Forest City Iowa - June 5, 2009

Whew what a swing - from out of the Southwest desert to the upper Prairies! What got ahold of your tail? Memorial Day - It was Memorial Day - Between Memorial Day and Labor Day the amateurs come out like the chiggers and the mosquitos come out and it's no time for any self-respecting bumb to be out in the woods.
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From Moab to Canyonlands, then the Colorado National Monument, Dinosaur Monument, Flaming Gorge, Wind Cave and here I am. I had a few days of 300 mile plus driving (I like to average 50 a day). Time to find a place to hang my hat for the summer. My National Park pass (next year I can get my Golden Age pass) and my New Mexico camping sticker will still be good.

We were in the company of white-colored brown colored cows. They watched us quietly as we made a path between them and changed their attitudes slowly as if to show us all of the maps on their fat sides. They gave us to understand that they know us personally and thought a lot of our families and I lifted my hat to the last of them as I passed her as a sign of my appreciation – Flan O’Brian
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What did you do when you came to that herd. I went through the middle. There was a group of rocks where one old bull was grazing. He said he went around them. It’s a little intimidating walking through a herd of a couple of hundred buffalo but I took it slow and was aware of the nearest refuge (rock or tree) but what I would do when I got there with a charging herbivore (or worst a herd of them) after me I am not sure what I would do – I suppose I would wait him out, wait until he lost interest – they don’t appear to be the most alert of animals. Can’t roller-skate in a herd of buffalo – it’s true!

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Oh I’m worn out / just watcing the cats / lick their fur / I’m worn out / fading fast – Joanne Kryger

And I never did spot a rattlesnake – and I so much wanted to find a faded midget. One gopher snake and a couple of garter snakes and some tails disappearing in the grass. And along the highway in South Dakota there were seveal large blacksnakes sunning themselves along the shoulder.

Brandon had a birthday today
Brandon is three today
Brandon’s mother told her sister

Even before she told her mother
And that is resented even today

And it’s a good thing that I am returning to the urban life – I’m running out of books again. That bookstore in Grants turned out to be a treasure – six books for ten dollars including Laurence Steren, Ralph Ellison, Aldo Leopold, Robert Herrick, Edward Abbey and Albert Camus. But I’ve read them all now and I am back to Stein’s long novel with which I am almost to the end. I need so desperatley to find somewhere to replenish by bookshelf or better yet a locating where I can ILL (that Librarese for borrowing books from distant libraries – my homelibrary in Kansas City will even mail books to its barrowers).

The young are an alien species. They won’t replace us by revolution. They will forget and ignore us out of existence. – William S Bourroughs

Like a camel hair coat
I drag my mystery across
    The desert
From sand dune to sand dune
     I have a patina
And any fresh wound
    Well bled white

A lifetime // What happened / it stopped – Joanne Kryger

Light sky to the right
Drops of rain plink on sheet metal
    And echo
It hasn’t thundered this time around
The sky just sighed, then cried
The wind went its own way
Mesas of enchantment disappearing
The sun hasn’t shown all day
But it makes sleeping easy
    Rain drops on tin

That melancholy which we feel when we cease to obey orders which, from one day to another, keep the future hidden, and realize that we have at last begun to live in real earnest, as a grown-up person, the life, the only life that any of us has at his disposal – Proust

Watch their feet from the far side
    Of the vehicle
His feet; her feet
    Back and forth
His are the bigger boots
    The feet with the longer stride
She is wearing boots with high heels
    She takes tiny little steps
Seen from afar looking beneath
    Their vehicle
Back and forth
Towards each other
Away from each other
In the same direction as the other
She following him
He following her
Stepping into space
At a snail’s pace
Occasionally at a stand still
Four feet far away
    Seen below their vehicle
Now the feet are together
Face-to-face or toe-to-toe
    If you will
Just one silouette showing

I know this girl and she said  / she was on a mountain once and could put her tongue right on / a cloud, it was fuzzy. I wish she was right – Joanne Kryger

And the ants would come
    And eat it all up
And the birds would come
    And take it away
And the wolves would come
    And mark it
And the lions would come
    And chase them all off
Then the people would come
    And they would make speeches

I know I do not suffer, more than anyone / in the whole world / But this morning I had to have first thing / 2 cigarettes, half a joint, / a poached egg and corned beef hash, 1 piece toast / 2 cups tea / Jung, Williams, Shiek, Stones, 2 slugs rum, depression, rest of joint, cigarette, 7-up, and it’s only 10 O’clock / Because I wanted to write a poem / Because I want something to come out of me – Kryger