Garden time comes with high anxiety. 

How many beans to plant?

Two rows? Six rows? Twelve rows?

Then I climb down my beanstalk while watching the rusty needle on the seed scale climb.

And recall this passage from Henry David Thoreau:

MEANWHILE MY BEANS, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the ground; indeed they were not easily to be put off. What was the meaning of this so steady and self-respecting, this small Herculean labor, I knew not. I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antæus. But why should I raise them? Only Heaven knows. This was my curious labor all summer — to make this portion of the earth's surface, which had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild fruits and pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse. What shall I learn of beans or beans of me? I cherish them, I hoe them, early and late I have an eye to them; and this is my day's work. It is a fine broad leaf to look on. My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water this dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for the most part is lean and effete. My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an acre clean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and the rest, and break up their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, the remaining beans will be too tough for them, and go forward to meet new foes.

Seven miles of beans!

Nope.

I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. 

Four rows will be plenty.

Raven colored coffee just wasn't gettin' me anywhere this morning.

Koss headphones + Free = awake

https://youtu.be/F3NuXMCPwY4

Magic Ship

FREE

Fraser / Kossoff / Rodgers

Over there is my magic ship

Would you care to go on a trip

We'll be sailing on and on

To a land where few have gone

Beyond the skies in my mind

Sweet bells ring and ring and ring you harmonies

Rolling out like the waves on the sea

Sweet bells ring and ring and ring your harmonies

Rolling out to those who can see

Let's away to a distant night

Let's away on a magic flight

We'll be sailing on and on

To a land where few have gone

Beyond the skies in my mind

Sweet bells ring and ring and ring you harmonies

Rolling out like the waves on the sea

Sweet Bells ring and ring and ring your harmonies

Calling out to those who can hear

Oh who can see

Because were sailing

Sweet bells ring and ring and ring you harmonies

Rolling out like the waves on the sea

Sweet Bells ring and ring and ring and ring your harmonies

Rolling out to those who can hear

Oh can you see

Inside

Don't be afraid,

Step aboard

Oh, oh, oh, oh,

All right here we go

I like some many of the lines in this poem, it is impossible for me to pick a favorite. Like a father with 21 children, I love them all.

Thinking about a poem I’ll never write.

Gary Snyder

 With gut on wood and hide, and plucking thumb, 

Grope and stutter for the words, invent a tune,

 In any tongue, this moment one time true

 Be wine or blood or rhythm drives it through—

 A leap of words to things and there it stops.

 Creating empty caves and tools in shops 

And holy domes, and nothing you can name;

 The long old chorus blowing underfoot 

Makes high wild notes of mountains in the sea. 

O Muse, a goddess gone astray 

Who warms the cow and makes the wise man sane,

 (& even madness gobbles demons down) 

Then dance through jewelled trees & lotus crowns

 For Narihira’s lover, the crying plover,

 For babies grown and childhood homes

 And moving, moving, on through scenes and towns

 Weep for the crowds of men

 Like birds gone south forever.

 The long-lost hawk of Yakamochi and Thoreau

 Flits over yonder hill, the hand is bare, 

The noise of living families fills the air.

Mixing colors is not at all like riding a bike. 

It is a fine art that you do forget!

Spent two days moving little piles of muck. Felt like a Caterpillar D-9 dozer driver fixing a California mudslide. 

Moving then apart and then together hoping for a different hue. Adding this adding that like a blind chef grabbing spices off the rack hoping for gumbo.

Tiny bit of success late yesterday. I want my training wheels back.

I hold the colors hostage.....................

Thought of The Gifted Children lyrics to Kaleidoscope Eyes.

Kaleidoscope Eyes

The Gifted Children

When the cortisone kids were clearing everyone said,

"The sky's gone out."

Entering into unseen contracts

Smiling their way into a black and white world.

Now everyone is lining up and no one knows what for

Plastic man-machines are merely fodder for us.

If you squint you might be able to imagine

what this used to hold...

She's got an attic where she holds colors hostage

Releasing them for view but only through her kaleidoscope eyes.

Mr. Simic's poetry haunts me like poison ivy in my brain. 

Can you drink calamine lotion?

Clouds Gathering

Charles Simic

It seemed the kind of life we wanted.

Wild strawberries and cream in the morning.

Sunlight in every room.

The two of us walking by the sea naked.

Some evenings, however, we found ourselves

Unsure of what comes next.

Like tragic actors in a theater on fire,

With birds circling over our heads,

The dark pines strangely still,

Each rock we stepped on bloodied by the sunset.

We were back on our terrace sipping wine.

Why always this hint of an unhappy ending?

Clouds of almost human appearance

Gathering on the horizon, but the rest lovely

With the air so mild and the sea untroubled.

The night suddenly upon us, a starless night.

You lighting a candle, carrying it naked

Into our bedroom and blowing it out quickly.

The dark pines and grasses strangely still. 

You got to hook 'em deep with the first few lines. Feed 'em something they got to eat more of. Started reading Hostile Witness last night dead tired and droopy eyed, but managed to read 3 chapters. Rebecca Forster is a great writer.

The opening of Hostile Witness:


    "Strip."

     "No."

     Hannah kept her eyes forward, trained on two rows of rusted showerheads stuck in facing walls. Sixteen in all. The room was paved with white tile, chipped and discolored by age and use. Ceiling. Floor. Walls. All sluiced with disinfectant. Soiled twice a day by filth and fear. The fluorescent lights cast a yellow shadow over everything. The air was wet. The shower room smelled of mold and misery. It echoed with the cries of lost souls.

   

Above Pate Valley

Gary Snyder   

We finished clearing the last   

Section of trail by noon, 

High on the ridge-side 

Two thousand feet above the creek   

Reached the pass, went on 

Beyond the white pine groves,   

Granite shoulders, to a small 

Green meadow watered by the snow,   

Edged with Aspen—sun 

Straight high and blazing 

But the air was cool. 

Ate a cold fried trout in the   

Trembling shadows. I spied 

A glitter, and found a flake 

Black volcanic glass—obsidian— 

By a flower. Hands and knees   

Pushing the Bear grass, thousands   

Of arrowhead leavings over a   

Hundred yards. Not one good   

Head, just razor flakes 

On a hill snowed all but summer,   

A land of fat summer deer, 

They came to camp. On their   

Own trails. I followed my own   

Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill,   

Pick, singlejack, and sack 

Of dynamite. 

Ten thousand years.