'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme,
'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies.

    I come from haunts of coot and hern,
    I make a sudden sally,
    And sparkle out among the fern,
    To bicker down a valley.

    By thirty hills I hurry down,
    Or slip between the ridges,
    By twenty thorps, a little town,
    And half a hundred bridges.

    Till last by Philip's farm I flow
    To join the brimming river,
    For men may come and men may go,
    But I go on for ever.

'Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out,
Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge,
It has more ivy; there the river; and there
Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet.

    I chatter over stony ways,
    In little sharps and trebles,
    I bubble into eddying bays,
    I babble on the pebbles.

    With many a curve my banks I fret
    By many a field and fallow,
    And many a fairy foreland set
    With willow-**** and mallow.

    I chatter, chatter, as I flow
    To join the brimming river,
    For men may come and men may go,
    But I go on for ever.

'But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird;
Old Philip; all about the fields you caught
His weary daylong chirping, like the dry
High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. [grig = cricket - m.]

    I wind about, and in and out,
    With here a blossom sailing,
    And here and there a ***** trout,
    And here and there a grayling,

    And here and there a foamy flake
    Upon me, as I travel
    With many a silvery waterbreak
    Above the golden gravel,

    And draw them all along, and flow
    To join the brimming river,
    For men may come and men may go,
    But I go on for ever.

Look at her, midsection lines blazing

    Heaving prow swollen with glittering ion beams

Her aft sections tight and proud

    Bravely bolstering her posture as she surges into the fray

Battle joined, she calls the hunt with thunder

    Heralding fell sensors' unerring gaze

For none in the skies who've caught her eyes

    Have survived her deadly rays

they fell from a tolleycroft trawler
(about a mile off the gary dock)
tossed in a bottlenose gulf stream
partially pasted on ruk and crustacean
belly ******* ragged
fender bent rolling
drifting on krill chop
past o' malleys
down juan de fuca
rubbing grain
into the gun barrel sea

twisted benjamins
nipped by the hungry swell
blunt on a wayward log
deep in the gutty storm
slack jaw, skinned
medling
over phosphorescence
and grayling
and cold erratic flow
(oh those seedy finman!)

driftwood gorge
at celebration light
sun carts rise
to the homecoming
(**** that nuisance moon!)
crimson tide
and contraband
strung on the greyhound
intervention essentials
with menacing roots

these crackers lack
all disposition
and tact
an enemy mask
lies deep within
blinded rodmen
on a shoreline retreat
where the franklin bills
are spinning

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it—
Came out with a fortune last fall,—
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn't all.

No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it's a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there's some as would trade it
For no land on earth—and I'm one.

You come to get rich (****** good reason)
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning;
It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it's been since the beginning;
It seems it will be to the end.

I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That's plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I've watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I've thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o' the world piled on top.

The summer—no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness—
O God! how I'm stuck on it all.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I've bade 'em good-by—but I can't.

There's a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There's a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back—and I will.

They're making my money diminish;
I'm sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God! when I'm skinned to a finish
I'll pike to the Yukon again.
I'll fight—and you bet it's no sham-fight;
It's hell!—but I've been there before;
And it's better than this by a damsite—
So me for the Yukon once more.

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.

Dear Dave Hodges,

My husband is an Army Reservist in Michigan. He is home this weekend after training at Camp Grayling. He know that I am writing to you but please don’t use our names. His unit is training in the processing of Americans into detention camps.He was told by his CO that they would be processing American actors posing as American citizens. Part of their training was the removal and disposal of dead bodies. My husband said he will not participate when the time comes to do so. Please keep getting the word out Dave you are making a difference.

Hello Dave!
…There has been quite a bit over the past couple months as would be expected with Jade Helm. I’ve seen many convoys of various types on I-40 and I-17 as well. Camp Navajo at Belmont between Flagstaff and Williams has had a lot of extra activity also. I don’t know if anyone else north of you has mentioned any of this but it is getting quite frequent around here. Thank The Lord Jesus I’m washed in His blood!
God Bless!


Mr. Hodges,
I was traveling on Interstate 81 in Virginia this past weekend and spotted this military convoy at a rest stop right before exit 264 on 81.  After getting back on the highway, I also encountered another convoy on the road… Use these pictures as you see fit.

Take it from me, the things you can see
The wonders your eyes will behold
Mother Nature did good in this neighbourhood
It’s a landscape of riches untold

The lochs and the glens, the Munros and Bens
They are stunning you can’t disagree
Rivers Clyde and the Tay and the Forth and the Spey
The Findhorn, the Don and the Dee

All kinds of rocks, have been turned into brochs
Into castles and bothies and cairns
If I had a say I would choose Skara Brea
As a great place to show your wee bairns

From clear waters great *****, great meat from the coos
That both share the rich fertile fields
So too the deer, with venison premiere
And the sheep produce great woollen yields

The fishing’s fantastic, there’s salmon (Atlantic)
Grayling and pike and big charr
I’ve so little doubt there’s superior trout
That I’ll not tell you quite where they are

We think thistles divine and we like the scots pine
The heather is gorgeous in flower
There’s gorse on the ground. Scottish bluebells around
It’s what young haggis prefer to devour

We have eagles and kites and owls through the night
Ptarmigan.  The grouse are widespread
If you don’t fancy that, there’s a breed of wild cat
And lots of our squirrels are red

Both at midnight and noon it’s like Brigadoon
The landscape is magic caressed
Every plant, every hill is possessed of good will
And the nice beasty that lives in Loch Ness

I could tell you more, but I’d just make you snore
But believe me that’s far from it all
If you’re still full of doubt come quick, don’t lose out
‘Cause we might rebuild Hadrian’s Wall

My gravid eye
opens a gaze
on you,
strafes under
grayling cloud,
attaches to a memory
& bites into the
blue-green night
with cigarette teeth.

Then you leave,
skipping across
the undone
waters who calve
cities that split
like onions. Whiskey
beads on your fingers
in the wood-dark bar.

Lover, how you
braid my blood...
Your plural beauty
rests on the elbows
of Istanbul, and
in the same moment
it arrives here,
a splitting whisper
in winter's pavilion.
I crave the crisp
pear of your voice,
the sail's spurt
of your body,
the quiet galleries
of your soul.

So return quickly,
I'm lost in
the night streets
without you.