I offer a brief observation on a long-running debate: “carrot on a stick” and “the carrot or the stick” are two different metaphors, with two very different meanings. Mostly I […]
Journal - Poetry
Grandmother Corntassel
Grandmother Corntassel from the rolling Cherokee woods had known seventeen summers when she married John Bradley, grandson of an immigrant from Yorkshire to Virginia. When I was young I thought all […]
Journal - Nature - Poetry
The mountain watched us
We returned to the thrice-burned wood, shoulder of Klickitat once dense green, now spiked with ghost trees. Close to downed trunks ash white and charred black we turned soil, pulled […]
Poetry
Pedestrian Aria
I have patient feet. I wait for the signal. Wheels turn around me. People move themselves. The light changes. The light always changes. Is this your light, the light that […]
Journal
Walt keeps singing
In my dream I’m walking with my love S. and we meet in Leo D. in the street. It is night, in Portland; he informs us of an event. It […]
Journal
On song exchange
I have incomplete and evolving knowledge about the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest, so I am writing this post more to express my interest and ask questions, than to […]
Journal
The only song
The surface of the world hums and throbs with songs. A stoned neighbor’s 70’s-radio playlist. A restaurant kitchen’s thrashy closing jams. A mother’s lullaby and a father’s lullaby. An opera […]
Journal
Learning my first rembetika
ΌΣΟ ΜΕ ΜΑΛΏΝΕΙΣ is the song — my first rembetika to learn instrumentally on guitar. The part I’m working on is normally on bouzouki (and other instruments, e.g. accordion and […]
Poetry
Autumn melody
For hours the rain soaked the cool ferns and cleaned the stones until the gray sky stilled and turned dark. Now our evening lamps are warm around the room and […]
Journal
The boy with no ancestors
A boy thought of Ancestors. He thought of an old village he had never seen, a language he had never heard. He thought of fires and hunts and births and […]