♪♫♪♪

Your beaded snakeskin loincloth

strung beneath humid palms

cool rippling breeze that calms

our hammock hung under thatch

what a catch . . .

your Amazons running into my Congo

lost track of my bongo

back about one mile

from the sources of the Nile:

your jungle smile.

Restoring all celestial things

deep within your tropical clearings . . .

flowing slowly, going loco

at the mythic mouth of the Orinico;

shake your nut-brown biospheres

and banish all my worldly fears.

Dusk is nearing — clearing the hill

insects trilling a sinuous thrill;

the yuca half-mashed in the clay ***

the witch doctor hungover in his hut

while our little fire smolders

near the mountains of the moon

—or are they only boulders?

Come soon

Jesus, Lord of the Jungle . . .

Inspired by George Ella Lyon's poem Where I am From

I am from cul-de-sacs
From skinned knees and seven speed bikes
I am from the bewitching perfume of the osmanthus bloom mingling with freshly mown grass
I am from the familiar music of the bubbling creek and the cardinals song
the swish of a golf club and the thud of a soccer ball
I am from hot pavement on bare feet, the taste of honeysuckles, and reaching pine tree forests whose invisible trails and clearings became my secret empire

I am from airplanes and home cooking
From Mary and Mark
northern accents and southern hospitality
I am from "use your manners" and "Not enough month left at the end if the money"
I am from sunday school and patent leather shoes that pinch my toes
from a prayer before dinner that is carved into my brain

I am from poland
from poppyseed kuchen and kielbasa
I am from my grandmother forgetting baking soda in the bread
and then... years later, forgetting me too.
I am from my grandfather's sense of humor
and his unwavering stubbornness.
I am from too many cousins to count
from pinched cheeks and "How you've grown!"

I am from piles of unfinished photo albums
brimming with new adventures, frozen faces, and old memories
I am from the path I carved for myself with tools that my parents bestowed upon me.

Everything is BIG here.

Meals are big, bums are big, cars are huge and the skies are a million miles wide.

Janet and I are travelling in the Northwest of the United States of America, spending time with Boaz and Lisa in Idaho, Steve Yocum in Oregon and Greg and Linda in Washington State.

The trip is a "quickie" in that we are fitting one helluva lot into just three weeks duration.
Never in all my days have I seen such huge quantities of food served up in restaurant meals, plastic bags discarded, American flags fluttering and all the young, blonde girls in tattered, impossibly short cut offs and sleeveless tops talking loudly, incomprehensibly at a million miles an hour ......Just blows you away!!
Monstrous pickup trucks, Rams, Broncos, big V8s travelling the freeways continuously. Sheriffs, troopers and Road cops all wearing firearms on the hip, in their souped up pursuit vehicles parked on the roadside shoulder, eyeballing everyone as they pass, with a mean, accusatory glare.
Out on the range there is a million square miles of nothing but sage brush and basalt rock....and searing, baking heat.
114 degrees in the painted desert of Moab. Beautiful though with vaulting red sandstone cliffs and rearing stone arches against the blue-est of blue skies.
Standing pillars of ancient sedimentary rock born in depositions laid down in vast oceans of bygone eras, millions of years ago.

History is painted vast in this immensity. The gigantic and abrupt catastrophic inundation of a vast and deep inland sea, swelled suddenly by floodwaters of rivers diverted by lava flows from subterranean fissures....Unimaginable torrents abruptly released, gouging out ancient lava beds to create gigantic waterfalls and deep, sheer sided chasms.

Cascades that constituted the biggest river flow ever known in the history of the planet, washing away everything from the epicentre of the continent in Utah through Idaho to the Pacific ocean in the rugged coast of Oregon. Such was the Bonneville flood of 12,000 years ago illustrated today by the gigantic chasms created in the beds of basalt and rhyolitic larva throughout Idaho and the fields of massive, round, house sized boulders strewn from the floods origin near what is now, Salt Lake City in Utah to the coast in Oregon, a thousand kilometers away.

The two weeks stay with Boaz and Lisa just disappeared in a flash. They took us down to Moab painted desert, Zion National park, the Craters of the Moon, Monument National Park and up to Stanley and the Sawtooth mountains by the mighty Salmon river. Janet and I took advantage of a couple of push bikes hanging in the garage and spent most days cycling the local trails and visiting Starbucks for a celebratory cappuccino or two....Those bikes saved our bacon, walking trails in that heat was ******. Great hospitality enjoyed here. watched reruns of Sopranos on Boaz's 70 " SmartScreen TV and enjoyed Arnie's escape from postwar Austria to Mr Universe and fame and fortune @ Hollywood with Boaz whilst enjoying chilled margaritas in the hot tub.

The camaraderie of meeting an old mate of 45 years past, Steve Yocum of Oregon  a fellow writer and author. Both of us intent on shooting the breeze, putting the world to right. In some ways a sad exercise in that no longer can either of us make things right for with age upon us, neither has influence. We can huff n puff n blow the house down....but it seems, nobody pays the slightest bit of attention. The penalty of age is invisibility. The relief in it all is that, really, nobody actually gives a hoot!

Just two Old Dogs letting off steam..... it's rather cathartic actually! Thanks to Stevo, Ian and lovely Heidi for the accommodation, great hospitality and warmth.

The cool atmospheric relief of the serene and calm, Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington state gave welcome respite from the intense heat of the interior and the serenity of our cottage accommodations and startlingly beautiful garden surrounds. A forest of conifers and deciduous trees harboured gardens of blooming roses, hollyhocks and multihued cone flowers, emerald lawns carve swarths of sunlight in avenues of deep, green shade....a delight for the sunburnt brows of yesterday's heat.
Woken by the bassoon blast of the passing early morning ferry out in the waterway, to stroll out to sit at the very edge of the sandy, pebble beach and gentle surge of the deep, clear saline waters of the magnificent Puget Sound.
The peace of early morning crisp cool air, a seascape of moored fishing boats on mirrored waters, the distant Olympic range rearing to its' full 7,000 ft against a powder blue sky left us quite breathless with the utter beauty of it all....add to that a lovely breakfast offering of fresh berries, kiwifruit slices and yogurt and a chilled glass of fresh squeezed orange juice...and we absolutely, couldn't want for anything more. To Greg and Linda our love and thanks for giving up your beautiful bed, travelling us around beautiful Seattle and being our airline coach to and from Portland. We shall return the warm hospitality next time you hit NZ and Taranaki.

Vulcanism has dominated the terrain in Idaho, Montana, and Utah. Continental drift westward of the land mass has brought about a steady transference eastward of the massive geothermal hot spot which currently lies in Yellowstone park and which is the source of all volcanic activity within the park..
Idaho, in ancient times, wore the volcanic mantle of the region in having truly gigantic rhyolitic ash and magmatic eruptions. These cataclysmic eruptions emptied deep cavernous, subterranean magma chambers which collapsed under their own weight leaving vast circular calderas in the landscape. Subsequent plate tectonic activity caused deep faulting allowing huge flows of sticky magma to surge to the surface like searing hot black toothpaste, spreading across the plains obliterating all evidence of the rhyolite caulderas, surfacing the state, to this day, with millions of acres of hard black basaltic rock.
Here and there, rhyolite has wormed its way to the surface building gigantic domes, over the centuries these have weathered leaving statuesque, dramatic flat-topped mesa scattered across the landscape.
Altogether a truly unique and enthralling terrain for visitors to behold and one which reveals a dramatic insight to the volcanic and tectonic violence of the recent past and gives a definite air of mystique to the beholder.

In a land of 360 million people, supermarkets are downright huge...and they contain the spoils of the nation's plenty.
Acres of dazzling variety... and cheap by international standards. The very best of prime beefsteak, sides of pork, Alaskan cod freshly caught and displayed in rows of chilled enticing exhibit. Every possible vegetable and fresh picked fruit known to man in piled pyramids of brilliant, colourful display. Beautiful ornate furniture, beds, mattresses, tiers of car tyres of every conceivable brand and size, wheelbarrows, fertilizer, fresh flowers in mountainous display, ***** in barnlike chillers. Supermarket trolleys for giants..... and gird yourself for a marathon hike in collecting your basket of groceries...and give yourself half a day....you'll need it!

America has momentum, huge momentum. Across vast tracts of country lie networks of highway. Multilane concrete that tracks mile after mile carrying huge trucks with 40 tonne loads. Incessant trucks, one after another,  thundering along carrying the lifeblood of America, merchandise,  machinery, infrastructure, steel, timber and technology. Gigantic mobile freezers hauling food from the grower to the markets. Hauling excavators, harvesters,  bulldozers and giant Agricultural tractors. Night and day this massive source of production careers across the nation transporting the promise of America, the momentum which drives the Stars and Stripes onward, ever onward.

On the margins of the cities of Portland and Salem the unhoused gathered in squalid tent communities. In the beautiful city of Seattle I saw many down and out unshaven, untidy individuals with hopelessness in their eyes, pushing supermarket trolleys containing their sparse possessions. I drove through rural communities, some of which, reflected hardship and an air of despair. Run down dwellings in need of maintenance and repair, derelict rusty vehicles adorning the **** strewn frontages.
Not 20 kilometers away in Ketchum and Sun Valley Idaho the homes were palatial in grounds tended by gardeners and viticulturalists. Porsches and Range Rovers graced the ornate, rusticated porticoes. Wealth and privilege in evidence in every nuanced nook and cranny.
America is, indeed, a land of contrasts, a land of wealth, privilege, and plenty..... and yet a land that, somehow, tolerates and abides a fragile paucity which emblazons itself, embarrassingly, within the national profile.

On a hot day in Twin Falls, Idaho, I walked into a huge air-conditioned sporting goods store specifically to look at guns....and in the long glass cases there were hundreds of them. From snub nosed revolvers to Glocks, 38s, 45 caliber even western style Colt 45s and the ***** Harry Magnum with the long, blue gun barrel and classic, prominent foresight.
In the racks behind the counter are hung fully and semi-automatic rifles of myriad types...all available for sale providing the buyer has appropriate licensing.
In a land where mass shootings proliferate weekly, I ask myself....does this availability of lethal weaponry make sense?

The aching beauty of the mountain country in Northern Idaho, Oregon and Washington state cannot be overstated. The Sawtooth mountains, the Cascades, Mt Ranier, Mt Hood and the Olympic range. Ridgelines of towering conifers as far as the eye can see, waves of green deciduous running down to soft grassy clearings with boulder strewn, rushing streams and the cascade of plunging waterfalls. The magnificence of the natural beauty of this rugged, heavily timbered mountain country just defies description being far, far isolated from the attentions of man.

To happen upon this country from the far distant reaches of the South Pacific is a culture shock, to be suddenly exposed to the extreme largess. It is difficult to calibrate, hard to encompass, impossible to assimilate....but the people encountered warmed us with their generosity of spirit, their willingness to welcome travelling strangers into their homes....and, of course the invaluable time we spent with our family….and for these factors alone together with the huge magnificence that is this........
GRAND AMERICA.
We are truly, truly grateful.

Janet & Marshal
Foxglove@Taranaki.NZ

Upon a web strung across vast fields of
pure and distant velvet nothing,
perfect back-traces of the flickering past
revolve in place, in silence,
signs puddled for an instant from abandoned
corners of clusters. Polaris sieves a movement,
severs Octantis in a slated blink of being as quiet
reaches from further clutches, as a light quivers against
the dark, enshrined in its own solace, drinking from
a garden of heaviness; a sigh slips, echoes and lingers.

A tidy emptiness wavers in the tide of
time-shifting constellations, pulses lost in the single
night that never stems. A fine dust propagates
under the breath-patterns of its own constituency.
No symbol spoken, the still moment reaches and
encompasses all, heaving in glass moments compressing
beneath layers, bathed ablaze and curling through its
own precessing maw. Gathering, spiralling pieces of
uncoalesced millenia hurtle against an again hurtling
arm of a freckle gathered on a point of dust drifting
between caverns diving through the weight of walls holding
all that support their standing. A drop of light quivers
from each mouth, hides in crevices where smaller droplets
stand firmer at each junction, stand shining quietly with
no motive, dials slipping. The dripping lays down sheets,
climbs no corridor, designs a movement of no consequence;
dries out, knowing full well all the while. A ghost remains,
or a breath, both ultimately of finite import:
an exhalation or mote of dust.

Rain won't fall, the creek remains and, in tumult etched of
rigid symmetries, forges splits in azure. A broken fullness,
a glimmering product to permute and dissipate repetitions,
the slow formation of a complete emptiness.
In fine tapestry woven through the murk bellowed, the pattern
twists, coiling fingers through itself, the coalescing rotations
play out silence in no coda. The creek was never there.
Rain makes its way.                                                                  
                                       Capsular soil gives, capitulates petrichor,
defies dust aridity to cling in soft bundles about the child,
clothed in broken wings, tail clambering, all fine splits decided
upon countless repetitions passed. Light hovers and lights stand,
spin, in turn, as intervals chew tails through no static
motif, each gesture a mockery of predecessing broken ground
as fingers sliver ever toward known constancy,
blankets of warmth, an unclosing eyelid. Thus shuffles
awake the clamberer, to stretch and arc against potentials,
to fluoresce and bathe in radiance. A greater scheme
mingles at the tips of outstretched arms carrying wings
to break and flesh to guide a canopied architecture into
clearings laid out below twinkling webs to fold through
and let breath be taken as pawprints slowly form the
fingertips of a new architect. The children of the
child watch silent as motion trickles from centuries'
fortune. An emblem hangs in soft light on a ripple over
all-but-still water, cohort as glittering fragments strewn
beside. A bird's cry is lost in the marsh.                        
                                                      Again,
moments of absolute movement lay out beds of stillness, of reprieve.

At sea level, the curling faultlines feed open plain from
glass tears and monuments fleck the landscape of horizon.
To a pivoting sequence carves tiny bound structures in
self-image, a boiled-down replication to forge immemorial
traverse, a hairline fracture led blind through lakes of ice.
Still, to carry forward in a display of conviction, fine
splitting lineage diverges and cross-pollinates. First a
step, then a meadow, a panorama, three scores of
underbrush, seven mountains cradling a single pass,
two endless expanses of peat, one river for the life
of a child, three nights of no sleep, a resolve,
six iterations, one modification, seventeen snowfalls,
one feat built slow to grandeur, three months at sea,
three years at sea, three thousand years, seven oceans,
four hundred billion innovations, a blink of an eye. From
closed wings rise ordered patterns to clamber, always
asleep, to punctuate that immutable grove of light now
organized in transient gleams of projection and
nomenclative claim. Hollowed bellies of these
unstirring colossi, in turn, self-assemble and
writhe against an upturned gradient: disorder
bares teeth, crafts homogeneity and stumbles
on as Polaris dutifully continues in slow march
and reclaim of a ghost still cycling and hiding.

Finally, the moment takes grasp of all else
and itself, and parts tides of now-distant lights
through the ceiling and collapses where, between
word-laden walls, a tiny and terrified piece of
it attempts to reveal to all else that the moment
is already
gone.

Love gives wings to fly.
I find myself beyond reach of gravitation .

Love.
Is it a bird released from a cage,
colorful wings of a butterfly
or moth following the light?

When I say your name aloud,
I feel as if all the stars twinkling just for me.
In the spirit I whisper to them my longings .
I wish to look at them through ages.

Love is exquisite flyer,
although she met a routine.

Intricate hours are peering into us
through the windows of our house
but like everything in life they will pass away.

Embodied we will rise in the air in unison,
although we are different rays of the sun.
You are the one that broke through the clouds,
I am the one which remained behind.

Hot or cold, dry or moist
I will fly over seas,
over tropical rainforests.
I will migrate thousands of miles to discover
clearings dotted with romantic desires,
   garden thirsty of your admiration,
uplands of your filigree body,
oceans overfilled with affection,
aurora of your thoughts enchanted with my poetry,
oranges tasting like your lips,
violets with the scent of your body.
Love gives wings to fly.

As the trees edge the clearing, so do I reach you.

As the sound of the breeze unseen is heard, so also has been the truth of me.

Some days afire, some days rain.

And some days to lose completely in thought, and others like the clearing standing still and in frame.