With the wind under my wings I soar
I see the west Canadian shore
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
Nuu-chan-nulth – A caring and nurturing people are thee
Small families among the mountains, rivers, and sea
Vancouver Island’s west coast is where you reside
Awaiting your canoes on evenings incoming tide

Your men are fishing in the ocean’s secret places
Worry and hope etched in their weathered faces
Each man knowing the days hunting success must provide
For many wives, children, and elders the spoils they must divide

Your rhythm and harmony with the ocean is strong
Whale hunts and oceans spirits intertwined through your song
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
I hear the east call, and open my wings to take flight
The distant drum’s heartbeat calls from the suns rising light
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
Coast Salish – You know how the sea dances and quivers
As you watch the expanse from your inlets, and rivers
Vigilance is needed in case a Storm approaches
To mount a defence if an enemy encroaches.

Your wise headmen lead with such divine humility
Your family life embodies true equality
Your features are defined by a broad face and flat brow
Your girls with plucked brows, braided hair prepare for their vow

You seasonally harvest your rivers resources
Spawning Eulachon and sturgeon complete their courses
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
As I leave your forests of tall cedars and aged fir
The drumming beckons me up the wild Fraser River
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war


Okanagan – You survive in the Valley and slopes
In a legend of a coyote you set your hopes
He educated you how to live off the hard land
Your very own lives you bestowed in his paw like hand

Your offspring, your joy, your future you know must be taught
So at an early age, to the elders they were brought
Your youths are handpicked and taught the roll they shall assume
If a warrior shall fall another shall resume

Your seasonal harvest of forest meadows and marsh
Will insure you survival when the winters are harsh
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
With the updrafts I glide over the dry desert plains
I hear the drum call from a land where it hardly rains
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
Secwépemc – your men come out through the eastern sunrise’s door
Your women’s entrance faces the stream to ease her chore
In seasonal cozy houses built into the ground
In a secret place your spoils and possessions are found

Your request for spawning salmon grows louder each day
The messenger crickets announce salmons on their way
You hunt with arrows and spears you crafted from strong stone
Needles and jewelry you made from animal bone

You patiently, wait in the winter’s silent brisk eve  
For the deer’s stealthy approach from the snow covered trees  
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
The drum it beckons from the land of river crossroads
The land where men come to bring and trade their canoes loads
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war


Dakelh – You are the people who learned how to barter
You are known as the people who travel on water
With gathered roots you weave fish weirs in the evening air
And you set your high hopes in the chanted salmon prayer

Your children learn from the oral traditions you tell
Chinlac massacres, caves where dwarves shooting arrows dwell
Your widows carry ashes of the husband they held dear
Their Mourning and sadness that will last over a year

The respect for the land for everything you have gain
Though much, and bountiful your harvest some shall remain
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoess, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
A plume of smoke and drum beat come from the distant Northwest
Echoing from the place where the Skeena River rests
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war

Gitxsan –Your Home is surrounded by snow tipped glaciers
Forests of spruce, hemlock, cedars, and subalpine firs
Your chieftain name and duties you hold for a short time
Other Wilp members are only ‘children’ in their prime

Like the rivers your families closely intertwine
Each account told is a lesson that is sublime
Each Wilp has your story told by a tall totem pole
Your History affects and moves you deep in your soul

Deer, Moose, and small mammal in the wild woodlands you stalk
You pursue the Mountain goat through rugged peaks of rock
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
The drums incessantly pounds as I take to the sky
Urgently calling from remote islands of Haida Gwaii
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war

Haida - You live in the pacific northern islands
Your fam’lies Belong to the eagle or raven clans
You watch the tide rise and fall over the rocks and sand
Great mighty sculptures you have created with your hand

With strong healthy cedar trees you made your long dwellings
The entrance way totem your history is telling
Your warrior canoes glide through the rolling waves
Through victories and battles you have prisoner slaves


The sound of the drum beat is mixed in saltwater spray
To Vancouver Island’s west shore I must fine my way
The drum it echo, echo, echo’s, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
As I leave your vast, and memorable territory
In the soft twilight air I watch the sunset’s glory
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war

Kwakwakawakw- So proud you are of your mother tongue
Born in this beautiful land your ancestors came from
Noblemen, Aristocrats, commoners and your slaves
Your narrative exists among your forefathers graves

Your canoes bow is carved into animal features
The whale, otter, salmon and other sea creatures
You hunt with such heroic assurance all year round
In the shapes of well carved masks their likeness will abound

Your long homes are protected by the oceans embrace
First nations, my people, you are a amazing race
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
I leave your land of legends in a misty gray veil
And on the horizons comes change’s white sail
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
The Europeans came into your isolated lands
Dividing your people into tribes, reserves, and bands
Before their arrival you lived mighty, strong, and free
Now your children fight to reclaim their identity

The drum will echo, echo, echo through time’s core
It will whisper a rhythm of time, change, and war
The drum will echo, echo, echo through your core
It will whisper a rhythm of time, change, and war

Butterflies fluttering around
Canoes moving slowly across the subtle waves
Kids laughing and gawking
Bugs flying
Ducks fighting
Families grilling
Couples holding hands
This is relaxation
This is nature

COOL TENTS WITH HOT FOOD
From the 10th diary entry of Stewy Lemmon's childhood adventures.

Finally, the day Smoochy and I had been waiting for had arrived. It was Saturday the 7th of March. The day we were heading off to the, 89th Boy Scouts & Girl Guides, combined World Jamboree. The jamboree was held this year in the Nevada desert in Las Vegas, USA.

My dad Archie, was the local scout leader for the Shimmerleedimmerlee 1st scout group and my mum Flo, was second in charge of the Barefeet Mountain 3rd Girl Guide group. Mum's friend was the Barefeet girl guides leader and she was named, Miss Alice Springs. Dad was making the trip with other local scout leaders and 11 of us boys. Mum and Miss Alice Springs were taking 11 girls from the local Barefeet Mountain girl guide group, including my two much older identical twin sisters, Emma and Jemma. Also coming along was my much younger brother, Lemmy and of course my grouse pet mouse, Smoochy.

Dad has been in the local boy scout group since he was very young and his father, John Lemmon, my grandfather, was also in the same scout group when it first began, all of those years ago.

There were boy scout and girl guide groups from all over the world attending the big camping and adventure event. People from far away places like Norway, France, Egypt, Australia, Holland, England, Brazil, Thailand, Hong Kong, Italy and of course the host nation, the United States of America.

Every group, brought with them their home nations own colourful flags and individually designed tents, based on their countries culture or famous landmarks. It was like having all of the countries of the world, all in the one place at a time.

The boy scout and girl guide group from Thailand had a tent that looked like a Buddhist Temple and also had an outdoor kitchen where they would make, such great tasting, but ever so hot and spicy, food from.

The Egyptian guys and girls had a massive high tent, that resembled the world famous giant Pyramid of Giza. It must of taken them ages to make the angles so perfectly straight and with extreme precision.

Holland's tent was a large and fully operational, colourful windmill. It, even had it's very own water tank. The windmill tent was painted with colours and designs that even impressed my very artistic dad.

He said, 'He might even have to redecorate his unusually built, outrageously painted, outback, backyard shed and use some of the bright paint colours and fancy designs the boys and girls had done'.

The next tent was very big and long from the boy scout and girl guide groups of, Australia. It had been designed to look like the, Sydney harbour bridge. But it didn't have a roof to protect them from the weather, while they slept shoulder to shoulder, across the wooden bridge road. But, like most Aussies with relaxed and casual attitudes they said, 'She'll be right mate, Rain, Hail or Shine'.

The guys and gals from Italy, had a tent that was leaning over to the right, just like the, famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. They assured us all that it wouldn't fall over. 'Trust us, they said'.

Hong Kong had a very long tent that was based on the colourful, cultural inspired dragon. It had a lot of tent pegs on either side, to keep it's ever winding position in place. It was the most colourful and coolest tent of all. But at the same time, the most scariest tent of them all.

England's tent was based on the very historic, Tower of London. It even had two very serious looking guards on patrol out front, made out of paper mâché.

Norway's tent was in the shape of, a Vikings fighting helmet. It had, two large horns coming out from the left and right hand sides. It looked like a raging bull, in a bizarre sort of way.

Brazil came up with a giant yellow and green football, based on their national sport and colours of the country, for its design. All of us just hoped, 'It didn't get a sudden hole in it and start to knock over all of our tents, just like a giant pinball game'.

France went for a super, duper structure, that was wide at the bottom and became thinner towards the top. It was in the shape of the Eiffel Tower, of course. It was the tallest tent at the jamboree camping grounds and provided the best views from atop.

While the host nation the USA decided to honour the, Native American Indians. They, had a large tent resembling an original and colourful Indian Teepee, with a hole at the top. The scouts and girl guides from, the USA, sent out messages to everyone nearby, using the old, but still very effective, smoke signals way of communication. They said, 'Who needs the Internet, Facebook and Twitter, when you can send messages and cook a meal on a fire at the same time'?

After looking at all of the great tents made by all of the participating nations, we sat down to eat. Everybody had made a favourite dish from their home country. All the girl guides from Australia made the famous and delicious dessert cake called, Pavlova. But, it wasn't any ordinary Pavlova, for it was in the shape of the very large outback rock named Uluru. Which, by the way, is located in the middle of Australia, near a place called Alice Springs.

So my mum's friend has a very famous name indeed. The girl guides from Australia named this creation, 'The Alice Springs Rock'.

The Egyptians had made a dessert out of shortbread, that took them hours to make. Each piece of shortbread had to be skilfully cut, with exact precision or the creation just wouldn't stay in place. It was named, 'Pastry Plate of Pharaoh's Perfect Pyramid'.

The Italian Boy Scouts, prepared a series of huge leaning pizzas stacked on top of each other, on very acute angles, just like their tent. They named their creation, 'The Leaning Tower of Pizza'.

The host nation of the USA, made some yummy hotdogs with tomato ketchup, mustard and cheese. They made the hotdogs, pop up from each end of the roll and placed wooden sticks on either side to look like American Native Indians were rowing their canoes.

Norway had created a tasty snack made with salmon and biscuits which looked like little boats flowing down the Fjords. Also the impression of large rocks in the water that were in fact meatballs for all.

Thailand had served up several spicy dishes, including the famous Pad Thai dish with chicken and the hot soup named Hot and Sour with Prawns in Thai you pronounce it as Tom Yung Goong. It was so yummy in the tummy the dishes from Thailand.

In the Brazil kitchen they made us their nations famous Churrasco or BBQ. It uses a variety of meats like pork, beef and chicken which was cooked on large metal skewers stuck into the ground and roasted with the embers of the charcoal.

France baked up some crescent shaped flaky pastry named the Croissant. They added some great tasting almonds to a few, while some others had dried fruits such as sultanas, raisins and even apples.

Holland had an assortment of plates consisting of Gouda and Edam cheeses with mayonnaise and mustards and other plates had a rich variety of fruits, freshly cut meats and nuts placed upon them.

Hong Kong had very traditional Chinese meals prepared for all to enjoy. They had everything from fried rice, to Chinese noodles to my dads all time favourite Peking Duck, so when he saw the duck he said he was in luck. Also they had a plate full of Dim Sums and a Hong Kong favourite snack called egg tarts and another of my dads favourite drinks named milk tea.

Finally England had whipped up my Friday night special, which is Fish n Chips with tomato sauce. It was so good that a lot of the other nations said they would make it for their families, once they got home.

In the morning we had such great fun and adventure while trying every nations favourite sport or recreation. We started by having team races on the river in Native American Indian canoes, Norwegian Viking ships, Italian Gondolas, Egyptian river boats and Chinese dragon boat races in the nearby river. The winning order was Hong Kong 1st, Italy came in 2nd and third of all was Egypt.

We even had competitions to see who could do the best smoke signals and we even had fun rope climbing events to the top of the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning tower of Pisa, and walking and climbing events up the Pyramid of Giza and the Sydney Harbour Bridge tents.

Then some countries had a football game after lunch with teams from Brazil, England, Italy and France playing for the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides World Cup golden trophy. Brazil beat England in the final 3-1, to hold up the golden cup.

Some other nations had bike riding races, which Holland won with ease. Australia did really well in the boxing competition. Everybody laughed when Smoochy came out 1st, wearing a pair of boxing gloves, before they brought out a plastic blow up of their mascot wearing gloves "Big Red" the boxing kangaroo which was placed near the ring for good luck.

Thailand dominated the Judo and the USA couldn't be stopped in the 100m sprints and also the mixed basketball matches. So overall, everyone had such a great time and we all loved the tents, food and different sports to watch and perform in, from all of the world.

The week went so fast and it was sad to say goodbye to all of our new friends from all over the world, but we promised that we would stay in touch either by using smoke signals or the new generations way, which is either by Facebook or Twitter.

I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.

Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.

The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart..    .    .
        After the sunburn of the day
        handling a pitchfork at a hayrack,
        after the eggs and biscuit and coffee,
        the pearl-gray haystacks
        in the gloaming
        are cool prayers
        to the harvest hands.

In the city among the walls the overland passenger train is choked and the pistons hiss and the wheels curse.
On the prairie the overland flits on phantom wheels and the sky and the soil between them muffle the pistons and cheer the wheels..    .    .
I am here when the cities are gone.
I am here before the cities come.
I nourished the lonely men on horses.
I will keep the laughing men who ride iron.
I am dust of men.

The running water babbled to the deer, the cottontail, the gopher.
You came in wagons, making streets and schools,
Kin of the ax and rifle, kin of the plow and horse,
Singing Yankee Doodle, Old Dan Tucker, Turkey in the Straw,
You in the coonskin cap at a log house door hearing a lone wolf howl,
You at a sod house door reading the blizzards and chinooks let loose from Medicine Hat,
I am dust of your dust, as I am brother and mother
To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay,
The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago
Marching single file the timber and the plain.

I hold the dust of these amid changing stars.
I last while old wars are fought, while peace broods mother-like,
While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men.
I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days.
Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,
I who have seen the red births and the red deaths
Of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait.

Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?
Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?.    .    .
        Rivers cut a path on flat lands.
        The mountains stand up.
        The salt oceans press in
        And push on the coast lines.
        The sun, the wind, bring rain
        And I know what the rainbow writes across the east or west in a half-circle:
        A love-letter pledge to come again..    .    .
      Towns on the Soo Line,
      Towns on the Big Muddy,
      Laugh at each other for cubs
      And tease as children.

Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up..    .    .
Out of prairie-brown grass crossed with a streamer of wigwam smoke-out of a smoke pillar, a blue promise-out of wild ducks woven in greens and purples-
Here I saw a city rise and say to the peoples round world: Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.
Out of log houses and stumps-canoes stripped from tree-sides-flatboats coaxed with an ax from the timber claims-in the years when the red and the white men met-the houses and streets rose.

A thousand red men cried and went away to new places for corn and women: a million white men came and put up skyscrapers, threw out rails and wires, feelers to the salt sea: now the smokestacks bite the skyline with stub teeth.

In an early year the call of a wild duck woven in greens and purples: now the riveter's chatter, the police patrol, the song-whistle of the steamboat.

To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake.
I say to him: Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short..    .    .
What brothers these in the dark?
What eaves of skyscrapers against a smoke moon?
These chimneys shaking on the lumber shanties
When the coal boats plow by on the river-
The hunched shoulders of the grain elevators-
The flame sprockets of the sheet steel mills
And the men in the rolling mills with their shirts off
Playing their flesh arms against the twisting wrists of steel:
        what brothers these
        in the dark
        of a thousand years?.    .    .
A headlight searches a snowstorm.
A funnel of white light shoots from over the pilot of the Pioneer Limited crossing Wisconsin.

In the morning hours, in the dawn,
The sun puts out the stars of the sky
And the headlight of the Limited train.

The fireman waves his hand to a country school teacher on a bobsled.
A boy, yellow hair, red scarf and mittens, on the bobsled, in his lunch box a pork chop sandwich and a V of gooseberry pie.

The horses fathom a snow to their knees.
Snow hats are on the rolling prairie hills.
The Mississippi bluffs wear snow hats..    .    .
Keep your hogs on changing corn and mashes of grain,
    O farmerman.
    Cram their insides till they waddle on short legs
    Under the drums of bellies, hams of fat.
    **** your hogs with a knife slit under the ear.
    Hack them with cleavers.
    Hang them with hooks in the hind legs..    .    .
A wagonload of radishes on a summer morning.
Sprinkles of dew on the crimson-purple *****.
The farmer on the seat dangles the reins on the rumps of dapple-gray horses.
The farmer's daughter with a basket of eggs dreams of a new hat to wear to the county fair..    .    .
On the left-and right-hand side of the road,
        Marching corn-
I saw it knee high weeks ago-now it is head high-tassels of red silk creep at the ends of the ears..    .    .
I am the prairie, mother of men, waiting.
They are mine, the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market.
They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire..    .    .
The cornhuskers wear leather on their hands.
There is no let-up to the wind.
Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins.

Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the five-o'clock November sunset: falltime, leaves, bonfires, stubble, the old things go, and the earth is grizzled.
The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches-among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain-they keep old things that never grow old.

The frost loosens corn husks.
The Sun, the rain, the wind
        loosen corn husks.
The men and women are helpers.
They are all cornhuskers together.
I see them late in the western evening
        in a smoke-red dust..    .    .
The phantom of a yellow rooster flaunting a scarlet comb, on top of a dung pile crying hallelujah to the streaks of daylight,
The phantom of an old hunting dog nosing in the underbrush for muskrats, barking at a **** in a treetop at midnight, chewing a bone, chasing his tail round a corncrib,
The phantom of an old workhorse taking the steel point of a plow across a forty-acre field in spring, hitched to a harrow in summer, hitched to a wagon among cornshocks in fall,
These phantoms come into the talk and wonder of people on the front porch of a farmhouse late summer nights.
"The shapes that are gone are here," said an old man with a cob pipe in his teeth one night in Kansas with a hot wind on the alfalfa..    .    .
Look at six eggs
In a mockingbird's nest.

Listen to six mockingbirds
Flinging follies of O-be-joyful
Over the marshes and uplands.

Look at songs
Hidden in eggs..    .    .
When the morning sun is on the trumpet-vine blossoms, sing at the kitchen pans: Shout All Over God's Heaven.
When the rain slants on the potato hills and the sun plays a silver shaft on the last shower, sing to the bush at the backyard fence: Mighty Lak a Rose.
When the icy sleet pounds on the storm windows and the house lifts to a great breath, sing for the outside hills: The Ole Sheep Done Know the Road, the Young Lambs Must Find the Way..    .    .
Spring slips back with a girl face calling always: "Any new songs for me? Any new songs?"

O prairie girl, be lonely, singing, dreaming, waiting-your lover comes-your child comes-the years creep with toes of April rain on new-turned sod.
O prairie girl, whoever leaves you only crimson poppies to talk with, whoever puts a good-by kiss on your lips and never comes back-
There is a song deep as the falltime redhaws, long as the layer of black loam we go to, the shine of the morning star over the corn belt, the wave line of dawn up a wheat valley..    .    .
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water..    .    .
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
  a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
  only an ocean of to-morrows,
  a sky of to-morrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
  at sundown:
        To-morrow is a day.

you are made up of everyone you've loved
they live inside your capillaries
ride your blood river
in tiny canoes
made up of wood
and memories

you notice them sometimes
the canoe attempts the impossible
and traverses through the aorta
that epicentre
of blood and feeling

it rides rough rapids
of turmoil
and regret
sometimes, longing
that terrible longing
the most wretched rapid of all

when your skin itches
that is them expanding
and contracting
touching your epidermis
to remind you they’re alive
and still a part of you

we are made up of everyone
everyone we've ever loved

There once was a lad from the Lone Star State,
who dreamed of exploration and realized that just over the horizon, adventure await.

He was commissioned by the internal desire for adventure,
which burns deep inside us all, and within him grew,
so he assembled a ragtag crew to explore a land seen by few.

He set off for the ancient land- more north than he’d ever been-
whose beauty and wonder only true voyageurs and men of the wilds knew.

By air and by land, the voyageur lad traveled to his Uncle’s cabin,
nestled deep within the Harshaw Hill country.
  
This legendary cabin, was built solely by the hands of the one they call Uncle Buck-
the most amazing cabin one could ever see.

Uncle Buck is renowned and recognized throughout the land
for his merit, adventurous spirit, long grizzled beard, and skillful hand.

It was here, in the cabin’s comfort, the brave Sugar Beans (as he was fondly named)
greeted his courageous crew with a hearty, “Boozhoo!”
They were some of the finest canoeists around-
paddlers tested, tried and true.

Together they pondered, planned, and plotted the course of their adventure
for which they’d set forth;
packed their belongings, and dreamed of North.

Sugar Beans’ crew consisted of five, rugged braves-
paddlers he knew had grit and could battle the wind, rain, and waves.

Uncle Buck, a wise and grizz old guide, had seen many moons in the Northland sky.              
Respect of all living things and the song of the wild are the codes to which he ascribes.

Jonesy, a well-traveled voyageur himself and Sugar Beans’ proud dad,
had been to this land and wanted to share its magic with his brave little lad.

Joeseppi , a young blood at heart, was the lad’s loyal cousin and friend,
a trustworthy bowman, on whom all paddlers could depend.

Makwa, the newcomer- fierce as a bear and as tough as the rest-
and after day one, she gave it her best.

And last there was Pierrὲson; the lad’s other cousin and fellow adventure zealot,
who once learned his lesson and stayed away from anything that resembled an apricot.

They loaded the van, strapped on the canoes, and greeted the early morning with a boisterous “Bonjour!” and embarked North to begin The Magical Northwoods Mystery Tour.

Traversing blue highways the voyageurs meandered north, through the wilds of Wisconsin and the Land of 10,000 lakes, hoping to make the Canadian border before it was too late.

Eventually they arrived at the Magical Northwoods’ doorway- delicate and ornate.
The crew unloaded their gear and launched their canoes- confident and sure.
Each eager paddle stroke brought them closer to all the memories they would create.

And Sugar Bean and his crew created memories- some of the best.
Memories that seep into dreams and make one feel blessed.  

Memories of:

discovering a pictograph and plodding through a ****** river- just to get back on path;

stumbling upon wolf tracks and forgetting the fishing poles- but never the packs;

exploring  craggy caves and battling and paddling against the wind and waves;

hunting for ice under rock clefts out of the sun, they searched and searched but came up with none;

swimming in the warm water nearly every day and asking painted turtles if they wanted to play;

practicing the art of stalking seagulls, and on every lake, they gave greeting the glorious eagles;

dropkicking each and every single portage and of food and laughter there was no shortage.

The crew came back with fantastic tales and experienced everything a voyageur could wish.
And although his dad will try to tell you it was only by an eighth of an inch, there are pictures to prove that Sugar Beans caught the biggest fish!

So here’s a paddle rattle for you- young voyageur lad- the greatest voyageur old Quetico’s ever seen!  May your adventurous spirit continue to grow and may the waters you paddle always be serene.

My foreign friend once went through my bag and found a bottle of ibuprofen. She said I wonder if these are her anti-depressants because if so then they're not working. Once my friend, excuse the bruise, my friend thought the rope in my room was meant for a noose. Once I regected food all day and so she spooned the meal to my face. She said "good girl" when I made myself a sandwich. She used to cringe every time she saw my ****** up wrists. She said her dad ******* when she was a kid and once she took a pen to her own skin. She said you know that feeling when you throw up ice cream? and I was the only girl who got it. Who really, really got it.
So, I remember sitting in the park by the waterfront smoking flavored cigars. It's starting to get dark and your leaning on my arm. I wanna split a cigarette but you're saying how I always get the filter wet. You were both the hardest and softest girl I'd ever met. We got our cards read that weekend. The tarot lady said I'd fall in love, I said bring it on. Well, I remember nights in a used hotel room, wound up on the bed was the only time you let me hold you. I used to give you chapstick every time you asked for it. You said you only missed me when your lips got chapped. and those days we weren't friends were the worst ones that I don't remember too well. I forgot how we both pulled the devil when we got our cards read. What I remember is that you were there for the worst anxiety attack. It's still funny cause you're the only one in the room who was scared. And the next day I'm dead inside and somebody's in my ear telling me about how they're making an effort to be friendly and I'm the problem, I'm not reciprocating. You ask me why I'm wearing a hat, It's so I can hide my shame under it. Today I don't have a voice, I can't talk. Can't say what I'm upset about. And I remember somebody telling me that if I thought happy I'd be happy which lead to break down sobbing in the bathroom and you came in and talked me out. You never blamed me, never thought what happened to me was my fault. And you listened to me spew about what it's like to have no friends and to hate yourself so much. And you didn't ask questions... you just loved. Loved, loved, loved. So much that I saw it building up in myself. That first jump into the pool in our sweaters and sharing showers and drying in the sun. Listening to you mumble in your sleep, combing through your hair with my thumb. And you said the first time you saw me you thought ****! Another girl that's too pretty. I think we should still be... lying on a sun lit deck. You're reading my books, I'm wearing your shoes. We should still be out on the lake, eating lunch in one of those big red canoes. We should still be jumping off the dock, yelling when the fish swim near us. We should still be up on a hill where we can smoke and watch the sunset fall to dusk. I should still be waking up late in your tent and stealing the blankets. We should still be up all night talking politics and arguing semantics.
So yes, I remember lying in your arms those last few nights while watching shooting stars. Those nights I wished so long and hard to never feel lonely again, I realized this summer that's my biggest fear. And this summer! This summer I feel healed! You bandaged me up so the good bye was rough. I felt like child peeling old band aides off.
Before she left she told me what I needed to fix about myself. In our soggy t-shirts, we have our toes diped in the water. She grabs a pool noodle out of my hands and as she bends it in demonstration says I have no back bone she can take whatever she wants, she can just have it. I'm too flexible. But she opens up, tells me about the guys she's ****** and how she's never really been in love. She tells me about her girl crush. She says if I'd told her I'd loved her first, "like I SHOULD have" then she'd of been crushing on me instead. I just wish I could have been the one to drop her off at the airport. I helped her pack her bags and watched her slam the car door shut. It's different when you're forced to be apart, she didn't have the chance to make me hurt. I count the miles that seperate us. Guess I'll just love her from a distance.

Health department signs litter the grass areas,
"Do not make contact with the water;
Swimming forbidden".
Less than twenty years ago I learnt to swim here
And fish too, once i even drowned!
Sometimes my friends and I would
Catch Eels then sell them
To the local Chinese restaurant.
I treasure those memories of my childhood.

This fresh water lake surrounded
By trees taller than buildings
My beautiful haven from the city, hidden
Between main roads and highways
that only the locals know.

Sitting on sandstone rocks
I see my reflection amongst the lily pads.
Beyond the depths an entanglement of
Roots, seaweed and *******.
Natural mandalas made by tadpoles
Ripple across the murky brown surface
Whilst a rather large water dragon
Sun bakes on the riverbank
And ducks glide by reminding me
Of the canoes we used to capsize
And I appreciate how simple life
Used to be.

ELEETE J MUIR

Sacagawea's Capture*

As I strolled the Knife River trail
a dust cloud swirled and fell
and earth lodges appeared by the score
extending from the path to the river banks.

Hidatsa women sang at their chores,
        husking corn -
              beading moccasins -
                     scraping a buffalo hide.

A band of hunters dismounted
and released their ropes -
dropping two deer and an elk
by the hanging rack.

Triumphal shouts from the river
turned all heads to the shore
where warriors, returned
from Shoshone fields,
lashed up canoes and dragged
their human spoils up the rise.

Several squaws reached out
from the gathering crowd
seizing two of the squirming children.

A Shoshone girl with terror in her eyes
cringed as a warrior raised his arm.
"No, tell your Hidatsa name!"
Sobbing she choked through broken tears,
"My name is Sacagawea."

I bolted to breach the walls of time
to face death in her defense
but a new whirling cloud intervened.

When the dust fell away
all the lodges had vanished
with all the Hidatsa villagers.

Kneeling down to the Dakota grass,
I caressed a circular hollow
etched deeply in the silent earth.



August 6, 2010

The white cells,
seemingly not fearful of  
oozing,
festering,
metastasizing,
fear black cells,
wearing hijabs or dreads.
The white cells
are fearful of the brown cells
that **** and process their chickens
and mow their lawns for them.
The white cells fear the red cells
though they like moccasins, canoes,
and wild rice soup,
fear yellow cells
may be smarter than them
so they label them
***** and Chinks.
The white cells  
don’t seem to mind
asphalt-coating,
starlight-stealing,
convenience store sprawl
devouring healthy green cells--
alfalfa cells,
forest cells,
swampy, boggy cells,
black-eyed susan cells.
The Chamber of Commerce
calls it growth,
progress;
but this town
needs a tourniquet,
maybe chemotherapy.

1 My white canoe, like the silvery air
2 O'er the River of Death that darkly rolls
3 When the moons of the world are round and fair,
4 I paddle back from the "Camp of Souls."
5 When the wishton-wish in the low swamp grieves
6 Come the dark plumes of red "Singing Leaves."

7 Two hundred times have the moons of spring
8 Rolled over the bright bay's azure breath
9 Since they decked me with plumes of an eagle's wing,
10 And painted my face with the "paint of death,"
11 And from their pipes o'er my corpse there broke
12 The solemn rings of the blue "last smoke."

13 Two hundred times have the wintry moons
14 Wrapped the dead earth in a blanket white;
15 Two hundred times have the wild sky loons
16 Shrieked in the flush of the golden light
17 Of the first sweet dawn, when the summer weaves
18 Her dusky wigwam of perfect leaves.

19 Two hundred moons of the falling leaf
20 Since they laid my bow in my dead right hand
21 And chanted above me the "song of grief"
22 As I took my way to the spirit land;
23 Yet when the swallow the blue air cleaves
24 Come the dark plumes of red "Singing Leaves."

25 White are the wigwams in that far camp,
26 And the star-eyed deer on the plains are found;
27 No bitter marshes or tangled swamp
28 In the Manitou's happy hunting-ground!
29 And the moon of summer forever rolls
30 Above the red men in their "Camp of Souls."

31 Blue are its lakes as the wild dove's breast,
32 And their murmurs soft as her gentle note;
33 As the calm, large stars in the deep sky rest,
34 The yellow lilies upon them float;
35 And canoes, like flakes of the silvery snow,
36 Thro' the tall, rustling rice-beds come and go.

37 Green are its forests; no warrior wind
38 Rushes on war trail the dusk grove through,
39 With leaf-scalps of tall trees mourning behind;
40 But South Wind, heart friend of Great Manitou,
41 When ferns and leaves with cool dews are wet,
42 Bows flowery breaths from his red calumet.

43 Never upon them the white frosts lie,
44 Nor glow their green boughs with the "paint of death";
45 Manitou smiles in the crystal sky,
46 Close breathing above them His life-strong breath;
47 And He speaks no more in fierce thunder sound,
48 So near is His happy hunting-ground.

49 Yet often I love, in my white canoe,
50 To come to the forests and camps of earth:
51 'Twas there death's black arrow pierced me through;
52 'Twas there my red-browed mother gave me birth;
53 There I, in the light of a young man's dawn,
54 Won the lily heart of dusk "Springing Fawn."

55 And love is a cord woven out of life,
56 And dyed in the red of the living heart;
57 And time is the hunter's rusty knife,
58 That cannot cut the red strands apart:
59 And I sail from the spirit shore to scan
60 Where the weaving of that strong cord began.

61 But I may not come with a giftless hand,
62 So richly I pile, in my white canoe,
63 Flowers that bloom in the spirit land,
64 Immortal smiles of Great Manitou.
65 When I paddle back to the shores of earth
66 I scatter them over the white man's hearth.

67 For love is the breath of the soul set free;
68 So I cross the river that darkly rolls,
69 That my spirit may whisper soft to thee
70 Of thine who wait in the "Camp of Souls."
71 When the bright day laughs, or the wan night grieves,
72 Come the dusky plumes of red "Singing Leaves."

brian allan’s big race




today at lake ginninderra there was a bike canoe and foot race from john knight park

to the steps of the belconnen mall on benjamin way and brian allan was competing along with

other people who live around belconnen, and the opening song to start the race was advance

australia fair, so as soon as the anthem was finished everyone got on their bikes and started heading to the dock where the canoes are,

brian allan got onto a fabulous start really pumping iron in his legs riding down the cycle path

listening to i want you back i gotta get b through to you, i want you back, and brian just hit the lead

about 2 km away from the canoes and bria sped right down and had an unbeatable lead

and when brian allan reached the canoes, he had a great lead, and it wouldn’t have mattered

how bad he did in his canoe, but as brian got started, he started to hear the other bike riders

coming toward him, so he started canoeing and headed right for the other side, but brian’s arms

weren’t strong enough and when brian made it to the other end, he was 4th in line and had to make some ground

but the canoe was slow and brian was worried that the next pack would catch up to him

but brian got out and started running toward the steps of the mall, and because brian likes

christmas, as he entered they played christmas where the gum trees blow, there is no frost and no snow

christmas in australia’s hot, cold and frosty is what it’s not, and brian was running past the crowd

brian, brian brian, the crowd yelled but he wasn’t going to catch the leading 3, but brian stuck at 4th place

and brian sprinted down the road for the final prize point, and when brian allan made it to the steps

yeah he won $145, which meant, even if he los to 3 races, he still won money for his race

and brian went to the water booth to hydrate and started joking around with the other prize winners

and brian sang, i am the champion, you see, you see i travelled from start to finish, oh yeseree

i am the champion, i am the champion, i only came 4th but i won $145 yeah i am the champion of the world

and then as the other racers were coming in, the caller said, we have got our top 4 money winners worked out, so we will start

the presentations and brian allan came 4th, yeah and he was ****** happy about that, like that nobody counts except for brian

and when brian was gven the $145, he cheered so loudly, yippee i ay

the poem read

brian is the best person

better than the rest of them

he is better than everyone there

i know he only came 4th, but that is pretty good don’t ya think

brian is the best person

brian allan is the best

and when the last place came running in, they started to clear up for next year

saying this was a great race

Dragonflies dance.
               Branches like fingertips.
     They sit, as if to keep them safe during the passing sun.
While all the colors bleed elegantly onto the shifting glass, trying to reflect back.
          Trying to capture the infinite beauty that so many fail to see.

Ripples spill out.
     The circle of life, ever growing.
               Slowly dissipating back into the whole.

     Last call for sunshine and attempted laugh lines.
Conversations trail into forged friendships.
                    Passing into late night dreamscapes.

We calm our minds.
     Knowing that today was just another day, another step into the next.

            The mosaic waters bring new visions.
                          Ever expanding, never remaining.

Escape

Everyone has dreamed of fleeing to a south sea island setting on the beach in the moonlight. The softest glow pervades all, our guarded defenses evaporate as the moon’s power effect not only the tide even our over active human drive slips into neutral. With our mind we become part of the sea breezes unchecked scoundrels of the universe vagabonds who live for living’s sake not the face of an angry clock these stolen moments we won’t surrender catch us if you can but your net will have to be worldwide we clear the break waters we feel the power that freedom alone can announce with arching sling we shoot through the sky not an observer but our own shooting star. Look quickly in the cloud covered mist yes with perfection fitted the wild island nation of Madagascar go back to its beginnings look through times mist see the people of Austronesia arriving on outrigger canoes watch the birth of an island nation unfold for the first time understand who you are and whose image you are made in you are sons and daughters of the very God of heaven. Go on streak through the wild blue to long you have been tied to earths restraints step up steer into the unknown you were given dominion when he without beginning or end startled the formless void with the power of his voice he made a world a universe for you and me. His design was that you would rule this kingdom and always it would be the birthstone of adventure and comfort not a prison but a garden. Trackless waste in an instant you can change your transportation from ship to hot air drift inland to Africa’s sense of raw and pure delights take your ease over rolling hill and plain. This is freedoms oratory no zoos or bars the great herds follow the migratory paths that there kind have known from the beginning. Real men stood here the native Maasai warrior his spear his staff the **** his bread for glory of a wild domain he was bred. Not all can be surveyed in one night that is what lifetimes are for the moon now gives way to twilight it wasn’t fantasy or a dream you are men and women conquers of supreme destines one stipulation it only comes to those that fight and won’t except the norm. Lives for you to command don’t allow any one that right you are the beacon God chose for this time don’t be a disappointment how pleased this would make our enemies.

Escape

Everyone has dreamed of fleeing to a south sea island setting on the beach in the moonlight. The softest glow pervades all, our guarded defenses evaporate as the moon’s power effect not only the tide even our over active human drive slips into neutral. With our mind we become part of the sea breezes unchecked scoundrels of the universe vagabonds who live for living’s sake not the face of an angry clock these stolen moments we won’t surrender catch us if you can but your net will have to be worldwide we clear the break waters we feel the power that freedom alone can announce with arching sling we shoot through the sky not an observer but our own shooting star. Look quickly in the cloud covered mist yes with perfection fitted the wild island nation of Madagascar go back to its beginnings look through times mist see the people of Austronesia arriving on outrigger canoes watch the birth of an island nation unfold for the first time understand who you are and whose image you are made in you are sons and daughters of the very God of heaven. Go on streak through the wild blue to long you have been tied to earths restraints step up steer into the unknown you were given dominion when he without beginning or end startled the formless void with the power of his voice he made a world a universe for you and me. His designed you this kingdom rule and always it will be the birthstone of adventure and comfort not a prison but a garden. Trackless waste in an instant you can change your transportation from ship to hot air drift inland to Africa’s sense of raw and pure delights take your ease over rolling hill and plain. This is freedoms oratory no zoos or bars the great herds follow the migratory paths that there kind have known from the beginning. Real men stood here the native Maasai warrior his spear his staff the **** his bread for glory of a wild domain he was bred. Not all can be surveyed in one night that is what lifetimes are for the moon now gives way to twilight it wasn’t fantasy or a dream you are men and women conquers of supreme destines one stipulation it only comes to those that fight and won’t except the norm. Lives for you to command don’t allow any one that right you are the beacon God chose for this time don’t be a disappointment how pleased this would make our enemies.

A firetruck races past the isolate Blue Fox and infinity. Dulcimer clatters fading brickwork on the cross markets and churches where blind men are the imagining heaven. Luminescent Volcanic leaves heated from sunfire beautiful in the Spring choke lanes which are battered by abstract cavern homes. What happened to the Orient Harpsichord Serenity? Where does the Blue Fox go? Incense Markets Sauna with Smoke are busy in Denpasar while I'm here at a North American shopping mall where Ivory Columns cradled in violet fauna do wait sturdy and enchanted in rows.
Here I'm waiting by the leather clay shade bench in silent meditation breathing community whispers and listening clear to water pour from the lionhead fountain. Parrots caw atop a wide gated ceiling facing Empyreus.

There is a fire in America. The Blue Fox is hidden beneath firs and palms bathing in humidity. The Blue Fox is writing prophecies of economic collapse and rampant pointless murders making the newspapers. Ash storms blazing while banana painted trucks row on row attend to Victorian wood panels cooling to onyx powder in too short a time. There is no room for learning when The End Times go too quickly.
I'm listening to Bob Dylan scream instrumental prayer on harmonica rough against my ears. The Blue Fox treads February Beaches a few hundred miles from Australia and whistling the words of flowers in his head. He chews on wheatgrass jangling change in his fur pockets like those cartoons. He is the vision of Bohemia, he is an active star dazzled in this beguiled galaxy, yet in his spine he carries the turmoil doppleganger kept by all and known by none.
The firetrucks are doing all they can to quell the lung-poison vase boiling an apartment dancing inside but it continues to grow in its enraged fury.

There's a fire in America boys and girls, come around and see.
Canoes of memorial gold row through oppression and genocide, the Inuits and First Peoples of ancient years are wondering too where the blue fox went when agony cries the air. Stories of wisdom replaced with stories of war. Balaclavas labyrinthine through  exotic Bazaars thick with music and plants hanging off fishhooks and brass coat hangers while I write and dream of such Valhallas in my shopping mall on a quiet afternoon.
Bill is playing the banjo with faded paint and a single broken string, there he is on Yates! Cowboy hat made of charcoal velvet holding a meager collection of change.  
Stephen Schizophrenia is lying on his back watching aluminum kingdoms hover on by expanding nimbus clouds. He has eleven dollars to his name along with a damaged half torn belt with his initials engraved on the buckle  He taps his feet to Edith Piaf howling "La Vie En Rose" while an Airplane collides with his sacred personal aluminum palace, suddenly he can't block out the repressed memories he's fought decades to hide deep and dark in his bleak jazz enthralled brains.

Maybe we're all supposed to fall apart. Maybe we're designed to hurt and cause hurt. Where is that ****** Blue Fox? He's ebullient, thoughts fragmented in sharp bliss glass cutting him through while he rolls around the sands catching Buddha particles in his paws digging holes on Kuta Beach to his Idyllic land where happiness is forever and therefore false.

The Blue Fox falls in love overwhelming with everybody and every soul. So many souls by the billions every place! Even the tyrants. Even the demons. Even the necrophiliac scoring an OD'd brunette at twenty six from Anaheim who collapsed flatlined by prescriptions on a 3rd floor Complex.
He adores the narcissist who loves everybody as fully as The Blue Fox as long as they are herself. She is the harmonic untainted flytrap unaware of its own venomous nature but jealous of Summer and jealous of those whose names are heralded through generation to generation.
He adores The addict who is hollow of everything but the ****** sizzling under his patchy skin while he sinks from divinity swelling through his heart. He smiles while the remaining light dies inside him, left with only the regret remedies of suicide.
He adores The artist who fled to the big City and became nothing but watered down pigment after the Capitalists tossed him off the nearest skyscraper shouting pretentious metaphors.

The Blue Fox loves them all! He has no concept of the corrupt, or the lazy, or the greedy and needy and crazy and forgotten. They are all equal to him! The Blue Fox is knelt on paisley carpet smooth and spectacular! His regular India ashram, uplifting his body and his mind. The blue fox knows no doubt. Or anxiety, frailty or tears. He has no impulse or desire. The Blue Fox is joy in form and breathing spectrums of color mixing to combinations we cannot perceive.

There is a fire in america. It rages on unstoppable. It engulfs countries thousands of miles and histories away. It swallows the morning, noon and night. It protrudes disease in its wake. It heats up the ozone layer allowing radiation to make us more than cancer the zodiac. It causes our terror. It blots out our ardor. It havocs our heroes. Nothing is clean anymore. There is a fire in America.

And America is the world!  I'm watching out the front doors of this shopping mall where an elderly man trips at the food court escalator and becomes more renowned with every lethal collision down the tiles of freedom. Paramedics arrive shortly after and attend to another scalded by that same fire.
Up and up it goes!

"Hola mi amigo"
That is how they greed us
in the states, but
don't blame them, because
we are the Latino's lost twin

Next time
don't let them
judge the book by it's cover
tell them that within the book
it reads:

we are pohnpei
the garden island in the pacific
on the map
we are midnight stars
in broad daylight, but
through the lens of a telescope
one shall be blinded by our beauty

for we are

sweet harmonies of birds singing
before sunrise, and
sweet perfumes of island flora
pouring through your nostrils
we are reflection of sunsets
stretching out into the open sea
glittering, like
diamonds beneath the sunlight
we are children in Christmas
crowding along the roads
clutching onto plastic bags
waiting joyfully for Santa
to ride into town and
rain candies on them
we are dusty old tires
diving and splashing into
muddy pool *** holes
on a paved road
we are coconut milk
leaking through
the valley of ten fingers
wedded in a shape of a ball
and pouring onto breadfruits
we are wooden hulls of canoes
smashing through the waves
like a bull through a red cape
we are grandmothers telling
ancient local tales to her kids
and fathers showing his sons
how to become island men
we are the powerful kava
repeatedly pounded on a flat stone
forming a liquid
brown as a chocolate milk
and when one drinks
the world suddenly becomes
a quiet peaceful place
we are pig meats
heated beneath flaming rocks
covered with banana leaves

we are proud and peaceful
we bow to show respect towards
one another, visitors and their highness
we have five kings
and we are one
our home abounds with mysteries
but we see what is behind the cover
some of us have left
to pursue their curiosities
but we will always be one
and when the rain
falls on a sunny day
we understand that
one of us is at peace

we don't have any museums
but we see our history through
Nan Madol
we don't have any towers
but we see our lands from
towering mountains
and we have seen them
burnt to ashes, but
we survived, and
we never left...

I sailed the fjords between Powell River and
Drury Inlet to beyond the Salish Sea.
The land itself spoke from mountains, water falls, islets
From bird song and bear splashing fishers
From rutting moose and cougars sharp incisors.
The place has a scale that needs no advisers
But in our bodies felt, sensed in our story talking.
The Chinese spoke of sensing place by the four dignities
Of Standing of Reposing of Sitting or of Walking.
Indigenous peoples of the passage added of Paddling by degrees
For the Haida and Salish sang their paddles to taboos
To the rhythm of the drum in their clan crested canoes.
Trunks transformed indwelling people who swam like trees.
First Nations marked this land, made drawings above sacred screes
As they walked together, to gather, share and thank the spirit saplings.
So Dao-pilgrims in the blue sacred mountains of Japan rang their ramblings.
Now the loggers’ chainsaws were silent like men who had sinned.
I motored now for of wind not a trace -
I could see stories from the slopes, hear tales in the wind.
Modern hieroglyphs spoke from clear-cuts both convex and concave.
Slopes of burgundy and orange bark shaves
Atop the beige hills, and in the gullies the silver drying snags
and the brilliant pink of fire **** tags
A tapestry of  times in work.
A museum of lives that lurk.
Once the logging camps floated close to the head of inlets.
Now rusting red donkeys and cables no longer creak,
Nor do standing spar trees sway near feller notched trunks,
Nor do grappler yarders shriek as men bag booms and
Dump bundles in bull pens.
The names bespeak the work.
Bull buckers, rigging slingers, cat skinners, boom men and whistle punks.
…………………………………………………………………….
Ashore to *** with my dog I saw a ball of crushed bones in ****
Later we heard the evocative howl of a wolf
And my pooch and I go along with the song
Conjoining  with the animal call
In a natural world fearsome, sacred and shared.
---------------------------------------------------------­---
Old bunk houses have tumbled, crumbling fish canneries no longer reek.
Vietnam Draft dodgers and Canucks that followed the loggers forever borrowed -
Their hoisting winches, engines, cutlery, fuel, grease and generators.
While white shells rattled down the ebbing sea.
Listing float homes still grumble when hauled on hard.
Somber silhouettes of teetering totems no longer whisper in westerlies
Near undulating kelp beds of Mamalilakula.
Petroglyphs talk in pictures veiled by vines.
History is a tapestry
And land is the loom.
Every rock, headland, and blissful fearsome bay
Has a silence that speaks when I hear it.
Has a roar of death from peaking storms when I see it.
Beings and things can be heard and seen that
Enter and pass through me to evaporate like mist
From a rain dropped forest fist
And are composted into soil.
Where mountains heavily wade into the sea
To resemble yes the tremble and dissemble
Of the continental shelf.
Where still waters of deception
Hide the tsunamis surging stealth.
Inside the veins of Mother Earth the magmas flow
Beneath fjords where crystalised glaziers glow.
Here sailed I, my dog and catboat
Of ‘Bill Garden’ build
The H. Daniel Hayes
In mountain water stilled
In a golden glory of my remaining days.
In Cascadia the images sang and thrilled
Mamalilikula, Kwak’wala, Namu, Klemtu
The Inlets Jervis, Toba, Bute, and Loughborough.

I want to be inside every girl you ****** before me,
show you the birthmarks you never noticed
shaped like canoes and rocketships.

I will get her chest to rise, then fall,
steal the very source of her breath and curl my fingers
around it –
into dough, how you never could knead.

I have my hand on her throat
because you hated when she would talk.
We could work together, tie her hair into a knot.

I just want to be inside the girls who have intestines
like cotton candy and ******* like watermelon
explain why you should
have loved her as a woman sometimes.

You say you prefer my skin, and the way I whimper
but maybe you just did not
**** her hard enough.

The premise of this write God is eternal He is in the eternal now He is in the past present and
Future Victor Hugo was in all senses the same he spoke and it held and revealed that the past
Was unlimited knowing in the present it speaks volumes to the future “A warrior of words. I don't
Know of anyone who better fits this description than Hugo. Everywhere, in his office, in the street, in the
Literary salons, at the National Assembly, even in exile, this great writer couldn't keep silent. He couldn't
Keep from writing. No chains could imprison his soul. No threat was great enough to silence this voice
Which cried out for justice. No wrong escaped him, be it poverty, injustice, lack of freedom of the press,
Inequality of political rights or the death penalty” Timeless like the vastness of the ocean enter another
Vastness your own inner self Monet paints not for the eye but for the all knowing inner vision he begins
The moment we look at his work distinctive intricate alive every color every shadow of light is newly  
Applied enchantment rapture emotion derailed from present thought of the obvious to the master and his
Vision and then encounter the first garden by trekking across the pass that takes you up and out of
Honolulu to the back side of the Island a convertible instantly changes into a carriage of fable the mist has
Descended hovering within six feet of the road you feel oneness and freedom the dark lava rock at the
Side sparks primeval thoughts you feel at deep places you feel the peoples of Polynesia and see them
Coming over great ocean waters in their outrigger canoes to these islands you richly smell sea water and
Even feel the spray on your face and feel it in your hair and the multiplicity of the plant life encourages
Lapses into dreamy worlds where undergrowth soothes and invites lucidness truly bewitching tiny
Molecule size bubbles burst against your soft skin lifted from a reality moments before that held all the
Tensions of the modern world your heart wonders what world what tensions then to perfect and further
Translate you to creation’s dawn a gust of trade wind comes in a down draft it intoxicates with the
Blending of Papaya, Coconut, Pineapple a stirring that instantly makes you beholding to the Creator
Nature is adorned and inviting you have come to the high peaks of enthralling then a black luminous tree
That has occupied the soul from birth it seems and behind such grandeur a black caldron with a deep
Valley and sides as steep as hills causes a shudder something so great it creates a state of fear
Aloneness is about to be forever shattered on this wise great parts of day and night are forged with a
Twinkling of star and a streaming of silver moonlight that would always play its own romantic musical cord
Then you turn how confusing at first destructive portents are troubling what breaks about you is for your
Greatest blessing laughter joy mingled with the extravagant touches of an identifying soul not unlike your
Own poverty flees takes night wings that are dark and filled with sorrow and loneliness and expels them
In forgetfulness a new start a new life begins yes the same as at first when unity was given to Adam and
Eve when first the words were formed home and family she stepped from legend and myth and that long
Growing tree began to move with such power in the heart as in a tempest it felt as it would be up rooted
This long anticipated tree of love that would flow out into such life and it all began with such a  
Pronounced voice that was truly beguiling it rose softly and steadily it was noticeably the empty half
Finding fulfillment longing comes and spills and thrills what elegance and grace whispers and drifts
Mystifying it calls to the heart in that secret language we all must hear the great substance observed in a
White water River the purity as it flows over these great boulders lying in the river bed it speaks of
Continuance permanence abiding glory the foundation for all relationships or the caught beauty of a red
Sorrel horse with the sheen of the sun as it races with freedoms delirium across land that you own now
Together it is a testament not easily broken and words you speak it penetrates great gulfs of mystery the
Mist lifts at the most perfect places so you see life clearly and trust surges with the strength of honor you
Avow all that is Within and it binds you together you have formally tied the two eternities together with life
Secure in the middle

My grandfather built a canoe when I was young
A handmade wooden canoe
A canoe thats never been used
He built that old canoe in an end of life crisis
A crisis brought on by quitting smoking
Now he lives in a home for people just like him
People who don't know they're in a home
And now he remembers that old canoe
But he doesn't know my name
How many people are jealous of canoes
And now I have to wonder if he made the wrong choice
The choice he made when he quit smoking
Because I would rather die of rotting lungs
Than live on while my brain rots

Memory takes me back to long ago, I can see the deck of the slave ship  I came on smell the salt air and hot vinegar used to clean away the escaping stench below decks hear the sound as male  slaves exercise as crew members play fiddler music while chains thud hard from dancing amusement my home was near the River Senegal on  the coast  the slave traders  ships brought brightly colored cloth beads *** cowrie shells to trade for our black flesh father raised cattle  rice maize this ebony man traded for muskets gunpowder needles colored thread for what he grew on the day of our capture we marched  during the long day tied to each other  given only thin meal and warm water tiredness bore down on our limbs each step canoes came on sea waves toward us fear moved down the chained line men women children were separated our clothes were taken  standing naked mouths were opened skin and muscles felt we had to jump up  and down while moving  arms  chosen ones were branded with hot irons marking each one cold wet cloths applied to the brand on the seared skin  I scream loudly until my voice refuses sound the time for hearing is gone rapid  waters fill with blood as some are tossed into sea for circling sharks to dine on the ship offers only sixteen inches to hold me  others have two and a half inches if tightly packed bodies are in the hold secured down my chain is nailed dimness cries of agony beat on my ears like drums I try not to breath in the rancid smells of those who have soiled themselves air is limited I wait  for my body to die like my mind and soul we sail  for slave ships must leave immediately before sickness breaks out if that happens slaves will mutiny uprising usually takes place within the shoreline when neared at sea chances are less to leave slaves who simply refuse to eat are force feed with the speculum oris  which is placed in the slave's mouth opening the jaws then food is pushed in usually rice or millet crew members wash away stench of blood  from floggings feces ***** from between decks the stink of vinegar drying in sun is as bad living is sometimes harder than dying

This is not about you
This is not about me,
This ain’t really ‘bout anyone-y, honey;
I’m a liar, for Christ’s sakes!

Sure, sure,
THIS one is about me,
That much I can say,
But everything else?
‘Twas all fake.

I am an ink-and-paper conman,
Because that is how I choose to make a living.

Hate me, if you so dare,
For if you do,
Then you, too, hate the likes of
Rowling and Twain and Wells and Hemingway
Shakespeare and Spielberg and Lucas—

Oh, yes, read up,
Lies upon lies in black-and-white!

We are similar in such a way
Which creates alternate worlds and feelings
And beings of different kinds;
We are those who love to implant things
Into your subconscious mind.

What is true to you,
But false to all,
Is the picture you happen to imagine
When you flip pages and have a ball!

Semantics, my dear,
It is what takes you on a trip
Across a flexible lexicon
Where words are invented and used anew;
Where instead of shoes, you wear foot-canoes.

Your favorite books and movies and songs,
All figments of enigmatic mind,
But,
Is it really all that wrong?

Our lies are
For your enjoyment,
And the good of mankind,
An escape from what’s real,
It brings you to light,
Without this work,
There’d be no color to life.

And that’s why we’re liars
In black-and-white.

When a baby babbles like a brook
All they are is nature.
When a girl surrenders all she took
All that is is danger.

Lipstick stains become tattoos
And a dance for two becomes a seizure.
Relationships become canoes
And a heart two share becomes much stranger.

Oh, you and I, no such thing,
But that's ok, my love.
I haven't seen what life may bring,
But death is more the gentle dove.

Well, today's the kind of day
When I can just sit at my doorstep,
My chappals splashing into the
Little puddle of rainwater that's collected.
Today, I can breathe in fresh, pure greenery,
Feast into this inviting scenery,
And break into a little poetry!
About?
Maybe about how loud the clouds were!
In expressing their happiness,
Their love for us thirsty souls?
Maybe about how the cool breeze
Whizzed past our parched skins,
Blowing to us, its cool Hello?
Or about how squealing kids
Shirts thrown away, drenched skins,
Raced along their paper canoes?

Oh I can write on anything I want,
Oh I'll just hum along Mother Nature's song,
Today is the day for poetry,
Today's rhythm can never go wrong.

i.
i drag the canoes over the granite shingle
of our island's beach the battered Aluma-Crafts
leave my hand a dark metallic looking gray, which
even smelled of metal we walk up to the
campsite, a ridge, overlooking the lake,
spread out around a fire ring set beneath
pine trees so thick that no understory grows

ii.
as the long summer day cools we decide after dinner
to explore choosing one of the island's many
game trails, leading from the water back up into
the woods beyond the campsite, we pack the
food back into the bear proof barrel, grab our
boots and set off down  the trail

iii.
the pine give way to a grove of aspen, the
leaves fluttering as if by some wondrous
enchantment, as the shrubs started to grow
thickly on the ground channeling us into a
narrower game trail with the large, misshapen
granite boulders like a maze stretched out before us

iv.
suddenly we stood face to face with a giant
bull moose with velvet covered antlers that seemed
to be at least four feet across, he shook his head up,
like a horse shying, so i slowly moved us behind a tree
     to give him the trail

v.
around the fire wrapped each in our
own paddle-worn thoughts
we could hear wolves, calling
across the island in mournful howls
such a delicate balance of nature at work,
my moose so full of life and spirit would be
     safe yet from the
wolves

Young men fit for battle,
too young for war but paddled
with swagger down the Skeena.

A week on the water, lakes and rivers,
bodies of water that take if you giver,
but this one this day promised what it delivered.

A vortex, canoes lined up to paddle hard,
as the hole in the middle would drag a canoe,
to the depths, to the depths, without release.

One canoe and wait then another then one more,
three were through, number four went round
and round the eddy they held steady as five went
past, then they, four escaped the mighty swirl without
cheer.

Six was with the whirl, they paddled hard as
they were drawn near the rocks and cliff,
a broken paddle, and they limped away, clear
of the gulf.

Seven went and were hell bent, to get through,
all experienced paddlers too, what success,
number eight held four of us, weighted low down
with only three paddlers too, round we went and
then again, nine passed us and cleared the danger,
seven came back to encourage and be near...

What happened was what they feared the whirlpool
dragged us closer, we weren't dizzy, but tired of
rounding the same bend, breaking waves but not enough,
tiring out as we were pulled in again, round and in again.

We needed to split the curve cut the outside wave
and across the break, near the rocks and in the wake
of the river wash and the base of the cliff,
we had to all paddle hard and when and if
we broke free we would join our brothers guilt free,
if we did not
we would have
been a story on
a page of some
deaths to drowning
while at a cadet camp.

the boat's bow broke the waves one two and three,
missed the rocks, the cliff, almost free, voices raised,
an angry fight to live and have done battle with no loss,
we were finally free three companions and me, tossed
by the fourth wave, and I looked back into the hole
of the maelstrom, I looked back lesson learned,
passion for life, a must you have to yearn
for life otherwise, for love, point your bow,
dig your paddle in
and look back no more.

There is more rough water ahead.


©DWE102013

today..... it is raining elephants
all the dogs and cats have
taken shelter
under ladybird umbrellas.
.....and the ducks
lets just say.... they are hiring canoes.

Memory takes me back to long ago. I can see the deck of the slave ship I came on, smell the salt air and the hot vinegar used to clean away the escaping stench below the deck, hear the sound as male slaves exercise, as crew members play fiddle music while chains thud hard from the dancing amusement of the slaves. My home was near the River Senegal on the coast. The slave traders ships brought colered cloth, beads, ***, and cowrie shells to trade for our black flesh. Father raised cattle, rice and maize.  This ebony man traded muskets, gunpowder, needles and colored thread, for what he grew.  On the day of our capture, we marched during the long day tied to each other, given only thin meal and warm water. Tiredness bore down on our limbs each step. Canoes came on waves toward us.  Fear moved down the chained line of men. Women and children were separated. Our clothes were taken.  Standing naked, mouths were opened, and muscles felt. We had to jump up and down while moving our arms. Chosen ones were branded on the skin.  I screamed loudly until my voice refuse sound.  The time for hearing is gone.  Rapid waters filled with blood, as some are tossed into the sea, for circling sharks to dine on. The ship offers only sixteen inches to hold me, others have two and half inches if tightly packed. Bodies are in the hold, secured down by chains that are nailed. Faint cries of agony beat on my ears like drums.  I try not to breath in the rancid smells of those who have soiled themselves.  Air is limited.   Mutiny usually takes place within the shoreline. Because when at sea chances are less to escape.  Slaves who simply refuse to eat are force fed with the speculum oris which is placed in the slave's mouth, opening the jaws then food is pushed in usually rice or millet.  Crew members tried wash away stench of blood from floggings, feces, ***** from between decks until this day the stench still remains. Living as a slave while your soul is dead is a living horror.

Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning**

There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
A yogi speaks at Ojai
'It's all taking pace in one mind'
On the lawn among the trees
lovers are listening
for the master to tell them they are one
with the universe
Eyes smell flowers and become them
There's a deathless hush
on the freeway tonight
as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high
sweeps in
Los Angeles breathes its last gas
and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit
Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska
sinks with it
The sea comes over in Utah
Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
ans bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
Great Books watered down in Evanston
Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt
Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
buried masts of Amsterdam arise
as the great wave sweeps on Eastward
to wash away over-age Camembert Europe
manhatta steaming in sea-vines
the washed land awakes again to wilderness
the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets
a cry of seabirds high over
in empty eternity
as the Hudson retakes its thickets
and Indians reclaim their canoes