knowing the wolverine’s fierce reputation, Spencer is at a loss for what could have brought a warrior to such a sorry state.

          “Jesus buddy, did you take on an entire wolf pack, or we’re you hit by a car?”

          The wolverine continues its vicious display for a wary Mrs. Piggy while Spencer heads inside to rummage through his refrigerator. Upon returning, he tosses half a pound of expired bologna towards the base of the woodpile. The animal drags itself toward the pungent meat and begins to feed. Spencer almost laughs at the site of the terrifying animal as it is forced to swallow while maintaining its perpetual snarling. With the meal devoured in scant seconds, the wolverine inches backwards up the sloping woodpile into the darkness of its den, never taking its eyes from the man before it.

          “You’re welcome,” says the young soldier genuinely impressed by the animal’s ravenous nature. The wolverine reminds him of several young men at boot camp, bean poles defying physics with how much grub they could pack away.

          “Been a while since you ate, eh, or did your mom just never teach you any manners?”

          For the next week, Spencer is at the woodpile with the breaking dawn and again in the evening delivering meals to his visiting carnivore. Without fail, the scenario plays out exactly like the first time with the broken creature dragging itself from the cedar pile and churning out a barrage of stomach twisting growls as it wolfs through ample portions of chicken and pork chops. Skewering the young soldier and his cat with its black, dead-eyed glare, the animal eats every scrap, waits a second to see if more food will magically appear, and then slowly retreats to its home.

          The young soldier names the wolverine, Hank, after his deceased grandfather. Hank Rayne was the most disagreeable man Spencer had ever known. A World War II vet, the man returned from the front lines an equally hateful and self-loathing individual whose wife ultimately left him for less damaged goods. Even with nothing apparent to live for, the man held on for 100 years of chain-smoking drunkenness. Spencer’s father once said Hank would never die because Ol’ Beelzebub was afraid the bastard would single-handedly storm Hell’s gates and take over.

          Even though he was afraid of the man growing up, Spencer later began to admire his grandfather for having walked a road through life that few could stomach. He lived his daily existence his way and never compromised for anyone. He never felt that societal obligation to put a happy face on his bad feelings, but instead, chose to embrace the world in the manner it had presented itself. He knew of nature’s inherent ugliness and cruelty. He had seen it firsthand on the blood-stained fields of war. In that sense, Hank the wolverine is a lot like his grandfather. Almost nobody would look beyond those bitter outer shells, and Spencer was still too young at the time of Hank’s death to have done so, but through a wounded predator, feels a renewed connection with his equally damaged relative.

          On the seventh day of his woodpile’s occupation, Spencer and Mrs. Piggy approach Hank’s lair with a package of uncooked sausage. For the first time, they are greeted with silence instead of the wolverine’s guttural growls. His fat cat, stops just short of the cedar chunks and lifts her nose to test the air. The young man, standing on his tip-toes, tries to peer into Hank’s den, but can barely see inside the entrance.

          “Hank, you there buddy,” he asks while tossing a single link to the top of the woodpile. “I brought you some breakfast. Hope you like artificial maple flavoring.”

          There is no response, not a sound or hint of movement from within. Somehow, the eerie silence is more unnerving than the wolverine’s horrendous snarling. Ready to spring back if necessary, the young soldier stands on a section of stump, trying to get a better vantage point. At first, all he can see is impenetrable shadows, but the longer he stares, the more his eyes adjust to the darkness. At last he can make out the faint outline of a single paw nearly the size of his own hand down inside the hole. The unmoving appendage is all he can see. Spencer tosses another sausage link, this one landing inside Hank’s den almost touching one of the animal’s visible claws. Still, no movement. No sound. Nothing.

          “Hank, you ok?”

          An unsettling sensation creeps down Spencer’s spine. The soldier realizes he is consumed with concern. Not in a long time has he felt a genuine connection with a living thing other than his cat, but for some reason, the grumpy predator had wormed his way inside the young man’s consciousness. Mrs. Piggy punctuates the silence with a shrill cry as if also feeling the uneasiness in the air. Balancing on another cedar wedge lodged in the snow, Spencer steps half-way up the woodpile, but his view inside the wolverine’s den doesn’t improve. With a gruff, smoke ravaged voice barking in his ear, he knows what he needs to do. Nobody gets left behind.

          “I need you to trust me now, ok?”

          Moving purposefully now, the soldier climbs up the woodpile until he is at the mouth of the den, and then, with his good arm, Spencer reaches inside the hole. With alarms sounding in the back of his mind, he touches the cold ground inside and lets his fingers walk ever deeper into Hank’s lair. At the very edge of his reach, Spencer touches the paw. With a sudden intake of breath, he realizes the Hank’s calloused pads are faintly warm.

          “Jesus,” he shouts while with extracting his arm so quickly Spencer hits himself on the bridge of the nose. Fully expecting a crazed terror to follow his hand out the hole, the young soldier nearly leaps from the top of the pile to the ground below. When nothing happens, he is able to catch himself just before jumping. After collecting his nerves, Spencer reaches inside Hank’s den once more. Again, he feels the animal’s foot. In a less excitable frame of mind, the soldier realizes the flesh isn’t warm enough. Grabbing the animal’s paw tightly this time, Spencer pulls the heavy, lifeless wolverine from its home. Hank must have died within the last hour, his life force slowly fading into cold memory.

          The young soldier isn’t sure how much time has passed, but when he becomes aware of his surrounding once again, he is sitting on top of the woodpile cradling the wolverine in his lap, cheekbones damp and sticky. The creature’s bristly fur is clumped together and smells faintly of urine. Bothering Spencer the most are the wide-open eyes and frozen snarl on Hank’s face, lips pulled back in the menacing manner he’d grown used to. The wounded animal went to his death still fighting. There was no last second of peace, no pain-free drifting off into a dreamless sleep, the shaggy combatant new nothing but war in his final moments. What had always seemed an appropriate way for a warrior to die now tears through his heart like a sniper’s bullet. No soldier should have to die alone in his foxhole. With Mrs. Piggy curled up at his feet, he begins to plan a couple funeral celebrations. Another brother’s life played out like a cruel tragedy. But not without reason. He would see to that.

          The next day finds Spencer sitting at the edge of his street, pulling stubborn dandelions from around his mailbox. Pretending he can’t see her approaching feet from under the brim of his floppy ranger hat, the young man looks up in feigned surprise as the mailwoman reaches his house. Instead of the guarded expression he is expecting, the pretty blond woman is smiling down at him. Swallowing hard, Spencer climbs to his feet, wiping the dirt from his one good hand on his pants.

          “Look, I wanted to apologize for the other day. I might have gotten a little carried aw…” Spencer doesn’t finish his sentence before noticing the thick purple scar tissue starting at the woman’s throat and running down past the unbuttoned collar of her uniform. The sight reminds him of his own injury and he quickly slips the mangled hand into a pocket.

          “No big deal,” the woman stammers while awkwardly reaching up to pinch together the fabric exposing her neckline. “I saw what they were doing to your cat.”

          Spencer shifts his weight from one leg to the other, forcing his gaze away from whatever trauma she had clearly suffered. “Guess if they were your kids it might be a different story,” he says attempting a slight grin.

          Still fidgeting with her collar, the woman returns his smile. “Actually, one of the first kids you sent running is my boy. I laid into him when I got off work, but didn’t even need to. I think you taught them all a lesson they won’t soon forget. Sometimes, he reminds me of my ex, but he’s a good boy. And I’m glad you scared the piss out of that one chubby monster. I don’t like my son hanging out with him anyway.”

          Spencer laughs openly. It is a sound he barely recognizes from his youth. “I’m just glad I didn’t kill anyone. Some days…” he says trailing off.

          “I hear that,” she says. The woman then glances down to where his hand is hiding out of sight. “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

          The soldier’s reaction is a surprise even to himself. On any other day, talking to any other person, the question would have bothered him. The blond woman’s presence is somehow making Spencer feel hypnotically at ease. As if injected with truth serum, the young man suddenly wants to share his story with the beautiful woman standing before him.

          “Iraqi Freedom,” he says.

          “Figured as much.” The woman quits toying with her neckline, again revealing the dense scar tissue. “Desert Storm,” she says. “The ex never did get used to it, but you know what? Now that he’s gone, I don’t feel quite as self-conscious. It’s important my son sees me as a whole woman, a strong mother. Sometimes, when I wake up from another goddamn nightmare, and it feels as if those memories could swallow me whole, all I have to do is take a look at his sleeping face and I know what it is I am living for. Know what I mean?”

          Spencer looks past the woman, at the distant canopy of evergreens climbing the surrounding mountains, the blue sky and marshmallow clouds. He hears the distant chirping of starlings and notices Mrs. Piggy sauntering towards them across his lush, overgrown lawn. The warm breeze caressing his cheeks shoots electricity all across his body, a phantom sensation even tingling fingers that no longer exist.

          “I do know what you mean.” The young soldier removes his hat revealing a mop of curly black hair. “Listen, I don’t suppose you would like to get some dinner sometime?”

          The mail carrier blushes slightly, the color causing her to look like a shy, young girl. Finally looking back at Spencer, she says, “Leave an invitation for me in the box tomorrow and I’ll see about arranging a babysitter.”

Not What You Think

2011-05-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

In the echo
Of a downtown mirror
Caught a glimpse
Of someone
I should recognize
Someone
I should know better
But the guy wearing
A familiar ball cap
Was chatting up strangers
Laughing at joke’s
Half-hearted attempt
Sharing the easy
Obvious wisdom
At his disposal

Charmed himself
And a marveled crowd
Into the momentary belief
Of something more
Than the sleight of one hand
While the other
Fingered a pocket
And wondered
About the possibility
Of two radically different
Carnival house reflections
Casting the same shadow

Let there be Light

2011-05-11T07:21:00.001-07:00

Another monster
Of our own making
Double tapped to the
Godless glee
Of a forgetful nation
And buried
In an ocean trench
Of already
Overflowing lies

These red
White and blue filters
Blocking entire spectrums
While generating a blurry
Golden nimbus
Around black headlines
Containing as much light
As we choose to see

The enemy
Telling us who to fight
The thief asking
For charitable contributions
The illusionist
Demanding a suspension
Of our collective disbelief
The devil himself
Selling tin halos
To the pocketless
And for having forfeited
The minimal effort
Of keeping one eye open
I am nearly certain
We deserve the frontline
Of all their wars

Athena's Glory

2011-04-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

          Seeing Miss Glickson in the doorway of their A frame cabin, blubbering to his mother about her missing kitten, prompts Trevor to go upstairs and check his own pets. Despite his parent’s mild protests, the recently turned teenager has already accumulated two dogs, a guinea pig, three tarantulas, and a four foot python. Everything but the twin basset hounds are permanent residents of the young boy’s loft, built to overlook an old growth forest bordering the mountain town of Timberline. A quick glance confirms all his animals are visible, except the constrictor which remains balled up under a branch in one corner of its aquarium. At the opposite end of the glass cage, a white mouse darts back and forth obsessively pressing against the transparent walls with human-like hands.

          Tapping on the cage with one finger, Trevor whispers, “Rufus is gonna wake up soon.”

          He hears the front door close and glances out his window to see the old woman shuffling away from their front porch, back across the road to her own dilapidated cottage. With dusk giving way to night, the block’s only streetlight flickers on as she reaches her driveway. The fluorescent glow causes a faint reflection of the young boy to appear in the glass, but where his eyes should be, he sees two large golden orbs instead. As if someone has managed to trick him into wearing a pair of bug-eyed sunglasses without him knowing, Trevor reaches for his face with his fingertips. As the teenager touches his cheeks, confirming only the presence of flesh, the glowing disks blink close and then slowly re-open. Trevor realizes he is staring into the eyes of a large creature on his window ledge, and as if mentally deciphering an optical illusion, the animal’s dark silhouette becomes readily apparent.

          Perched on the young boy’s windowsill is the largest owl Trevor has ever seen. The magnificent raptor stands nearly a meter tall and appears to be wearing a hooded gray cloak cinched tight about its face. Although he has never seen one before, Trevor recognizes the image from one of his many nature books. It is the ghost hunter, the great gray owl. Subconsciously, the teenager pulls his face away from the hooked beak on the other side of the glass. As the boy inches backwards, the owl leans in even closer. It is then Trevor realizes the owl isn’t looking at him, but over his shoulder at the warm snake aquarium. Subtle twitches in those giant golden orbs reveal an intense focus on every movement of the white rodent.

          “You hungry? Might have to fight Rufus for it.”

          Trevor reaches towards the window with one hand and wiggles his fingers expecting the great bird to take flight. Never taking its attention from the aquarium, the owl seems absolutely indifferent towards the boy’s presence. In spite of his father’s voice sounding an alarm in the back of his mind, Trevor feels compelled to press his luck. Half-terrified, but uncontrollably curious, the teenager grabs the handle at the bottom of the frame and begins to slide the glass upwards.

          Again, he expects the owl to retreat back into the dark woods, but instead, before the pane is even halfway open, the great gray owl ducks under the wooden frame and boldly steps onto the interior ledge of the windowsill. Trevor takes two full steps backwards, instantly noting the thick, black talons protruding from the owl’s gnarled toes. From the shins down, the giant bird’s feet are covered in what looks like dull yellow scales. With claws ten times the size of his python’s fangs, the young boy has little doubt what kind of damage the raptor is capable of inflicting.

          Unsure of what to do next, Trevor is tempted to call down to his parents. He is afraid the sound of his voice might frighten away the visitor, or even worse, prompt a panicked reaction. Not in a million years would they approve of him opening windows for wild animals; they had enough concerns over his store bought pets. Instead, another idea flashes through his brain.

          “I take it you like mice? Guess I can stop at the pet store tomorrow and grab another one.”

          The owl bobs its head in what looks like deliberate confirmation to the young boy’s question. Trevor slowly backs away from the enormous bird and towards the aquarium. Betraying an otherwise unruffled facade, the great owl shifts its weight from one clawed foot to the other. The young boy pulls back the top of the cage and retrieves the mouse by its long tail.

          “I’ve got some good news and some bad news for y…” he begins, but the mouse cuts him off in mid-sentence by bending at the waist and reaching up to climb its own tail. Before the animal can bite his fingers, Trevor shakes his hand, accidently releasing the rodent. Instantly, the owl drops from its windowsill perch, wings extending nearly half the width of his room for a split second before refolding. The two animals hit the floor at the same moment with the pink-eyed mouse pinned beneath a gripping claw. In the next fluid motion, the owl severs the rodent’s spine with one quick bite of razor sharp beak. Feeling equally stunned, Trevor stands there mouth agape as the great gray owl turns, and with one silent flap of wings, is back through the window into the brisk night air.

          Unable to process what he just witnessed, all Trevor can do is stumble to his window and watch the owl bank over Miss Glickson’s house, vanishing amongst the impossibly large ponderosas edging her property. A toothy grin swallowing the lower half of his face, the young boy is tempted to run downstairs and tell his parents what just happened. Almost immediately, the powerful urge to share the encounter is tempered by reason. He knows from past experience with a juvenile black bear they didn’t want him feeding wild animals. Coupled with the wasting of expensive mice, the teenager is certain his parents would expressly forbid him from doing something like that again. Adopting a motto he learned from an older cousin, Trevor decides it really is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

          The next morning, Trevor is out of bed and dressed for school earlier than usual. Bounding down the stairs two at a time, he sees his parents already seated at the dining room table eating buttered toast and cold cereal. They are sharing a hearty laugh as the young boy pulls up a chair in front of an empty bowl.

          “You should have heard her,” his mom is saying. “I mean, she’s always been loopy, but this time she’s gone over the edge.”

          “Well,” his father replies, “I agree that Timberline’s newest addition is a little strange, but I kind of doubt he’s a Satanist. People don’t move here to conduct ritualistic animal sacrifices, or whatever she was suggesting.”

          Trevor’s mom chuckles, “Yeah, I don’t see that either… but he is an odd one. I swear, whenever I notice the guy he is either staring at his feet or off into space. I’ve seen him walk by the house three times now and each time he’s stumbled over something. Dude needs to get his head out of the clouds and pay attention.”

          As his parent’s continue making jokes about the neighbors, Trevor’s thoughts revert to the great gray owl. Upon awaking, the young boy first imagined last night’s visit to be nothing more than a dream. Drops of dried blood found where the mouse had met its fate confirmed the evening’s events. Pouring himself a bowl of cereal, Trevor realizes his afterschool activities are already planned. He needs to shell out some of his meager weekly allowance for another mouse, but after that, he is going owl hunting.

          When the three o’clock bell finally rings, Trevor realizes he hasn’t heard a word from any of his teachers. So lost in thought, the young boy had barely grunted at his friends between classes. All day he has wondered what might have prompted such a creature to be so brazen. With the exception of a family of raccoon thieves living in the park, he had never heard of such behavior from any local wildlife. Of course, those masked bandits had been routinely fed by townsfolk until they lost all fear of humans, so slipping inside an open window for a morsel, seemed totally plausible. But a great gray owl?

          The more Trevor thought about it, the more he became convinced the wise old bird could somehow sense the boy’s inherent kinship with animals. On some instinctual level, or, maybe by observing his loft from a distant perch, the owl believes the teenager to be trustworthy. Still, Trevor doubts he’ll ever see the bird at his window again; he needs to take the search to his owl’s house this time.

          Trevor hops off his bike outside Surly Bill’s Pet Emporium to find the obese, balding proprietor blocking the entrance. Bill is taping a sign to the glass door with a bold, black banner that says, “Lost Dog”. Below the headline is a picture of a bulging-eyed Chihuahua wearing a pink sweater and matching collar. As he finishes attaching the poster with a last strip of tape, the store owner notices Trevor standing behind him.

          “Weren’t you just here yesterday? What, can’t get enough of my charm?”

          “The day before,” Trevor replies, ignoring the question. “The mouse escaped before I could feed Rufus. I need another one.”

          “Outsmarted by a rodent, eh?”

          The big man’s laughter, sounding more like a high-pitched wheeze, causes his whole torso to jiggle as he squeezes through the door. Trevor rolls his eyes and follows the fat proprietor inside his humid store. As usual, the young boy is punched in the face by the pungent odor of animal waste followed by the faintest whiff of cedar chips. Never a fan of the only pet shop in town, Trevor throws his money on the counter, grabs his feeder mouse, and is back outside breathing fresh air before having to absorb more of Surly Bill’s habitually obnoxious comments.

          Biking the back roads of Timberline with the boxed rodent in one hand, Trevor decides to forgo checking in at home. Most days his mother has him complete afternoon chores before he can play. The young boy knows he’ll get a tongue lashing, possibly even grounded, but his compulsion to find the owl supersedes any fear of punishment. Trevor turns off the paved street leading to his house and stashes his bike next to a dirt trail running into the dense woods behind Miss Glickson’s shack. He and some neighbor boys had worn down the path over several years and the rocky, uneven course now ran a couple miles into the forest before hitting an abrupt cliff overlooking the slow-churning Timberline River. The spooky woods had always served as Trevor’s favorite haunt, his imagination running wild once surrounded by the bronze pillars of ancient Ponderosas.

          With Memorial Day a week off, and the weather finally acting like spring, Trevor’s forest is beginning to feel alive. The ground cover, spindly ferns, and berry bushes displaying tiny green buds soon to cover the forest floor with abundant greenery once again. Half-aware of the seasonal changes, the young boy ventures deeper into the woods, attention focused on the thick pine boughs overhead. Spotting a creature with such magnificently effective camouflage is next to impossible, so he is hoping the owl’s movement will give it away. Of course, as a nocturnal hunter, seeing the raptor active during the day is equally unlikely. His best real chance is to find the nest, but staring around at the countless tree trunks supporting one massive canopy on pine needles, Trevor begins to realize just how stacked the odds are against his search.

          An hour later, and a mile down the trail, the young boy has seen no trace of the great gray owl. Developing a kink in his neck from constantly looking up, and knowing that every passing second puts him in deeper trouble with his parents, Trevor decides to call off the search. His frustration is like bitter medicine on his tongue, but as he begins the journey back home, he tells himself there is always tomorrow. The teenager isn’t going to give up on his owl after just one day.

          A stone’s throw from Miss Glickson’s backyard, and still checking the branches overhead, Trevor catches both feet on an exposed root and falls flat on his face. The cardboard box flies from his hand landing hard on a boulder causing the lid to pop off and spill its contents. The mouse freezes amongst the fresh moss and last year’s dead leaves. It takes a split second for the creature’s flight instinct to override caution and the rodent charges towards the closest hollow trunk of a long toppled tree. Knowing he’ll never make it, Trevor still tries to scamper to his feet and pounce on the mouse before it can vanish inside the log.

          It may be a flicker of shadow caught in the corner of his eye, or a subtle disturbance in the calm air, but Trevor senses the presence of the great gray before he sees it. Managing to pitch himself forward just as the great bird skims the top of his head, the young boy hits the ground as the owl snatches the panicked mouse in one great claw without stopping. With his heart hammering in his chest, the teenager watches the giant owl takes its meal forty feet into the air and land in the first intersecting boughs of a massive old crag. His owl is perched on a pile of interwoven sticks and his heart nearly stops at what he notices next.

          Sharing the nest with the great gray owl are three oval shaped bundles of wispy gray down. A second later, he makes out two dark spots at the top of each egg-shaped pile of fluff and realizes they are bouncing slightly in the nest. Trevor’s owl towers above the three babies with her chest fluffed out looking as proud as any mother he’s ever seen.

          “Oh my,” he whispers. “I can’t believe it.”

          Picking his way around the fallen limbs at the base of the dead tree for a better view, Trevor notices a dark, golf ball sized wad of wet fur stuck to the ground. Dragging his attention from the baby owls for a second, the young boy peels the sticky mass from the earth for a closer look. Scattered throughout the clump of hair are small white bones and Trevor almost gags at the acrid stench emanating from what appears to be some small animal turned inside out. The teenager tosses the fascinating discovery aside before noticing several more of the compact balls scattered around the tree.

          Despite the ever-increasing alarms in his head, Trevor returns his attention to the bobbing owl family for a few lingering minutes. At this point, he’ll be lucky to avoid being grounded, which will defeat the purpose of having found his owl’s nest in the first place. Assuming he can talk his way out of being so late, the teenager can return any other day to visit the family of raptors. With a smile so big it hurts his jaw muscles, the young boy sets out for home. Maybe if he brings his mother here to witness the adorable baby owls for herself, she will understand.

          The teenager has barely turned his back to the nest when he spots a darkly dressed figure through the wall of ponderosa trunks ahead. Squinting his eyes, he realizes it is Timberline’s newest resident. The stranger is holding what looks like a short length of pink leather. Unaware of the young boy’s presence, the man sniffs the strap, and then with a grimace, tosses it as far from the trail as possible. A second later the man bends at the waist and picks up another dark object. Again, he holds it under his nose, before breaking up the small clod with his thumbs and letting the pieces fall to the ground. The man cranes his neck skyward, staring into the canopy overhead while circling the trunks of nearby ponderosas.

          Slinking closer down the path towards the stranger, and emboldened from the success of his own search, Trevor’s curiosity gets the best of him. “Looking for something?”

          The man jerks with a start and spins about facing Trevor with narrowed eyes somehow managing to look guilty and suspicious all at once. His demeanor seems to relax a bit as his gaze is dragged down to the small boy standing before him. A gravelly voice emanating from deep within the man’s chest seems to bely his more slender build.

          “I’m always looking for something. What are you doing out here?”

          Despite his dark clothes, peculiar behavior, and suspicious mannerisms, Trevor doesn’t sense any malice from the stranger. “I was looking for something too,” he replies mimicking the man’s oblique revelation.

          “Hard to find anything out here,” the man says stealing another glance towards the pine boughs above. “You guys gotta lot of trees in these parts. Think you’d see more birds.”

          The stranger’s casual remark causes one of Trevor’s eyebrows to rise slightly and a small smirk sneaks across his lips. “We have birds,” he replies. “Big ones… you just have to know where to look.”

          “Surprisingly enough,” he begins, his tone of voice slipping into the measured and pleasant cadence of one of his teachers, “you have to keep your eyes on the ground to find the type I’m looking for.”

          “Sounds like you know something about birds,” Trevor says.

          “Thirty years as a professional and still learning. They can always surprise you.”

          Talking with someone who might understand, appreciate, or possibly be jealous of his discovery, compels Trevor to suddenly blurt out, “We even have great gray owls.”

          The stranger’s body language transforms from gradually relaxing to rigid focus, his eyes instantly guarded once again. “A great gray?” he asks. “You sure? Do you have any idea how rare those are in these parts?”

          “I think she might be new to the area.”

          “She? How do you know it’s a she?” With every question the man seems to be bending lower, his face inching closer to the young boy. Uncomfortable with the older man’s sudden, intense scrutiny, Trevor is reminded of his pressing need to get home.

          “Because boys don’t have babies,” he answers at last. “I have to get go…”

          The young boy is interrupted by the man’s sudden intake of breath; his eyes popping wide open. “Athena has a clutch? Where? You have to show me her nest.”

          “Uuuuh, it’s not far, but I really have to go… wait, what did you just say?”

          “Never mind, never mind,” he stammers, the man’s eyes clouding to reveal an inner torment raging between anguish and joy. “Can you meet me here tomorrow? I need your help with something... and don’t worry, I have the climbing gear we’ll need. Suppose we can still visit that way…” he trails off leaving Trevor feeling as if the man is now talking to himself.

          Backing down the trail, away from the visibly distraught stranger, Trevor suddenly stops in his tracks as a mental lock tumbler falls into place. Athena? Climbing gear? “What did you want to do?” he asks.

          “We’re going to move her nest over to the river… and we’re going to keep it to ourselves,” he says, conflicted eyes suddenly sparkling mischievously. “Your neighbors will appreciate it,” he says with a short laugh. “Trust me.”

Outside Observations

2011-04-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

Headless and
Disemboweled
Below the nest
One of my babies
Or a mother teaching
For certain cannot say

Budding talons
Belong to a hunter
All that remains
Speculation
And brutal reminders
Of what life
Is like outside
Our barriers

Suspect
Brother coyote
Or smirking fox
Sniffing around trunks for
The feathered fruit
Of spring

Accident
Or infanticide
For a stronger sibling’s
Greater good
A sacrifice
We cannot imagine

Uncertain
If it even matters
But like to think
The only reason
I found half a body
Is because mom
Still interrupted supper
On wings of holy hell
No doubt
Completing a tragedy
With the entire troupe
Performing their roles
To perfection

The Great Horned Assassin

2011-04-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

There is a family
Of random killers
Silently patrolling the
Precisely landscaped
Lawn and flowerbeds
Of these retired soldiers

Corpses left inside out
At the base
Of thick gnarled trunks
Reeking of stomach acid
A dead give away
To their daylight haunts

Slow blinking eyes
On a swiveling head
Reflect golden wisdom
For anything willing
To embrace the lessons
Of unruffled Buddha’s
Understanding
Death is as critical
As taking that first
Leap of faith
From your nest

The Claar Glare

2011-04-15T07:16:00.001-07:00

It is a look
Once used to drop
A charging dog
Dead in its tracks
A sideways glance
Bleeding brothers
Into discordant time
A scowl capable
Of parting oceans
And holding the seas
Of humanity
At the end of vision
But never imagined
This cold
Hateful gaze
Burning bright enough
To stare down
Hell’s only master

The devil himself
Looking away
For fear
Of what is dying
Behind these eyes

Space Cow

2011-04-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

Beneath the
Sagging crown points
Of my jester cap
And sitting astride
A polka dotted
Bovine steed
We blast
Across the galaxy
Leaving comet tails
Of emerald tracer

Fingering cosmic melodies
On a primeval mandolin
Anesthetizing
The rainbow crowd
Of intermingling
Constellations
Space cow and I
Hit every deep space joint
The expanding universe
Dares reveal

The hookah octopus
Clouds galaxies
In milky osmosis
Freeing our wanderings
From any destination
So ready your flaxen maids
Because we are coming
To bull our way
Through the worm hole
Of planet you

Nobody Escapes

2011-04-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

Always a shiny
Stark raving lunatic
And consuming horde
Eager for a mutual devouring
Dripping through claws
Of wind shifting
Solace seekers
To splash the crooked feet
Of leering vultures
Atop self-constructed pillars
Awaiting the inexorable burnout
Suicide or murder

The final tick of
Of second nine hundred

Everyone eager to accept
Everything
Or nothing at all
One note over another
But never the song
In between

While never is questioned
Black and white vision
In the face
Of all this high definition
Digital technicolor

The Projector

2011-03-30T15:04:00.001-07:00

          The plunk of a small stone hitting the pond is all it takes to attract an emerald-headed drake and his dainty, tan hen. Like synchronized swimmers, the two ducks slice across the murky brown water and into the concentric circles of expanding ripples. Both birds swivel and bob their heads in a frantic, fruitless search. Timberline’s waterfowl had long grown accustomed to being fed by townies. So certain of receiving handouts, a growing population of mallards never even bothered to migrate. The second delicate splash brings them closer to a darkly dressed man seated on a rusted park bench. His lips twist into a terse smile.

          “Stupid ducks,” Tyler mutters while flinging a final stone. He flinches involuntarily, taking a quick intake of breath as the rock leaves his hand with more velocity than intended. The projectile splits the couple, barely missing both birds, and splashes them with shimmering droplets of water.

          “Sorry,” Tyler offers as the ducks, somewhere between flying and running, splash across the pond’s surface towards the opposite bank. Their strong wings slapping the water feels like a noisy intrusion in the otherwise calm, warm air of late summer. Again displaying their harmonious instincts, the birds touch down at the exact same moment and settle in at the pond’s far edge.

          “Where is she?” he wonders aloud, experiencing a momentary envious pang for the mallard’s natural ability to find a lasting partner. “Bet you never have to put up with this crap.”

          Renae is supposed to be meeting him for lunch. Hell, it was her idea. Tyler checks his watch for the third time in the last two minutes. Seven minutes late. Scratching his patchy blond facial hair, Tyler’s eyes narrow. “It’s just rude,” he mumbles. “I don’t make other people wait for me like I’m some goddamned king.”

          Their last phone conversation had been thick with tension. Ever since she spent Labor Day weekend with an old sorority sister in Seattle, Tyler had felt a growing chasm in their relationship. He hadn’t been happy about not being invited, and suspected something was amiss when she didn’t respond to his messages until the night she returned. When Renae had finally touched base, she seemed distant. In the back of his mind Tyler wondered if she had met someone, or even rekindled some old college flame.

          Tyler’s attention is drawn from his spiraling thoughts as the ducks suddenly dart across the pond towards another rusty bench. A frail, hunchbacked man appears from an overgrown, tree lined path and gingerly pulls up a seat. He looks to Tyler like a sack of bones held upright by faded jeans and a torn flannel shirt. In his gnarled hand is a plastic bread bag. Expressionless, the ivory-bearded skeleton scatters white chunks across the water and the mallards gobble up every morsel before the bread can sink.

          Things could be worse, Tyler thinks. At least I’m not that guy. The thought escapes his mind before he can channel it through any kind of politically correct filter. Tyler feels guilty for thinking that way but can’t help acknowledging the brunt assessment. Stealing sideways glances at the depressing scene, Tyler feels like he should try to be a little more patient with Renae. The younger man wonders if the elderly gentleman ever blew his chances with a possible soul mate, or if he’d ever experienced a genuine connection with another. Maybe the old man once found the love of his life and she had died leaving him in this wretched state. Who knows? Tyler looks away, unable to bear the thought of feeling so miserable. So all alone.

          Tyler checks his watch again. Nine minutes late. Surely, anything over ten begins to push the threshold of understanding. It’s not like she could blame traffic, not in the tiny mountain town of Timberline. A bear attack would come off as a more believable excuse. Maybe her battered Datsun had finally given up the ghost. The oxidizing piece of purple shit had been running ragged for months. Still, her cabin was a half mile from the park; she could have walked by now.

          In the corner of his eye, Tyler detects movement on the same path from which the old man recently emerged. His slumped posture straightens and Tyler feels the swirling doubts creeping back into the corner of his mind. He begins to stand and instinctually brush the hair from his face when the figure comes into view. The new arrival is a woman, but certainly not Ranae. This lady is hunched over and supporting her slow, shuffling steps with a cane. Her wild mop of curly hair is even whiter than the man’s beard.

          As the old man notices the woman’s arrival, Tyler folds his arms and sits back on the bench with his shaking head cocked sideways. Slowly, the brittle fossil twists in his seat, and by placing one hand on the backrest while the other pulls against the arm support, manages to drag himself to his feet. Despite the effort it takes to stand, Tyler sees the worn countenance transformed. The old man’s weary, blank expression has been replaced with a broad grin. He bows slightly and offers his forearm to the woman. Returning his smile, the old lady accepts his gesture and allows herself to be seated at the bench. Her partner hands over the plastic bag and then rests his palm on her thigh as she begins to feed the impatiently circling mallards.

          Tyler turns away so that he no longer has to witness the ancient couple’s public display of affection. Or the pitifully domesticated ducks. He checks his watch once again. Eleven minutes… almost twelve. “Seriously,” he hisses. “What the hell is the wrong with people?”

Divine Grifter

2011-03-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

I dare you to exist
And put right
Your miscalculations
I dare you to gaze upon
The blossoming stains
And tell me
You wouldn’t have stopped
Eden’s destruction
When you still had a chance

I dare you to strike
Me down
For suggesting you couldn’t
Have left your house
In the hands
Of a worse caretaker

Who could have foreseen
The end results
If not you
But I suppose
If you are the mold
From which
We sprung forth
I can take some comfort
In the fact
We were fucked
From the get go

Gray's Catacomb

2011-03-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

          Abandoned Silver Streak mine served as Allan Gray’s private escape from the alcohol fueled madness of his childhood home. By age ten, the gaunt, dark haired boy could smell the sickness and defeat seeping from his parents. Their sweat reeked of vodka, and they sat, day after day, in the mounting squalor of their den sharing spiteful barbs as their skin turned to leather from chain smoking. In the hazy, fetid air of their nearly windowless cabin, Allan could almost taste the metastasizing tumors that would eventually claim their lives.

          Left unsupervised from an early age, Allan made it a point to keep his distance from home. Rather than check in after a day of the torturously self-conscience nightmare known as school, Allan would vanish into the dense forest surrounding his mountain town, fishing streams, climbing trees, spying on strangers, and slaying squirrels with his wrist rocket. His parents never questioned his absence, not even when he began to stay out overnight, alone in his pitch black maze of tunnels.

          Allan found Silver Streak after following an overgrown jeep trail deeper into the mountains north of Timberline than he’d ever ventured. What a first appeared to be a small avalanche where the road came to a dead end against the mountain side turned out to be the collapsed entrance. Splintered support beams jabbed out of the pile of boulders and dirt like lopsided grave markers. Someone must have used dynamite to collapse the main shaft. After poking around, Allan realized the rockslide had covered the opening except for a narrow gap between two wedged railroad ties. A cool wind blasted from the crack indicating that somewhere, another opening to the outside world had to exist. Allan decided his mission was to return the next day with a flashlight, squeeze through the hole, and locate the other entrance from within the mine.

          Allan came back the following afternoon with a battery powered lantern quietly removed from his dad’s truck. His parents wouldn’t care about the condemned mine, but Allan would be severely punished for touching his father’s tools. Not that his old man needed any of the equipment. While most of the former loggers in Timberline had long since packed up and moved on, Allan’s dad hadn’t done anything but sit in a creaky old recliner splitting his wrath between family and television news since the sawmill closed.

          The young boy's heart thundered in his chest when he first squeezed through the narrow opening and showers of dirt rained down on him from above. Fearing a collapse, he had launched himself through the opening after getting halfway inside and slid down an embankment of gravel to the passage floor. A dust filled cone of light shone through the gap and Allan could make out rusted ore cart rails leading straight down a rocky tunnel seemingly carved through black granite. His lantern’s feeble glow revealed the passage ahead at least partially buried underwater. The air smelled musty despite the breeze and the temperature was noticeably cooler. Allan had pulled his light jacket tight around his neck as he first made his way into the unknown.

          The water on floor of the cavern was barely tolerable but after long stretches of freezing agony, the ground would emerge and he could walk on wooden ties between the cart tracks while his toes came back to life. In places, he could balance on the rusted rails and keep his soles just above the waterline. The damp walls of the mine possessed sporadic deposits of some milk white mineral; a kind of shimmering albino coral staining the otherwise black stone. To Allan it looked like walls of pearl set off with sparkling diamond flakes.

          During his initial expedition, the young boy was intrigued by the nearly translucent bodies of baby mice and leathery bats bobbing in the slow, frigid flow. He lifted one of the soggy rodents by its long limp tail, held the corpse in front of his face, and tried to imagine what it had been like to drown. The frail creature’s eyes had yet to fully develop, dark blobs behind a pink veil mercifully blind to the ugliness of the world. He pictured the thrashing of the damned gradually giving away to hypothermic resignation, water filled lungs, and ultimately, a sense of peace. Something about the idea made him happy.

          After passing the third intersection of branching tunnels, Allan had returned home knowing he’d need chalk if he hoped to find the other entrance without getting lost. After a month of nearly daily visits, he had mapped out a considerable portion of the tunnels by leaving notes and directional arrows on the mine walls. There were even numbers accompanying the various signs indicating approximately how many steps he could expect before the next branching passage.

          In spite of his mapping techniques, and venturing deeper and deeper into the elaborate labyrinth, Allan had yet to find the other entrance. Some tunnels eventually reached a gradually narrowing end, others seemed to branch forever, and the young boy quickly realized there were passages he couldn’t reach. In several places, the tunnels shot straight up into the mountain overhead where Allan could see even more passageways branching off.

          The corroded remnants of wooden ladders to the upper levels were still bolted to the walls, and the skeleton thin boy had tried climbing the sturdiest of the bunch, but the first damp rung crumbled in his grip before holding half his weight. One day, Allan thought, he’d be strong and brave enough to scale the sheer rock walls, reach the higher tunnels, and no doubt, the other opening.

          Despite the elusive nature of the second entrance, Silver Streak quickly became the only place Allan felt comfortable in his pale and dirty flesh. The anxiety of being in his parent’s presence, and the discomforting scrutiny he felt so intensely at school, all but vanished in those dark passages. Within the mine, he became a cave troll hunting heroic adventurers, a mad scientist living beneath an active volcano attempting to trigger an eruption, a deformed outcast, exiled from the village below and lurking at its fringes while plotting his revenge.

          Allan’s imagination ran wild, spurred on by a growing collection of graphic novels purchased from the spinning comic book rack in Ray Lynn’s convenience store. He had moved the hidden stash from his bedroom to a central chamber of intersecting tunnels nearly a mile into the mountain. The spacious cavern had become his central base within the mine. Despite rarely eating a home cooked meal, Allan never spent his lunch money at the school cafeteria. Instead, every penny went towards another gruesomely illustrated tale, flashlight battery, or slow burning candle.

          Unlike the other boys, Allan didn’t gravitate towards super hero comics; he had no interest in square chiseled jawlines, sculpted muscles, or goody two-shoes in ridiculous spandex saving the world. Allan preferred tales of horror and supernatural happenings. Zombies and ancient curses. He loved the idea of evil ghosts and salivating monsters most of all. The thought of being stalked by blood-dripping fangs, or glowing red eyes, especially while alone in his dark mine, was an adrenaline rush of pure terror he could endure and overcome. Hell, he could fall into an untroubled sleep afterwards. He laughed out loud when imagining the older kids at school attempting such a thing.

          His mother so despised the grotesque, bloody artwork she had gleefully burned his collection the previous summer after a report card showed him barely graduating fifth grade. However, with his stories of macabre safe in his mine, Allan no longer worried about his parents. They still flew off the handle every time the wind shifted, slapped and berated him at every opportunity, but he no longer kept anything within their reach that he was afraid to lose. He owned his own home now, and he kept his possessions in a cleaner, more organized manner than anything his folks had managed in years.

          One autumn afternoon, indistinguishable from any other day below the earth, Allan was making his way from the mine to find something to eat when a familiar sound caused him to freeze in his tracks. Standing in ice cold water, Allan could hear voices just outside Silver Streak’s collapsed entrance. What was worse, Allan recognized the young men gathered outside. Despite his eternal efforts to maintain an aura of invisibility at school, the three Steele brothers always whispered and snickered as Allan slunk by, burning cheeks concealed inside his hooded sweatshirt.

          Allan was awarded ample time to think about his reaction, his instantaneous decision, and never came to a definitive conclusion as to whether he would have handled it any different if given another chance. For the first time in his life, Allan truly felt alive in his fortress of darkness, and it was a sensation he had to preserve. The mine was his and his alone. Best case scenarios still involved the young men claiming the mine for their own and looting it of all his treasures. He refused to think about worst case scenarios that would, no doubt, come naturally to these hateful savages. If they couldn’t control their naturally vicious tendencies within the “safe” environment of school, Allan could only imagine what humiliation he would be forced to endure in the sanctity of his own house.

          Just as a pair of hands thrust inside to pull a scoopful of dirt away from the opening, Allan reached the sideways support beam, precariously lodged above the remnants of shaft entrance. The young boy had noticed the shifty looking wedge upon his first departure from Silver Streak and always gave it a wide berth. Even gently sliding through the gap on his belly caused slight tremors and sprinkles of dirt from the loose wedge above.

          As the noise and dust settled, Allan breathlessly wondered if anyone might have seen his lantern light before the tunnel collapsed. He imagined his parents being informed of his whereabouts and heard their smoke ravaged voices seeping through the wall of rock, promising punishments for such a pathetic attention grab. Allan smiled in the dim light of his familiar stone hallway. Nobody was going to violate his castle. If his dead-eyed father had imparted any wisdom from the collapsed springs of his moth eaten throne, it was that men had to defend their freedom. They had to be willing to sacrifice. Once again, Allan could see and hear nothing of the outside world. He was alone with the patiently waiting darkness. And something about that idea made him happy.

Dancing Over Graves

2011-03-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

Know now
What it means when
Lavender salamanders
Milky earthworms
And whiskered moles
Push their snouts
Through the earth
To tickle and
Massage these toes

Grass blades sprout
From a field
Of abandoned follicles
Bugs and grubs
Feast and fornicate
In the bone meal
While a deflated heart
Sparks wild nests
Of black rose

To no end
And for too long
Sought a rebirth
Divine revival
Or common reincarnation
Without the solace
Of first dying

The Boy Who Cried Godzilla

2011-03-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

The snort of a great beast
Awakening
Casts its churning tide
Of obliterated occupation
Over a subjugated landscape
Freeing one coast
From manicured shackles
And goldfish gardens

Another warning
Riding waves
Of things to come
As the monster
Inches ever closer
To a fattening feast
On every shore

Plugged into
Warm power lines of
Apathetic destiny
Eyes glow nuclear
Burning scales
From fallout cancer
A hideous
Breathing aberration
Stomping through the city
Coming for us all
While we sit transfixed
Sleep deprived
Collectively doped
And in denial
That something
May have gone wrong
With our best laid plan
Somewhere
Along the way

Another Grave

2011-03-04T12:21:00.000-08:00

The ghost cat
Is dead
Headlines
Always certain
Decades removed
From the last sight
Officials
Made it official
Declaring
One of our
Native icons
Extinct
East of the
Mississippi

Like this country
These lands
And those remaining
I get by
With half a heart
Still tapping
One lung collapsed
The third eye lost
Another closed
Until
The last thread
Collapses
And somebody
Finally cares
About it being
Too late

Between Stars

2011-02-28T21:15:00.001-08:00

     Lying face down with legs splayed wide, I press my belly flat against the cold, rocky trail. With chin tucked to sternum, my head is cocked sideways; face buried in one armpit. I can practically taste the overpowering reek of sweat, blood, and fear. My fingers are interwoven, clenched protectively behind my neck. I am afraid to move… to make a sound. Despite my efforts to calm down, my ragged breathing echoes like thunder in my ears. It has to hear me. The creature has to notice my slumped form rise and fall, however slightly, with each breath.

     I hear nothing. The sounds of the forest seem to fade with the dying light of day. Maybe the beast has moved on... for real this time. There is no way to be certain. I’d rather not risk a repeat performance of the last time I thought it was safe to move. During the second attack, I had sustained real injuries; the moment my dire situation had become exponentially problematic. A six day shift of permit checking, answering questions, and trail maintenance had started just yesterday, and like a bad employee, I was walking an overgrown, long re-routed trail where select few still travel.

     With my face protected, I can see but a sliver of light between my arm and the ground, offering a narrow view of dry pine needles and trail’s edge just behind me. For all I know, the animal is hovering above me, saliva dripping on my backpack, waiting for a noticeable sign of life. Squinting for clues within my limited field of vision, I shudder involuntarily upon noticing a bloody mass inches from the bottom of my torn pant leg. I swallow a surge of panic as my already fragile mental capacities insist I must be staring at my own severed foot. Thankfully, the small portion of reasonable thinking still holding sway inside my skull, heads off the complete mental meltdown by looking past the grisly blood to what is clearly just my hiking boot. The mental reassurance nearly leads to a bray of insane laughter.

     Then again, I can’t see my leg below the knee, not without moving it and risking a third assault; maybe my foot is still inside the boot. Before I can stop myself, the absurd notion causes me to twitch the big toe for affirmation and a white hot wave of sheer agony pulsates from the area. The foot must still be attached. My once glorious, calloused appendage, half responsible for a million miles of covered trail, may look like a chew toy, but I can still feel it.

     “You idiot,” I think to myself. “You know better.”

     I hear the voice of another inside my head delivering the chastising message, striking me as odd as anything else I had experienced this evening. It is the quiet, comforting voice of a fellow ranger; a subtle, confident sound that had appealed to me since I first heard her speak. I can’t stop the corners of my mouth from curling into a slight grin. Here I am, possibly one wrong twitch from dying and I find myself thinking about a girl I barely know? Or, maybe the idea of companionship just burns brightest when faced with the possibility of dying alone.

     I know that to be bullshit though. Might as well be honest with myself. In recent weeks, I had been thinking about the raven haired ranger more and more, despite having never experienced much more than a passing conversation. I have always been shy around beautiful woman and she is certainly that. Below the dark eyes and high cheek bones I can picture so vividly, her lecturing lips turn to a gentle smile, “I can hear what you’d say about a tourist in the same situation. Serves you right.”

     She is correct. The trail has been closed for the last three seasons to backcountry visitors and park employees alike due to fire damage and the potential for mud slides in the narrower, steeper reaches of the canyon. Like veterans of any endeavor though, I feel there are rules that once understood, you can break, just so long as you stay true to the fundamental principles. I know the risks, but I also understand the terrain. Mudslides are of little concern at the moment. Of course, sometimes the confidence blows up in your face and you remember why the rules were established in the first place. I also know full well that dusk is primetime predator activity as the hunters look to ambush prey migrating to water.

     Despite the heart wrenching terror I experienced at the initial instant of the assault, and the fact I could be slowly bleeding to death through one foot, for some vain reason, the injury most concerning me is one of pride. I almost wish my unknown assailant would finish the job and spare me the mocking hell from every green horn and grizzled ranger in the park. What will Jaime make of the whole deal? It had been over sixty years since the last violent encounter between a park attraction and employee; my little misadventure is going to give the locals something to talk about.

     Despite ten years with the National Park Service, a lifetime of outdoor experience, and being mauled by the damn thing, I am still not certain what manner of beasty has me pinned. There are few options, but of the choices, I can only guess. One second I was picking my way across the poorly maintained shortcut, the next, I was thrown onto my face and driven into the earth by a writhing mass of muscle, hair, and animal breath. Beneath the considerable weight of my thrashing assailant and 50 pounds of hiking equipment, I could barely move as the creature ripped at my backpack with enough force to lift and shake my body.

     I had instinctively tucked my head while protecting the back of my neck with interlocked hands and let the animal tear at the dense pack loaded with clothes, food, and gear. The attack was brief, but every second felt like a lifetime awaiting the searing certainty of tearing flesh, breaking bone, and unimaginable pain. That moment never came, and as quickly as it had overtaken me, the weight lifted and the violent shaking ceased. The animal was gone and I was left paralyzed in disbelief with the lengthening shadows of dusk. I was eerily aware that neither the creature, nor I, had made any sound during the struggle.

     After the first attack, I laid there in silence, absolutely frozen for what felt an eternity. It was probably closer to ten minutes that I spent listening for any sound that might betray the animal’s location. I heard nothing and in that time, as my breathing slowed, and my scattered wits reunited, I began to apply logic to the situation. Although I realized my thought process was probably more a defensive reaction to prevent panic, I was all too eager to welcome the Boy Scout’s attempts to silence the shrieking banshee in my head.

     Most animal attacks are motivated by a protective instinct, I reminded myself, not a predatory one. Cougars and bears protecting their young, or a kill, or even when surprised at close range, might react violently, but humans hunted in the act of predation are rare. Statistics suggest that whatever attacked me had done so because it had been startled by my sudden arrival, or because it was guarding something. Either way, the animal probably didn’t wish me any personal harm; it just wanted me gone.

     Had the creature really wanted to eat me, it would have made more of an effort. Or… it figures I had sustained enough damage to let me bleed out and will return later for a more relaxing meal. With the exception of a pocketknife and a canister of bear spray pinned beneath my body, the only tool I carry that could be considered a weapon is an old oak-handled Pulaski I bought with my first pay check as a National Park employee. The dual headed instrument consists of a trenching spade and a honed axe blade. I dropped it when the animal had first propelled me forward and have no idea where my favorite tool now lay in proportion to my body.

     The sun dropped behind the western ridgeline as I finished composing myself from the first attack. I had to try something. I sensed the shadows grow thicker and felt a light breeze caress the bare flesh of my exposed shin where the pant leg pulled up when I had been unceremoniously dumped on my face. I imagined the concerned eyes of my family looking down from the darkening sky above. Using their presence as inspiration, I had jumped to my feet, both hands held rigidly out in front like some kind of half-ass karate stance while looking around frantically for my Pulaski. I remember spying it about six feet off to one side and having just enough time for a confident sneer to hit my lips before the creature rammed into my back once again, this time knocking the air from lungs.

     Silent as night, the animal again made no sound as it plowed me back onto the rocky ground, scraping my forehead across a jagged stone. I tried to fight back at first, but didn’t possess the leverage or upper body strength to lift the writhing weight from my shoulders long enough to reach my knife or bear spray. I felt a muscle or tendon stretch in my lower back from the strain. As the accompanying pain streaked through my torso, I felt the bulk of the creature’s weight shift from my shoulders to midsection as the animal spun around on top of me. My flailing boot connected with something solid and that’s when the creature went to work on my foot.

     Every instinct, notion, or intention of fighting back evaporated the second I felt those knife blades sink into my calf followed by incredible pressure and pain. It wasn’t the calculated decision to play dead that I’d been taught in basic outdoor survival, it was simply the unbearable agony of my lower leg being feed into a meat grinder totally paralyzing my body. Again, the violent shaking ceased, and the blades retracted from my flesh. Mercifully, the animal had stopped, but this time I was left not only wondering where my attacker had gone, but also knowing I had been seriously injured and not in a position to do anything about it.

     Adding another level of uncertainty to my predicament, I now face the imminent nightfall following my sunset attack. The temperature is about to plummet and I am afraid to grab the sleeping bag or tent in arm’s reach. I also need to reach the first aid kit and play doctor; bite wounds have a tendency to get infected even when treated. I feel the overbearing sense of panic returning and this time, my rational brain is too strung-out to fight it off. If I move, I could die in a horribly painful manner. If I don’t move, I could die… probably slowly and even more painfully. A slight shiver begins to take hold and I feel suddenly exhausted. At least some of the pain seems to be receding with the warmth of my body.

     “At this rate I’ll be able to walk by midnight,” I whisper in what faintly reminds me of a drunken slur.

     In the darkest recess of my mind, I hear a faint siren, and my vision turns red, like a blood colored lens has been placed across my vision. My eyes snap open. The forest has been swallowed by nightfall, and a remaining purple glow in the western sky is all that remains of the day. Did I fall asleep? How long were my eyes closed? A fresh wave of screaming pain tears up my leg and like lightning, penetrates all the way into my abdomen. The agony brings my senses back into focus. Something is wrong, I can feel it. I sense the presence of something living… and can almost feel the footsteps of something large reverberating through the earth beneath my cheek. I am cold but sweating, possibly feverish, and again it is Jaime’s voice I hear echoing through a mental landscape one breath from tearing itself apart.

     “Bill, are you out there?” Her voice. So real. So close.

    “Way out there,” I whisper. My feeble voice sounds surprisingly loud and I flinch before wondering why I am so jumpy. Something about playing hide and seek with someone? The logic is reasonable, but doesn’t ring true. My brain is fuzzy. I can’t concentrate with this layer of fog swirling around my head. Again, I feel a footstep, or did I hear it this time… and the sound of metal clanking?

     “William!” Again her voice. This time loud and clear echoing down the valley.

     “Jaime?” I hear myself asking from a thousand miles away. I lift my face from where it has been buried, despite my instincts screaming to hold still. Standing above me, silhouetted against a violet sky with the evening’s first stars already glowing, is a slender, long haired figure leading a white horse by the reins. The person is wearing a wide brimmed hat that strikes me as comically familiar.

     “Bill! Jesus, Bill. What the hell happened?”

      I raise myself on one elbow, staring at the talking apparition in disbelief. A dirty, yellow light emanating from its hand pours over me, causing me to squint and feebly shield my eyes. I feel a moment of clarity wash over me; some kind of hope daring me to trust this mirage.

     “Princess Charming,” I stammer, “come to rescue… the dragon bit my leg.”

     “Something did more than bite you,” Jaime says kneeling down, bringing her angular face out of shadows and into the dim light. “I saw it tear out of here as I arrived. Didn’t get a good look but it was big.”

     Jaime touches my face with one cool hand, brushing my sandy blond hair out of my eyes. Even her cold fingers interject warmth into my body. I feel my thoughts begin to gel. She is real. I don’t know how or why she is here, but the woman commanding my daily thoughts is kneeling before me in the flesh.

     “How?” is all I can manage. “How…”

     Letting her index finger linger on my cheek, she says, “Had the night off… and wanted to talk to you about something. Rode Mr. Legs out to where you were supposed to be camped tonight and when I realized you weren’t coming, figured you crashed somewhere along the shortcut. I overheard you talking about this trail last year and use it myself. I know you like to buck the system, but I didn’t expect to find you wrestling the wildlife.”

     “Don’t tell the others…” I say with a weak grin.

     Jaime smiles, her faces lighting up with natural beauty. “Well, I have to get you back right now. Your leg is a mess, but you’ll live. Don’t worry, we’ll think of something. Besides, nobody is looking for us. I didn’t exactly tell anyone I was going out to find you for my night off. Might have raised questions. I’ll think of something to cover us both… and maybe make you sound heroic. Ok?”

     “Deal,” I say while looking past my gorgeous savior to a dramatically clear view of the sparkling Milky Way. “Did you bring any whiskey… or bandages?”

Stepping Forward Back

2011-02-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

Hazy days
The nodding off
Merging
Moments of clarity
Well wishes
And conversation
Lost in the mist
Of time lines collapsed

Awaken
To the lurching reality
Of tide like pain
Throbbing within
Sawed bone and
Shaved tendon

Reshaping muscle
And gait
Into some clanking
Three legged cyborg
Terrifying
Cats and infants

Juggling the pills
And bottled beer
From one hand
To the other
While trying to hold
These crutches
I can't help imagine
A gazelle
At the shadow edge
Of an African watering hole
With a similar impairment

Trying to maintain
Its cool
Like nothing is wrong
While the whole world
Closes in
With slathering eyes

A Statue Toppled

2011-02-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

Under the armor
It became impossible
To determine
How much it took
To fight
If a war
Had taken toll
When that will
Would surrender and
Let sands swallow
The swelling pool

Could never see a face
Behind the welded visor
Or recall a time before
Almost certain
It is a visage
Best forgotten

Unable to stomach
The sight of eyes
Twisted glee
Resolve or resignation

Like to believe
Somewhere beneath
The warrior stare
Was a vision
Overtaken
With tranquility
The dreamy gaze
Of a mystic
At peace
With tomorrow
Standing on your grave

Obstacles Unseen

2011-02-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

Forever anticipating
The first intake
Of my own breath
Fighting for life
Without iron lungs
And having shredded
A lease
Once signed
With demons long dead

Still waiting
For the night lens
To lift with the dawn
And erase
The starless vision
I carry
Into the sun

Craving
The required kill
Yearning to touch
A skinning blade
Hungry
For a meal
Caught and cooked
Over the coals
Of a home
Set ablaze
And forgotten

Nothing to See

2011-02-04T12:26:00.000-08:00

I am deep-throated growl
Seeping from imagination
And spilling my shadow
Into streets

I am the attic trunk
Above hidden stairs
Locking truth from memory
And backspacing
The remainder

I am equations
Once learned
Blossoming wilt
Across yesterday
And tomorrow

I am the postscript
Of a letter
Never written
And a reminder
At no time heard

I am curled lips
Wishing the words
Could be inhaled
Like any other breath
And forgotten

A Mountain Man in the Desert

2011-01-31T19:09:00.001-08:00

     What am I doing here? My position is totally exposed and I haven't seen a tree since we dropped below the North Rim. Paranoia is overtaking my senses. There is no place to hide amongst the rocks and stumpy sagebrush. What am I supposed to do when I hear the “whup-whup-whup” of the black helicopters closing in?

     “What black helicopters are you mumbling about?” my wife asks. “There is nobody looking for you! How would they know to find you here, anyway? We're hundreds of miles from home... and nobody is looking for you back there either.”

     I flash my disarming smile before looking serious and shifty-eyed once again. “How indeed? And just because they aren't looking for me right now, doesn't mean they won't soon. I'll tell you one thing, when it does happen, I better be in pine forest in the mountains somewhere or I won't stand a chance. I might as well be on Mars,” I finish, staring up at the towering cliffs of red and gold.

     I am exaggerating, of course, but the deeper our hike took us into the heart of Grand Canyon, the more I felt like a foreigner amongst the prickly foliage and barren rock. I am used to a canopy of treetops providing shelter from the watchful satellites above. I am used to thick tree trunks serving as backrests and windbreaks. I am used to crystal clear streams, creeks, and rivers flowing bountifully through the wilderness. I am used to bears and wolves. What I am not used to is a gargantuan fissure in the earth defying my sizable imagination in both scale and splendor.

     So, a desert rat I am not. However, the two day descent has opened my eyes to the mesmerizing colors, shapes, and possibilities of rocks, the geological and intrinsic appeal of these seemingly lifeless wastelands. As a child, my grandfather drove us all over the washed out roads of the deserted Owyhee Desert dominating southeast Idaho. He knew that area of the Gem state as well as anyone. He called it his “backyard”. I, on the other hand, could never get past the scorching heat, coupled with the complete lack of water and shade. For all the prehistoric fossils and Native American artifacts we discovered, I still remember wishing we were someplace cooler, someplace surrounded by pine trees, and someplace I could go swimming.

     Now that I am in the middle of the big ditch, and witnessing first hand, this unique world treasure, I realize my neighboring slot canyons are a poor substitute for the real thing. In an effort to get back on the “desert” horse, my wife and I spent last weekend in Big Jack's Canyon out in the lands my grandfather once loved. Despite my childhood aversion for such places, I welcomed the opportunity, mostly because it was the middle of November and neither sunburn nor unquenchable thirst would be an issue. In fact, our weekend getaway saw us struggling to stay warm after sundown. Still, it was a beautifully remote setting with big horn sheep as our only neighbors. By the end, I found myself looking forward to Northern Arizona and the Grand Canyon.

     The one discomfort still eating at me as we approach within a mile of the Colorado River is the fact that we will be alone in the backcountry for Thanksgiving. While the rest of our friends and family gorge themselves on turkey, potatoes, and rolls, we will settle for something dehydrated that won't be followed by pumpkin pie. Perhaps the meager meal served on the most gluttonous of holidays will serve as a reminder for why we are truly thankful.

     “Let’s stop at Phantom Ranch and grab a beer on our way through. We deserve it after last night,” I suggest.

     “What, you didn't enjoy our romantic dinner at the outhouse?” she asks with a crooked grin.

     Due to the violent fluctuation of a blizzard that had been hammering the North Rim since our arrival, our first night in the big ditch had almost been spent trapped on the covered porch of a four stall outhouse. In fact, my first views of the Grand Canyon had been one giant anti-climax. From last night’s precarious perch at the very top of the chasm, all I could see was what looked like a dense fog spilling out over the lip of the canyon and filling the very sky. Apparently, you could see the opposite rim on a clear day, but as it was, I couldn't see fifty feet into the soupy mess.

     “Are you sure there's a way down there?” I had shouted at my wife to be heard over the gusting wind.

     “Apparently,” she shrugged, looking down into the fog choked abyss.

     The force of the gale had the snow blowing sideways creating ghostly patterns in the air. Still, the pine trees and snow had left me feeling at home. At least until I watched a rabbit jump out of a distant tree and standup on its hind legs, its bushy tail swaying back and forth with the gusts. It took my brain a second to figure out something was amiss, but then it occurred to me I had never seen a rabbit climb a tree before, nor had I seen one with tail long enough to be swaying in the wind.

     “What the hell…” I began to say when Jamie elbowed my shoulder and pointed at the creature.

     “Dan, it’s a Kaibab squirrel!”

     A squirrel? As if the fuzzy little animal knew it had a captivated audience, the silver creature hopped in our direction before scampering up a much closer tree. It had all the dexterity of our own fox squirrels back home, but it was much bigger, and its ears had tufts of fur sprouting straight up from the tips creating a rabbit-eared illusion. Perhaps most striking was the animal’s fluffy white tail. Easily doubling the length of the creature, and as big around as its body, the squirrel began cleaning its elegant ivory appendage while stealing glances in our direction as if to ensure we were riveted by the show.

     As it turned out, Jamie and I were the last two visitors to the North Rim before the storm forced park officials to close the entrance. Over the course of the next several days, we would run into hikers who had been diverted the additional 250 miles to the South Rim due to the Northern impasse. So content to be strolling in the National Park wonderland, not a single one of them seemed overly miffed about the detour, and we were ecstatic because Jamie and I had the descent hike all to ourselves.

     When we had set out on the North Kaibab trail, the fog was firmly in place and the snow was still blowing sideways. A Ranger has assured us the weather would improve once we had descended a couple miles into the canyon. It seemed odd at the time that somewhere directly below us existed a whole different desert climate. Cinching the rain gear tight and hoping our hiking boots could withstand the six inches of wet snow, my wife and I set out from the North Rim marching through the blizzard.

     The Ranger was right. Two miles into the canyon the heavy snow had turned into a monsoon. No longer quite cold enough, the storm just pounded us with freezing rain instead. We had, however, managed to get below the thick fog and the grandeur that is the Big Ditch began to reveal itself through the dissipating mist. Photographs are poor substitutes for the actuality of the epic, breathtaking scenery, but my recollections of the Grand Canyon itself are so vividly real, I scarcely need reminders.

     Like an impossibly long, crooked, colossal inverted pyramid had been extracted from the earth, the canyon is a stepped chasm of unimaginable proportion. The flat part of each giant stair a traversable shelf, the step risers brilliantly colored cliff walls hundreds of feet tall. As we descended deeper, the golden layer of rock topping the canyon gave way to bright pink granite, which eventually, and just as abruptly, became a stone of darker red. There is no blurring of colors, only distinct lines where one geological era stopped and another began. Between the Neapolitan rock layers and dizzying drops, the canyon revealed her inner sanctums. I felt connected to this desert landscape in a way I never imagined.

     Making it easier to appreciate the scenic beauty the rain finally relented. The wind however did not and during our pass through the “eye of the needle”, a three foot wide ledge with no handrails next to a precipitous drop, Jamie and I were buffeted by fifty mile an hour gales. Mercifully most of the force was pushing us into the rock wall on one side of the trail, but random gusts would hit us square in the back shoving our already top-heavy momentum forward and our hearts into our throats.

     By the time we reached the Roaring Springs break area, only six miles into the hike, the clouds were turning ugly once again. The storm unleashed with renewed fury just as we had made it to the covered and raised deck of the outhouse. Trying to ignore the intermittent odors assailing our nostrils between blasts of wind and sleet, Jamie and I ate trail mix and waited nearly two hours for the next break in weather.

     Just as it began to appear we’d be trapped for the night, the storm broke apart to reveal the night’s first stars and white moonlight lit up the nearby cliffs. Donning our headlamps, we scampered the remaining couple of miles to Cottonwood campground and secured out site. After a late night meal of chicken stew we quickly fell asleep, grateful to be smelling sage instead of the reek of outhouse.

     The sky had cleared by the first hint of dawn and we wasted no time getting our packs together and strapped to our back once again. Through the winding, rock corridor of one stunning site after another, my wife and I took our time appreciating the eons of erosion responsible for the rugged, beautiful canyon through which we descended. I even developed a kink in my neck from looking up and twice almost fell on my face from being too enthralled to watch the rocky trail.

     Before stopping for lunch we bypassed the short detour trail to Bridal Falls, supposedly one of the grandest sites in the entire park. Our eventual exit route from the canyon would see us hiking back to the North Rim on the same trail, so we agreed to save it for later. By then both of us were craving that beer at Phantom Ranch. We were also curious to see such a watering hole in the middle of a backcountry destination. Our arrival to the resort will be the first time I have had a frosted adult beverage made available during the middle of a wilderness backpacking trip.

     I am not sure what exactly I had pictured in my mind for Phantom Ranch but the reality of the small resort doesn’t match. I imagined fewer buildings and more campsites and the restaurant saloon that I craved is just a small cantina with a meager sampling of food items and equipment. The cheeseburger and frosty pint of beer we had talked about on the trail reluctantly become a six pack of lukewarm American lager and a chocolate bar.

     By the time we finish our third drink, the simple rustic nature of the place has won us over. We actually find ourselves preferring the small operation over a bustling brew pub full of tourists. So much, in fact, that rather than push on to our reserved campsite, we track down the ranger office and manage to finagle one of the previously booked camps due to a last minute cancellation. Just before bed Jamie makes a trip down to the camper’s bathrooms and is breathless upon her return.

     “I just saw a ring-tailed cat!” she announces.

     “Dammit,” I mutter. I had truly been hoping to see one of these strange creatures and I had almost joined my wife on her trip to the bathroom. Related to raccoons, these adorable mammals are extremely intelligent, curious, and possess opposable thumbs capable of manipulating zippers and bags. They have longer bodies and shorter legs than actual felines, but they possess a similarly adorable countenance. Like the Kaibab squirrel, they are absolutely at home in the trees, which means their presence in the canyon is restricted to the very few wooded areas. Phantom Ranch is a veritable oasis in the Grand Canyon.

     Any camper in Phantom Ranch who doesn’t utilize the provided ammunition boxes to stash their food, will wake up to find it gone. One of our neighboring campers saw a ring-tail, calmly and coolly, unzip the top pouch of her backpack and fish out a sack full of trail mix sitting right on top. And if the cats don’t rob you, the fearless mice will. Before setting out, we had borrowed a steel-mesh bag that is sealed shut at the top with a wide swath of hardcore Velcro. Nothing short of a bear is breaking into our food and hauling it off.

     I sleep poorly hoping to catch a glimpse of the legendary ringed-tail cats, but all I do is make myself tired. Also, a campground, unless deserted, always makes me feel a bit cagey; too many hairless apes wandering about the joint, disrespecting the environment, and generally pissing me off. It doesn’t take much. Not to mention the ever present threat of black helicopters as well. They could have spies all around me and I’d never now until it was too late. It is time to hide once again.

     After crossing the interstate-wide river of slow churning chocolate milk more commonly known as “The Colorado”, we steel ourselves for the climb halfway to the top of the South Rim. Once again, we are instantly staggered by the views of the colorful river canyon from above. There are overhangs designed for viewing that are literally one step to the river hundreds of feet below. These natural viewing platforms have no handrails or safety features whatsoever. If a sudden blast of wind were to hit you while pressing your luck on the ledge, well, the end is certain, but I do wonder if people tend to scream, or just take a sudden intake of breath in the moment of realization that is never let out again.

     At the intersection of the South Kaibab trail and our intended eastern path across the Tonto Plateau, we talk with a Ranger claiming to be the oldest employee in the park. Frankly, we aren’t about to dispute that fact. The grizzled old timer looks as though he’s seen a season or two out in the desert.

     “What about our trail here?” asks Jamie, pointing east.

     My wife and I exchange questioning glances when he responds, “I ain’t been out that way in twenty… twenty-five years. Ain’t much out there. Hope you brought enough water.”

     Some people might interpret those words as ominous or, at least, a practical warning. Nothing he witnessed out there ever inspired a return visit. How great could it be? To us, it sounds like our chances of running into any other hikers just dropped considerably. The information leaves us beaming and ready to march on.

     The ranger was right, particularly for the first stretch. The Tonto Plateau was a gently rolling half-mile wide shelf of stumpy sagebrush and a variety of cacti. I begin to think there isn’t a plant here that wouldn’t prick, lacerate, or poison you if given the opportunity; nothing like are soft green and mostly harmless foliage back home. To our south, sheer walls ascend to the skyline; to the North, a cliff followed by a direct plummet to the Colorado River. From the open vantage point, we see black clouds still raging over the North Rim where our truck is surely buried in snow.

     As we hike deeper into the remote country, the storm in the northern sky is joined by an equally ugly mass of churning clouds to the south and west. The weather appears to be boxing us in. For some reason, karma, good fortune, or dumb luck tends to watch our backs in the backcountry and this time is no different. Just as we think it would be wise to get a campsite battened down, a natural shelter appears before us. At the base of a rocky outcropping, eons of wind and rain have worn the underside of a couple monstrous boulders creating a cave just large enough for our two-man tent and backpacks.

     By the time we finish making camp and eating dinner, the storm activity has all shifted northward. All we experience, from the safety of our shelter, are strong blasts of wind and ominous skies that talk tougher than they actually are. As the afternoon set in, the weather settles altogether and patches of blue appear overhead.

     “We need to find some more water for tomorrow,” Jamie notes as we emerge from our confined cave to stretch our muscles.

     “It looks like the main trail is about to drop into that slot canyon to our east. With all the recent storm activity, we can probably find some pothole water.”

     Pothole water is the precipitation left trapped in the natural cracks and eroded bowls of level rock after the storms and flashfloods have passed. Slot canyons are the best place to look for water out in the desert. There are countless of these smaller side chasms feeding the Colorado River. Tourists taking rafting trips down the Grand right after a heavy storm must be treated to breathtaking scene of countless waterfalls cascading from above.

     We follow our small canyon to the South and away from the river thinking our best bet is to search the higher ground. The slot is filled with a rainbow of boulders from a variety of geological eras dropped from differing heights above, as well as the occasionally firmly rooted juniper. The very base of the chasm is filled with intermittent stretches of flat, polished stone that look promising, but eventually the walls converge in a dry dead-end rising a hundred feet above us.

     After retracing our footsteps and following the slot in the opposite direction, we find our pothole water. Surrounded by the footprints of big horn sheep, Jamie and I locate several tiny pools of clear water in the naturally eroded bowls along the flat rock bottom of the drainage. After the tedious ritual of scooping spoon-sized servings into our filtering bottles, we return to camp prepared for another day of hydration in the desert.

     “We might make a desert rat out of you yet,” says Jamie and we crawl into our tent for the night.

     “I might be willing to consider part-time employment,” I reply.

     Three days of steep hiking has taken its toll and we sleep from the moment our eyes close until a murderous cawing brings us back to the reality of a frigid dawn full of gusting winds. The raven sits just outside our cave fixing us with one menacing eye. Maybe we had crashed in his pad on accident. Who knows? In any case, we allow our surly alarm clock to get us moving until the coffee can kick in and take over. Our plan for the day is to reach a point of similar elevation, but on the opposite side of the canyon. We are as deep as we are getting on this expedition; it is time to head back to the North Rim.

     On our way back to the South Kaibab trail, we notice a large family of nervous deer just uphill from our position. While we watch, a herd of big horn ewes and their calves trot past below us. All of the ungulates we have seen in Grand Canyon look fat and happy, with the exception of some scattered deer we saw in the creek bottom of Phantom Ranch. Distinct ribs were showing on about a third of that population.

     Deer eat discarded trash and it clogs their bellies until they can no longer digest actual food and they slowly starve to death. At one point, in the not too distant past, park rangers had to slaughter a sizeable portion of the herd to put them out of their misery. Autopsies later revealed several pounds of plastic garbage in each animal’s stomach. Thinking about the unnecessary suffering of those deer, I get locked in a violent mental cycle wishing I could inflict similar torture on the mindless transgressors.

     I am still fixated on the variety of ways in which I would gladly punish litterbugs when we cross the Colorado River for the second time and find ourselves back at the bustling resort of Phantom Ranch. We stop at the cantina one last time to purchase critical ingredients for our Thanksgiving feast, a meal that had been taking shape in our minds as we have covered mile after mile of rocky trail. Showing considerable restraint, we stay just long enough for one beer before re-shouldering our portable homes and waving goodbye to this remote outpost of pseudo-civilization. Our last act before resuming the march is to mail a couple postcards that are to be carried by pack mules all the way to the Southern Rim where they will then be turned over to the actual post office.

     By dusk we have covered more ground than any other day of the trip and we are once again off the main path in the desert backcountry. We make our camp for the night on the flat rock of a drainage bottom sheltered from the wind. It is the ideal location to be creamed by a midnight flashflood that could carry us over the cliff just below our site and onto the jagged rocks far below. We agree that if either of us awakes to the sound of rain, we’ll get up and move, but the skies look like they will hold. Taking advantage of the day’s last light, we can almost see our location from the night before, halfway up the southern canyon walls and on the great Tonto Plateau. The distance seems immense, not even remotely possible to cover in one day, yet we made it… just in time for a quick dinner and another night of exhausted slumber.

     “Happy Turkey Day!” my wife shouts in my ear to wake me up and cease my snoring. After my heart quits seizing from the jolt, and a couple of dirty looks, I return the blessing. It really is Thanksgiving even it doesn’t remotely feel like it out in the Big Ditch. Still, looking around at our primeval landscape, completely void of trees and human life, it is easy to list a plethora of things I am grateful for. The most surprising of which is that a mountain man could feel so content out in the desert; I suddenly realize I haven’t thought about the black helicopters in over a day.

     After several miles of steep downhill, we are back on the main Kaibab Trail. With the exception of our intended detour to Bridal Falls, from here on out it is a straight climb back to the top. Wore out from the constant uphill, we almost ignore the path to the unique viewing site for a second time. Jamie finally makes a command decision to push ourselves a bit further and see what the fuss is about.

      A half hour later, I’m pleased we made the hour long side visit because the falls are possibly the most stunning vision we have seen in the entire park. The water pours over an abrupt rock ledge from an unknown source above onto what looks like a small cinder cone volcano covered with bright green algae. The waterfall splashes of the rock formation scattering mist and droplets throughout the dead-end slot. Even in the cold November air, Jamie and I drop our packs and let the refreshing spray wash over us.

      By the time we reach our final campsite, we are ravenous from the constant incline. Our Thanksgiving feast consists of a cubed and grilled summer sausage added to a pot of creamy, cheesy potato soup and a stale bagel slathered with cream cheese. In our famished state, it is as delicious as any holiday feast we ever consumed.

     The smells even brought an army of intrepid mice from the nearby bushes that were not easily dispelled. Much to my wife’s horror, one even made it halfway up the outside of my pants before I shook him down to my boot tip and then with a gentle kick launched him back into the expanding shadows of nightfall. This is a woman who fell asleep during a grizzly bear attack in Glacier (long story), but the thought of a mouse touching her is terrifying. Go figure.

       In the last light of dusk, I look up to the awaiting North Rim where I can just detect the individual outlines of separate pine trees. The snowline appears to start a couple of miles from the top. Tomorrow will see us hidden beneath the fragrant green boughs once again, carving a path through the snow and ice just like nature intended… at least for this man of the mountains. Gone will be the cacti and sagebrush and with it my heightened sense of paranoia. Soon, I will be able to hide from the helicopters once again. Still, as I look at the last hint of light grazing the tallest gold cliff miles above our campsite, I can’ help feeling like I will miss this barren landscape. Maybe I inherited some of my Grandpa’s desert rat blood after all.

Henceforth Aspirations

2011-01-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

Won a chemical lottery
This morning
Awaking lion grin
And stallion strut
The energy
Positively contagious

Howling troubadour
Steering wheel snare
And finger guns
For fellow
Tombstone commuters

Frosty barnacles
Of dead winter dawn
Melting in the wake
Of all this
Solar activity

A first taste of
Spring on the lips
Of her breath
Budding nubs
And I accept your
Resuscitation
On this first sunrise
Before the rest
Of my days

Murder Suicide

2011-01-21T12:59:00.000-08:00

I can only imagine
My frustration
When the inevitable future
Finds me
Trapped in a gently
Jostling sea
Of silent slates
And empty eyes locked
On a hand held

All of us caught
In the flow of
Wedged bumpers
Harmlessly bouncing
From one person
To the next

I will be the only one
Trying to
Plot an untouched course
The only one saying
Pardon
And finally the only one
To break down
Screaming certain death
To the next
Pile of oblivion
Touching me

Rather than display
Visible reactions
All they will do
Is turn the device around
Making me
The temporary target
Of indifferent attention
And within seconds
I will see myself
Freaking out on the
News monitors
Strung above our heads

Without trial
Or explanation
I will be exposed
As far too alive
And dangerously unfit
For living

Behind the War Paint

2011-01-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

     I hand the cashier a twenty dollar bill and turn to walk out the door when a tattered missing person sign taped to the glass catches my attention. Actually, it is the eyes I notice first. His unique name sits just above that blank stare awaiting my confirmation. His 'gone missing' date is over two years old. Missing? Two years? How had I not heard anything? Why hadn’t mother said something? Probably because I never call or visit, I instantly reason with a slight flare-up of guilt. It had been three years since my father's funeral prompted my last trip to the place I was raised, three years since I had set foot in this gas station, and almost twice that long since my final conversation with the man on the poster.

     His name was Cactus Dry Creek and he belonged to the only Indian family in our small mountain town. His tan skin and long black hair stood out as much as his name was inappropriate for central Idaho’s cold, forested climate. Of course, he wasn't born in Timberline. His family moved here from Nevada, which made him a double rarity in our neck of the woods. After the sawmills closed, nobody moved to Timberline; they only moved away.

     Considered an outsider, Cactus wasn’t treated particularly well at his new high school. It wasn't outright bullying. It was more that people acted like they just couldn't see him, like they thought he might disappear if they never acknowledged his existence. Once the primary focus of my peers neglect, due to an innate understanding of math, I was all too happy for Cactus' arrival. At least at first.

     The Dry Creek family bought the house closest to ours. Although we lived a quarter mile apart, he had to pass our place on his walks to and from school. I would watch him out my living room window as he moped past our fence, gaze at his feet, and his younger sister always trailing behind. I quickly convinced myself that I couldn’t stand his dejected body language, so I went out of my way to ensure our paths crossed during the commute. Looking back on it, I wonder if my motivation was simply the fact that being replaced on the bottom rung of the school's social ladder hadn't won me any more friends. I was still as alone as Cactus.

     In any case, he was just as eager for a comrade and we quickly forged a strong friendship. One of those childhood relationships you naively assume will last forever. As I have aged, and friends have come and gone, forever has come to mean a shorter amount of time. Is it like the pessimists say? Are friendships really just a matter of convenience and circumstance? When one part is removed from the equation, do they eventually fall apart?

     Stepping outside into the gas station parking lot, I am greeted by the rich, pine fragrance I have always associated with my hometown. I may have been all too eager to escape this dead-end settlement, but I never discovered another setting possessing Timberline’s access to a wild world of pristine forest and crystal clear streams. Taking in a combination of familiar sights and subtle changes, I drive my tiny hybrid down Main Street where oxidized Chevy and Ford trucks line the strip. The road leads me past a small school building, and again, I find myself sifting through memories of my old friend.

      Like Cactus, I was tall and lanky, coordinated in ways that weren't altogether graceful, and we found a common bond playing basketball. There weren't enough kids in our school to fund team sports, but if there had been, Cactus and I would have been starters on the hardwood. In addition to all the time spent playing on the town park's crumbling court, we also spent countless hours watching games at his house. I remember vivid images of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird battling back and forth like I had front row seats. He had a color television and my family didn't even have a black and white.

     In those days, Cactus had bright and clear green eyes. Nothing like the dead-end stare barely recognizing me the last time we spoke, nothing like the empty expression on the missing person poster. I remember how quickly his eyes began to fade those last two years of high school. From that seemingly magically blessed moment when Cactus touched the grizzly on the playground, he became a different person. I should know, because our friendship was the first thing to die.

     I remember the bear incident more vividly than any memory I can recall. Our small school held grades one through twelve and because all the classes had their lunch hour at the same time, nearly everyone, teachers included, were milling about the playground when the first child screamed bloody murder. As one, every head in ear shot swiveled towards the commotion. As one, we were met with a terrifying sight none of us could have imagined.

     The scream belonged to a young blond girl named Tess and she was running as fast as her short legs would carry her across the baseball diamond. Loping across the grass, considerably behind the terrified child, was the largest bear any of us had ever seen. Several off the younger girls joined Tess in her panicked shrieking and chaos ensued. I recall teachers yanking children off their feet and dragging them towards the school entrance, while larger boys shoved others kids aside in their haste to reach safety. In a split second, our school succumbed to a state of sheer terror.

     Our town had its share of black bear visitors, but we knew in an instant this was something else. Fish & Game officials later confirmed what we all knew. Despite the last of its kind in Idaho having been killed a century ago, there was ursus horribilisis in the flesh, and at our school. While others fled, I stood staring at the charging grizzly in a dumb stupor. I knew full well what the animal was based on its size and hulking shoulders, but I was unable to wrap my mind around the beast’s actual presence. Then, as if to one-up my stupendous incredulousness, Cactus threw down our basketball and sprinted after the bear.

     The basketball court was off to one side and out of the giant animal’s path. Like the other kids and teachers, Cactus could have reached the school's side door, but instead he charged an intersecting route towards the bear like a man possessed. As the massive grizzly lumbered past the jungle gym area, Cactus closed the gap, made an incredibly athletic springboard jump from halfway up the slide and landed right at the bear's back feet. With his legs still churning, Cactus grabbed ahold and yanked the grizzly's stubby tail. The monstrous creature's reaction was an instantaneous spin with teeth bared, but Cactus had never stopped moving. The tall Indian boy was already ten yards past the bear and moving faster than I had ever seen another human run.

     Now, a grizzly can outrun a horse over short distances, and although this one didn't give chase, I am not convinced it would have caught Cactus that day. The bear, after spinning about and seeing Cactus fly by, actually sat down for a second, as if it were protecting its tail from getting pulled again. Along with the rest of us, the grizzly watched in disbelief as the young man cleared the baseball diamond and sprinted into the bordering forest beyond.

     By then, I was the only person left standing in the schoolyard and I had never moved an inch. The rest of the teachers and students were just mouth-agape, wide-staring eyes barely visible from the windows and doorway. Had we really just seen that? First a grizzly where there couldn't be one, and then the unimaginable stunt Cactus pulled. None of it seemed possible. A second later the stunned bear was back on all fours and running its initial route past the side of our school. Moving in opposite directions, both animal and boy were quickly lost from sight.

     Lost in thought on my drive through Timberline, I almost fail to notice I am passing the old Dry Creek cabin. As of my last visit, I saw their familiar vehicles still parked outside and I was tempted to stop by. They would have loved a quick visit, but rather than face the momentary awkwardness of seeing someone for the first time in ages, I have always been one to let a stale relationship disintegrate into dust. This time, there are no cars in the driveway and the windows of the quaint A Frame are boarded over. A rusted For Sale sign sits half fallen over in the weed infested front yard. For all I knew of their whereabouts, the rest of the Dry Creek family had gone missing along with their son.

     I was the first to look for Cactus that fateful day all those years ago, and found him a quarter-mile into the dense forest, sitting at the base of a granite boulder, pale-faced, shaking, and breathless. His eyes were wide with fear and I noticed a tear had recently streamed down one of his cheeks. Cactus recoiled at the sound of my approaching footsteps before realizing it was me.

     “What the hell was that, man?” I demanded. “You could have been killed. You should have been killed!”

     Cactus snorted a quick hysterical laugh and a glob of snot burst from his nose. He ran both hands through his thick, black hair, pressing his skull tightly as if trying to keeps his brain from exploding. He looked at me and his tense shoulders finally collapsed in what looked like total, unexpected relief. My friend then recounted what happened and it was the only time I ever heard the tale told exactly so. From that point on, details quickly changed, heroics were amplified, and the legend of Cactus Dry Creek grew beyond control.

     Just a minute before everyone heard the first blood-curdling scream, Cactus had seen his sister on the jungle gym swing. When the Grizzly appeared and was heading in that direction, helping his sister was his only instinct, his only choice. It wasn't until he was in mid-air, leaping off the slide that Cactus noticed the empty swing still swaying as if recently abandoned. What he didn't know was that a second after her brother had last noticed her whereabouts, she had jumped from the swing and ran towards the drinking fountain. After the bear had been spotted, she was amongst the first children safely inside.

     “I saw that thing heading straight for Skye... or where I thought she was, and I just reacted. I was trying to distract it.” A few minutes later, after his crazy round eyes had relaxed and we could hear the distant voices of our teacher closing in, Cactus revealed another truth, another angle on the story I never heard again. “I don't think that bear was after anyone,” he said. “Honestly, it looked spooked to have found itself around so many people and was just trying to get out of there.”

     “And the tail pull? Are you insane? I can't even believe I'm talking to you right now!”

     “I almost ate dirt on my landing,” he replied sheepishly. “My feet got tangled for split second and I had to grab something.”

     Cactus' life changed instantly and dramatically after touching the grizzly. He was the closest thing to a celebrity Timberline had ever seen. Turns out, it was a tagged bear out of the Glacier Park area in Montana. For some reason, the big beast had abandoned his turf and wandered over three hundred miles from home. The day following the incident, Fish & Game Officials had the young Indian boy pose next to the slumped body of the giant bear. Cactus' fierce pose, standing with one foot atop the dead animal's shoulder, was circulated widely in the northwest, a brief write-up even appearing in National Geographic Magazine.

     He allowed the legend of the grizzly to take on a life of its own and people were all too happy to take the tale and run. By never sharing what he told me, the townsfolk chose to believe that he had somehow tapped into the spiritual powers his Native American ancestors allowing him to perform miracles of courage and wonder. He became an overnight shaman, a mystical man in the whitest community imaginable. People suggested incredulous scenarios, and Cactus didn't refute them. Before long the bear was twice its actual size, probably rabid, and only due to his brave confrontation with the animal were dozens of children spared a certain, bloody death.

     His new found stardom included the attention of our school's attractive females as well as the admiration of Timberline's rough and tumble crowd of young men. Most of them the sons of loggers, these boys fought hard and drank even harder before having even graduated high school. Cactus became a sort of cultish figure head to our town's adolescence because he would attempt any proposed dare, no matter how risky, or ridiculous. People assumed that anyone man enough to tug the tail of a grizzly was brave enough to face any danger.

     I was probably the only one who knew Cactus couldn't swim when he agreed to jump 80 feet from the rail road bridge into Timberline River. The water below the drop wasn't particularly deep and the current was swift, but I never saw Cactus bat an eye when the challenge was presented at school. I overheard people talking about it later, saying he calmly bobbed to the surface and seemingly let the current take him downstream and out of sight.

     Whatever the task, Cactus was up for it. From exploring half-collapsed mine shafts, to chasing a wolf pack away from an elk kill in his bare feet, the young man seemed born without fear. He never bragged about his exploits, or challenged anyone to replicate his feats; Cactus just seemed to go through the motions with an expressionless visage and let everyone else get caught up in the excitement. Like a magician, he'd perform a stunt, vanish from sight, and then reappear after his audience began to worry that something bad must have happened.

     Months after the bear incident, I noticed a particular dullness overtaking his once bright eyes. The attentive young man I had known quickly took on a thousand-mile-stare where he could dutifully engage someone in minimal conversation, but his focus seemed absolutely elsewhere. As time went on, his face barely registered any emotion at all, matching his reptile like gaze. When we graduated a short time later, I realized it had been a couple months since I had seen him share so much as a passing nod in the school hallway.

     As I park my hybrid in front of the house where I was born and raised, I realize it is the location where I had my last, brief conversation with Cactus. I had been loading my old hatchback with the clothes and supplies I would need for my first year of college. The used vehicle was a graduation gift from my parents. Cactus was ambling past my driveway, again staring at his feet, when he noticed me tying luggage to the top of my car. He stopped and looked at me with his head cocked sideways as if trying to remember something. I was surprised at how gaunt and pale his flesh had become, his dull eyes sunk deep in the cavernous sockets.

     “Cactus?” You okay, buddy?” I remember feeling awkward about calling him that as we hadn't been friends in some time. It felt pathetic to me at that moment, like I was clinging to something long gone. He looked up at me with that same empty look I had come to expect, almost as if seeing me for the first time. His long, slow sigh was barely audible.

     “One of these days, I'm gonna keep runnin',” he said. “Keep runnin' and never look back. I don’t want to know if anyone is watching anymore.”

     My young friend, looking impossibly aged, walked off after that cryptic message and I let him go without a word. I didn't know what he meant. I didn't know what to say. At that point, I'm not sure how much I even cared. His life, his story, was in a place I was leaving behind, and I knew I would never again call this small town home. My excitement about moving to the big city and starting college took precedent over anything happening in the lives of others.

     Climbing the wooden steps to my mother's cabin, I stop and look back at the base of the driveway where an old friend and I had shared our last, awkward exchange. I suddenly wish I could relive that moment, but what would I have said? What would I have done different? I hear his last, monotone words once again and picture his face on the missing person sign. Maybe Cactus was trying to tell me something that day, something he knew had to happen in order to preserve his own life. Maybe he did need to keep running and never look back at the place and the people who saddled him with so many expectations. Maybe he was letting me know that he too needed a fresh start.

     I picture him sprinting through the forest as wild-eyed as he was the day he touched the bear. Only, in my mind, there is joy on his face and an endless clarity to his vision. A sensation defying all logic and reason leaves me feeling as if Cactus is still out there running through the dark and wild woods. Except now, he isn't running towards or away from anything, he isn't running for an audience, Cactus is simply running to feel the wind on his face, to feel his heart pound in his chest, to ensure that he is still alive, and more importantly, living for himself.

E.D.

2011-01-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

Cold comfortable death
The weight
In these hands
Exquisitely ugly instrument
Of polished silver
Precise molding
Evil intention
And I understand
The attraction

The sex in violence
And rigid godhead

Icy steel turned
Blistering hot
A primer’s eye
Coughing sparks and
Scattering fate
Chance and promise
Like tarot cards
Tossed into tornadoes

It is a dance
With the devil
Inviting him to bed
While hoping
He’ll keep that finger
To himself

One Up

2011-01-07T13:54:00.000-08:00

Endured
The surgical table
Awkward
Pant dropping
Get to know ya'
Stick of needles
And manhandling
Manhood ensuring
Such a seed
Never again
Withers
On the wine

If
Our purpose
Like every purpose
Is to see
Ourselves
Watered down
And living on
What does that leave
When
Lives last
As long
As living memory
Following
The after words
All that remains
Are stories

A fitting
And fair
Final chapter
Where the worthy
Find ways
To live forever

What Doesn't Kill Ya'

2010-12-31T11:47:00.001-08:00

     I was in a Boise pub recently having beers with a friend and letting him proofread one of my outdoor adventure articles. He began making subtle faces about halfway through the small stack of pages as if detecting some foul odor but not wanting to call attention to it. Smelling nothing besides the aroma of fried food, I began to suspect it was my writing.

     “You know,” he said, after finally setting the story down, “everything with you is pristine this and unimaginable that. Maybe three kids and a hellish job have me feeling jealous, but would it kill you to suffer from time to time? I mean, I shouldn’t feel envious of a man who spends his time squatting in the bushes, eating dehydrated crap.”

     Sifting through a plate of soggy nachos for a crunchy chip, I said, “Squatting in the bushes isn’t as bad as you make it sound. Besides, I’ve eaten backpacking meals better than this. When the piece is about soaking in hot springs, what am I supposed to do? Make it sound like torture?”

     “You forget. I’ve spent some time out there myself. I’m an Eagle Scout and it isn’t all sunsets and roasted marshmallows… or hot springs. Sometimes things go awry, or Mother Nature whomps your ass, or your woman makes you so mad you just want to strangle... someone. Sometimes, it gets flat out miserable and you know it.”

     As my verbose acquaintance launched into one outdoor recollection after another, most of them hilariously traumatizing at his expense, I began to see his point. Most of the wilderness lessons permanently imprinted on my brain originated from a time when presented with a tough situation; something I had never encountered, or was seemingly unprepared to deal with. My friend was right. It only seemed fair to give the unpleasant experiences equal attention.

     My part-time editor rattled on as a slow grin crawled across my face. I couldn’t help digging up a memory I had tried to bury. Thinking back on that weekend, our very first backpacking trip together, I am surprised the legend of Snakeduck and Nature Fox was ever born. My wife and I were new to each other in those days, and it’s a good thing, because with the exception of our fresh love, we had everything else working against us.

     For reasons no longer remembered, we chose to go backpacking in mid-July. In the Idaho mountains, the nights and mornings of peak summer are still cold, but much more tolerable than other times of year. It’s the heat of day that will get you. Well, the heat and other things. With our relationship in its infancy, Jamie and I had never really experienced the other reeking of sweat. It’s a reality couples must face at some point; we all stink sometimes.

     In fact, when the going gets hot and dirty, my signature odor is quite reminiscent of freshly chopped onions. I am almost proud of my funk’s insistence on being acknowledged; it is an undeniable presence, a veritable force of nature. Of course, at the time, I was trying to keep it to myself by keeping both arms pinned to my sides. Jamie, in her frank, talk-before-thinking manner of communicating, first brought her detection to my attention by announcing, “Something died near here. You smell that?”

     I played the question off by looking around as if I might actually see something, while desperately hoping she might really be sensing something other than me. However, as we continued hiking, I saw her testing the air with an occasional sniff and then cringing. I knew it was me. I had to come clean, or start lagging behind by a hundred feet. I couldn’t pretend that a dead animal was following us. Maybe she’d fall for the possibility of a Sasquatch; rumors suggest the big guy gives off a noticeably foul stench.

     “I think that smell is me,” I admitted sheepishly. “Must be burning off last night’s rum.”

     “I guess,” she said looking slightly embarrassed for having brought it up. “Oh well, it’s to be expected in this heat. I’m sweating too.”

     “I’ll jump in the lake as soon as we arrive,” I promised.

     Our forest trail was leading to Boulder Lake, outside of McCall, Idaho. This mountain destination had long been a spiritual refuge for me and it was the first time in years anyone had accompanied me for the trek. I remember feeling it was somehow appropriate to share this scenic setting with my newfound love. Little did I know, it would be my last hike to Boulder Lake.

     Jamie and I began suspecting there were problems before we even caught sight of the lakeshore. For starters, during a break two-thirds of the way up the trail, I realized I had left my stuff sack full of snacks in our truck. We had dehydrated dinners and enough instant oatmeal for a couple of days, but without the supplementing jerky, trail mix, dried fruit, and granola bars, we’d be operating on a caloric deficiency until we got back. No big deal, just part of the backpacker’s diet plan. However, it was also during this rest that we first noticed a rapidly swelling presence of mosquitoes.

     Not even the threat of grizzly bears will deter me as much as mosquitoes and my wife and I typically time trips so that we deal with as few peak swarms as possible. I’m not sure what we were thinking on that trip, but once we set foot into the tiny vampires’ lair there was no escape. Smelling blood right through our skin walls, the devils closed in, and the closer we got to the lake, the more the sky darkened in a cloud of bugs.

     Hastily scouting the familiar campsites of Boulder Lake, I realized we were going to be tent bound if we had any hope of keeping our sanity. The droning buzz was enough to set our nerves on the most precarious of edges, the mounting bites sheer torture. At the furthest tent site from the shoreline, Jamie tore into her backpack before a slow look of horror crossed her face.

     “Did you pack my tent?”

     “Uh, why would I pack your tent?” I questioned, while wind-milling my arms to keep the swarm at bay.

     “You wouldn't... and neither did I.”

     I remember the smile never leaving my face even as my heart sank and my brain freaked out. No tent? In this bug infested swamp? We’re doomed! Looking back on it, I choose to believe we were just too starry-eyed, too in love, to focus on certain trivial details, like packing life-saving equipment and food.

     In a measure tone of voice defying the shrieking alarms in my mind, I said, “There is a smaller lake above this one and I recall it having a rockier shoreline. Maybe the bugs won't be so bad.”

     In retrospect, the suggestion was really more wishful, or just asinine, thinking. Bug swarms at one lake amounts to bug swarms at the lake next door. For want of a better word… duh! Somewhere between stubbornness, and a misguided sense of bravery, we decided to forge on instead of retreat to our vehicle.

     The ascent over the ridge and then back down to the upper lake was a more strenuous hump than I remembered and if at all possible, the bug situation was even worse. A late start to our hike that morning, followed by pushing on for higher ground, now ensured we couldn't get back to the car, or even Boulder Lake, before nightfall. And, just to add icing on the cake, I discovered the feeble light on my headlamp to be in the death throes of battery power. We couldn’t have made a safe march in the dark even if our exhausted bodies had been up for it.

     Knowing we were stuck for the evening, and reeking like I was, I resigned myself to stripping naked, facing the swarm, and taking the ice cold plunge. Tossing my clothes aside as quickly as possible, I fled the mosquitoes for a nearby boulder overhanging the deep water. They won’t follow me out here, I thought, despite knowing I could stay in the frosty lake for all of five minutes before succumbing to the initial stages of hypothermia.

     I was right. Although I barely had time to notice, there were slightly fewer mosquitoes on the rocks than the shore. I called for Jamie to join me and dove in. Mother Nature’s second wave of attackers arrived as I emerged from the water gasping and stuttering in the suddenly much cooler air. Unlike mosquitoes, Idaho horseflies don’t take a moment to feel things out with their flimsy proboscis. These big suckers crash land and chomp hard without hesitation.

     By the time Jamie joined me on the boulder, I was doing what must have looked like some spastic, ecstatic dance routine full of flailing limbs and self-castigation. So determined to kill the horseflies, I was leaving bright red handprints all over my torso and legs. Jamie had realized the situation as well and ran past my perch like a woman on fire.

     “The flies!” she screamed before disappearing into the clear lake with a loud splash. “The freezing!” she shouted upon reemerging. “The mosquitoes!” she shrieked as she reached the shore. In knee-deep water, my future wife stumbled in three panic-stricken circles, unable to decide which torture she could more readily endure, the cold or the bugs. I might have had a hearty laugh at the sight were I not so involved in my own funky-chicken dance completely void of anything resembling dignity.

     Scrambling back into our clothes in a paranoid frenzy, Jamie and I reasoned the only way to deal with the combined might of both horsefly and mosquito was to build a triangle of three small campfires and hunker down in the middle. While she dug out the fire pits, I gathered pine boughs and wood that was wet enough to barely burn. With our sanity threatening to shatter beneath the relentless onslaught, we finally managed to get the fires lit. The green fuel engulfed us in white smoke and though we could barely breathe, the bugs retreated just beyond our protective triangle.

     My wife and I boiled water with a propane stove and ate a meal of dehydrated spaghetti, all in a race against time due to our meager supply of wood. After eating the tasteless, unfulfilling meal, we threw the rest of our wood supply on the fire and laid out our sleeping bags in the smoky bath. We felt like Warlocks in the protective circle of some chalk-drawn religious symbol while salivating demons gathered at the edge radiating pure animosity.

     Before the flames had even died, the insects renewed their attack. We were forced to crawl down inside our suffocating bags, seal up the entrances, and listen to the unbearable buzz of starving blood suckers just inches from our ears. Neither of us slept a wink for fear of falling asleep and accidently allowing the monsters access to our ripe, tasty flesh. Not only that, the numerous bites we had already sustained throbbed and itched throughout the long night.

      By the time the first light of day spilled over the ridge, Jamie and I were out of our bags and scrambling to get our gear packed. In record time, we had camp broken, boots laced, and were ready to flee the bug infested nightmare. So determined to get back to the truck, we ignored the trail running along the shoreline altogether and began a climb straight up to the ridge separating Boulder Lake from our position. The distance was sure to be shorter, but the steepness of the climb, combined with picking our way over loose stones, made for an exhausting ascent.

     Within a half-mile of the top, Jamie stopped and sank to one knee gasping for breath. The delay in motion allowed the bugs to pinpoint our location and swarm with renewed fury.

     “I… can’t… keep… this up,” she huffed while futilely trying to wave off the insects gathering before her face.

     I was tired too, exhausted even, but the mosquitoes were pushing me to a mental state I had rarely achieved. No matter how weary I felt, I wasn’t going to stop until my heart gave out, or we had reached shelter from the swarm. I remember thinking of a backpacking trip in the Boulder White Clouds with my Boy Scout troop where we had encountered a similar bug situation and were forced into 18 straight hours of marching… most of it steeply uphill. I saw grown men break down in tears on the side of the trail that day. A couple of the stouter lads, myself included, had to be loaded down with the gear of others as people’s bodies gave out on them.

     “Give me your backpack. I’ll carry it,” I offered. “We can’t stop now.” In the back of my mind, I knew I would find a way to carry her and her pack if I had to.

     My offer for assistance must have inspired Jamie because she rose to her feet with a look of steely resolve pushing past her misery. Wiping sweat into her hairline with the back of her hand, she led the charge to the ridgeline where we were mercifully greeted by a blast of wind that momentarily scattered the pursuing insects. While the bugs regrouped, we took a few breaths of fresh air, drank some water, and then made the four hour push down to our vehicle without stopping.

     Starving, exhausted, and itching from a hundred bug bites, we drove straight into McCall and pulled into the legendary Pancake House for a late breakfast. The coffee was glorious and the greasy meal was even better. Although Jamie and I never did return to Boulder Lake, that backpacking trip was the first of many throughout the Rocky Mountains. Sitting in the restaurant that morning, I think we subconsciously decided that if we could weather an experience that wretched without fighting, seriously panicking, or holding grudges, then Snakeduck and Nature Fox were destined for a life of outdoor adventure together… albeit, with a little more planning and double-checking of supplies.

Aloha

2010-12-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in a timeline
Unstitched
Bare feet dance
Over a grave
In which
I am not sure
My body yet lies

Regardless
Of whether
I am bones turned dust
Freshly planted
Or awaiting my turn
The performance
Is without insolence
Dancers celebrating all
With equal aplomb
Enthusiasm
And indifference

They are spring rain
And winter starvation
Last rites
And birthing ward
Harvest and seed
Sunset ceremonies
Tied to the wheel
Of forever’s
Fresh breaking dawn

Resolutions

2010-12-29T17:35:00.000-08:00

Standing at the gates
Of my greatest decade
I am set
To accept these gifts
This hairy eye
Savage heart
And feather quill

Ready to rid myself
Of all things
Man
Willing to step away
From synchronized
And terrorized biospheres
Ascending
Into a forest
Somewhere
Beyond the trees
Somehow
Outside imagination
Expectations
Or paralyzing fear

This life is ripe
For breaking
Overdue
The dawn

Once Every Several Lifetimes

2010-12-22T08:32:00.001-08:00

Midnight rendezvous
With a blood red
Shape shifting mistress
Floating behind
Dark clouds
Over frozen landscapes

A tiny miracle
Of time and space
Ancient provoker
Of prophecies
Good tidings and
Heart popping blades

A vision
Tantalizing the imagination
Somehow eclipsed
By your day breaking
Impossibly ripe form
Rinsed of shadow
And beaming light
Like the heavens reborn

Legacy Denied

2010-12-20T13:33:00.000-08:00

The red bearded
Viking king
Of our childhood
Has been robbed
Of bloody axe
And booming voice

A life of
Keeping love
At the end of arms
Leaving him weaponless
For the final years
Of a war within

Once a barbarian
We would have followed
To silent
Certain death
Now a statue
More hollow
Than the longboat
His heirs
Long since set aflame
And turned adrift
In the unknown

In One Ear

2010-12-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

Forever drawn
To a psychedelic saltlick
Daily
Slate eraser

Too much to witness
Absorb or understand
Overwhelming
Contradicting tides
Sweeping whimsy
Out to sea

Watery tombstones
Marking what can’t
Be exhumed
When nobody recalls
The gravesite
Why they were killed
Or who’s ideology
Was buried

The easy way out
I suppose
But what exactly
Have you solved
With all your
Paying attention
And taking sides

Waves

2010-12-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

Not long for a life
Never intended to live
Like cultists
We await
Our reincarnate
Transformation
Into ethereal embodiment
Of collective destiny

Distant sirens
The weeping wolves
Howling willows
Like chords intertwined
And dependent
On the other

Invisible connections
These diamond cables
On a twelve string guitar
Hammering out
A delicate symphony
Once conducted
In far away
Constellations

The last song
Remaining
Is the final falling tree
With nobody around
To witness

Phantom Limbs

2010-12-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

It could be distant
Christmas lights
In the whiteout
Of fog and snow
Or the rumnog concoction
Burrowing fuzzy tendrils
Through this pickled brain
But I find myself
On the verge
Of wistful recollections

Dare I say
Even nostalgia

Stained memories
Of lost lovers and friends
Reopened
For the first time and
Having never looked back
Surprised to see them
Burning so clear

Forgotten gift exchanges
My right hand mates
And boastful toasts
Unwrapping before
My very eyes
While amounting to
A ghostly sensation
I have zero use for
Because
It doesn't change a thing

Wile E.

2010-12-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

Slinking out of
An old mythology
There is a new agent
Of chaos
Amongst the flowerbeds
And manicured lawns
Of this tucked away
Retirement home

A trickster figure
Slipping nooses
While weathering
The tranquilizer darts
Of excessive authority

No longer
Do squirrels or quail
Linger on the lawn
Like they own something

The cold golden stare
And fixed grin
A necessary reminder
That life hasn’t turned
Completely inside out
Upside down
And all too easy

Veterans living here
Know better than anyone
That ecosystems
Lacking the dance of death
Are just wars
Waiting to happen
So they greet
This toothy marauder
With a salute
And reserved smile
All their own

Where I Stand

2010-12-06T15:36:00.000-08:00

A decade gone by
With such little drama
Have to wonder
If golden handcuffs
Have me anesthetized
To the biting teeth
Once responsible
For my three legged escapes

The highs
No longer lift
And the lows
Feel no different
Than an internal teeter-totter
Rusted in balance

Was my life
Already forfeited
Somewhere amongst
The early upheavals

Is this the gradual numbing
Of purgatory
Or some kind of hell
Trapped in bland acceptance

Maybe
These vanilla tented glasses
And regulated temperatures
Are some kind of reward
I am too simple
To recognize
Without the heart stammer
Flashing sirens
And novelty sized checks

You are Getting Sleepy

2010-11-30T14:37:00.000-08:00

We are without voices
Warm lips flowing
Silent testimony
Throughout
A history barely begun
Stretching to nowhere
Burning pages
Instead of reading books
Like we are already
Held fast in the winter
Of nuclear fall-out
As if we
Stumbled over a truth
We couldn't afford

Or maybe
A collective conscious
Already understands
And it is those of us
Still talking
Who are dense
And unable
To absorb these
Bathroom stall philosophies
This midnight stroke
The simple truth
Of terminal affliction

The whispers
Just an annoyance
A useless reminder
Of what might have been

A Genuine Peach

2010-11-30T14:22:00.000-08:00

For a dozen years now
She has accepted my
Swinging mood
And violent outbursts
With good humor
All the while
Digging in claws
And refusing to let my anger
Dislodge her commitment

Ears pinned back
Eyes clouded in heartache
She forces her way
On to my lap
Over and over again
Never fleeing
The rough handling
Or my desire to stew alone

Hurt me if you must
Dad
She tells me
I will keep coming back
Until you accept
This uncompromising love

See
I saved her life once
And she will never forget
Just as I
Won’t be able to forgive
All those moments
I may have caused
Her to doubt
Moments
I’ll be desperate to live over
Once she is
Finally and forever taken
From my shaking hands

The Halls of History

2010-11-29T08:27:00.000-08:00

Descending through millennia
In the big ditch
Geological gallery
A million years
Bypassed with every
Endless switchback
The compacted algae and
Trilobites now glorious
Monuments to extinct oceans
Towering limestone tombs
Radiating the treasured
Coral reefs of pink
And gold

Deeper still
The sage and unbreakable
Metamorphic basement
Once silent witnesses
To limp lungs emerging
From the primordial ooze
Now onlookers to
Our insignificant struggle
And breathless awe
No doubt
Mildly amused
By our toys and attempts
To encapsulate their wisdom
In a three by five
Two dimensional
Post card

Reform

2010-11-28T11:12:00.001-08:00

As I have grown older
More cynical
And possibly undecided
These days
Are harder to find
Moments
Of genuine change
Prospects for hope
Reason
To unfurl a flag
I no longer understand

Except our history
Both researched
Experienced
Real and undeniable
Teaches me
That even good ideas
Are dropped on the fingers
Of criminals
To be bent
And broken in a manner
Benefiting handfuls
Until our texts
Are plagued
By page after page
Of ludicrous endeavors

Vox Humana

2010-11-18T17:03:00.000-08:00

It is a language
I fail to grasp
All horsepower and
Zero steering
Tearing across reason
Or rhyme
While crackling speakers
Create a chaos
All their own
And dust devils cast
A wary eye

Where does the lesson
Drip from this
Sensual pole dance
Is there something
Behind all the
Heavy breathing
Or is it all
Just masturbation
Once the dollar bills
Disappear