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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 31, 2008 - 04:48pm PT
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Ah to be alive
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.
Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music, heart music,
smell of sun on gravel.
I pledge allegiance
I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.
"For All" by Gary Snyder from the Gary Snyder Reader. © Counterpoint.
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Topic Author's Reply - May 31, 2008 - 05:31pm PT
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SS, what happened to your other poem? Did you write these, they are wonderful.
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Standing Strong
Trad climber
the secret life of T*R
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May 31, 2008 - 06:13pm PT
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i deleted it cuz i thot it 2 much 2 share
yes i wrote them
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Ouch!
climber
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May 31, 2008 - 07:06pm PT
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Grouchy................
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 31, 2008 - 07:08pm PT
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T*R artfully avoids awkward questions about her job interview...
ps Note use of alliteration.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The hear and now, currently Pasadena, CA
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That is a beautiful poem, Mtmmun. I've just recently discovered Gary Snyder (how did I miss him?) and am looking forward to finding more.
Fletch
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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my favorite d.h. lawrence poem.
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--
Presentable, eminently presentable--
shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the
thing
Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another
man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life
face him with a new demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new
demand on his intelligence,
a new life-demand.
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--
Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable--
and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life
sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life
than his own.
And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long.
Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.
Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty--
How beastly the bourgeois is!
Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp
England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/37
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Fish Finder
Social climber
THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART
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kayaking in malibu 1996 after a long day on the ocean.
"Today I chased the Sun until it fell into the Sea
and when I turned to chase the Moon it was already chasing Me."
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L
climber
A place with cats...bare naked cats...
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On Reading Aloud My Early Poems
This ignorance upon my tongue
Was once the wisdom of the young.
John Williams
Hey Kath! How's the traveling?
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2008 - 10:23am PT
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Rye Whisky
by Anonymous
I'll eat when I'm hungry, I'll drink when I'm dry;
If the hard times don't kill me. I'll live till I die.
I'll tune up my fiddle, and I'll rosin my bow,
And make myself welcome wherever I go.
Beefsteak when I'm hungry, red liquor when I'm dry,
Greenbacks when I'm hard up, and religion when I die.
They say I drink whisky; my money's my own,
All them that don't like me can leave me alone.
Jack o' diamonds, jack o' diamonds, I know you of old,
You've robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.
Oh whisky, you villain, you've been my downfall;
You've kicked me, you've cuffed me, but I love you for all.
I'll buy my own whisky, I'll make my own stew;
If I get drunk, madam, it's nothing to you.
My foot in the stirrup, my bridle in my hand,
A-courting fair Mollie, to marry if I can.
I've no wife to quarrel, no babies to bawl;
The best way of living is no wife at all.
You may boast of your knowledge, and brag of your sense,
'Twill be all forgotten a hundred years hence.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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May 11, 2012 - 01:21pm PT
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Resurrecting this thread... Seems like a good time as any.
Here is another D.H. Lawrence poem:
Go Deeper than Love
Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,
love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock
molten, yet dense and permanent.
Go down to your deep old heart, and lose sight of yourself.
And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.
Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.
For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths
out of sight, in the deep living heart.
~ D.H. Lawrence ~
(excerpt from Know Thyself, Know Thyself More Deeply)
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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May 12, 2012 - 06:00pm PT
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Here's another from a wonderful poet (sorry to say he left us way too early):
In Praise of the Earth
Let us bless
The imagination of the Earth.
That knew early the patience
To harness the mind of time,
Waited for the seas to warm,
Ready to welcome the emergence
Of things dreaming of voyaging
Among the stillness of land.
And how light knew to nurse
The growth until the face of the Earth
Brightened beneath a vision of color.
When the ages of ice came
And sealed the Earth inside
An endless coma of cold,
The heart of the Earth held hope,
Storing fragments of memory,
Ready for the return of the sun.
Let us thank the Earth
That offers ground for home
And holds our feet firm
To walk in space open
To infinite galaxies.
Let us salute the silence
And certainty of mountains:
Their sublime stillness,
Their dream-filled hearts.
The wonder of a garden
Trusting the first warmth of spring
Until its black infinity of cells
Becomes charged with dream;
Then the silent, slow nurture
Of the seed's self, coaxing it
To trust the act of death.
The humility of the Earth
That transfigures all
That has fallen
Of outlived growth.
The kindness of the Earth,
Opening to receive
Our worn forms
Into the final stillness.
Let us ask forgiveness of the Earth
For all our sins against her:
For our violence and poisonings
Of her beauty.
Let us remember within us
The ancient clay,
Holding the memory of seasons,
The passion of the wind,
The fluency of water,
The warmth of fire,
The quiver-touch of the sun
And shadowed sureness of the moon.
That we may awaken,
To live to the full
The dream of the Earth
Who chose us to emerge
And incarnate its hidden night
In mind, spirit, and light.
~ John O'Donohue ~
(To Bless the Space Between Us)
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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May 14, 2012 - 03:33am PT
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Good stuff MSM and Donald!
Eric
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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May 16, 2012 - 11:42pm PT
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Entrance
(After Rilke)
Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.
~ Dana Gioia ~
(Interrogations at Noon)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 17, 2012 - 06:11pm PT
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By Helen Louise Blank
Phoenix, AZ
Feet
(A True Story in Jingle Form)
I never thought to thank my feet
Who take me safely down the street
I never thought to thank my toes,
Each little one that strongly goes
To take me where I want to be,
Supporting uncomplainingly
The weight I put upon it.
But then one day I changed my ways
And to my feet I gave some praise.
I rubbed and scrubbed and talked to them.
With marble games I strengthened them.
And then, when dressed in silken hose
And wearing shoes with satin bows,
Ah, foolish me, I even said,
"For you I'll write a sonnet."
Now if a sonnet I would pen
I must go out and find a friend
Who might to me the right book lend
To show the meter and the rhyme
That's been agreed since early time
For those who write a sonnet.
And there she came, just walking by
As if by summons from the sky.
She said, "Yes. Surely I've a book.
Why don't you come and take a look?"
I did. Since reading poems grand,
Alas! I hope my feet will understand
I do not have at my command
A sonnet in my bonnet.
from Under The Great Bowl of Heaven/1989
We've heard the "blank" verse jokes, folks...
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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May 17, 2012 - 08:27pm PT
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enslaved as reality's bitch.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 21, 2012 - 02:32am PT
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Frankly, Wee J, I thought it was humorous. Genteel ain't happening with you, ya perp. there is no reason for slur. We just went through that, man.
Let me tell ya I been to the place I love the best
I haven't any photos but I got some views
The Swan Slab wske-up was sweet as sin
This lovely lady oak (a blue, I think, but I'm not as smart as Muir, whose bench I slept "neath)
She spread her boughs to me and shared them with the alarm-bell jays
Welcome, brother, they said, rest a bit more
And the mind photoshopped the blue background from the ground
With the arms of the woody nymph spread with delicate green nails on her hands
Swan Slab's a good place to park, if alone, and it's dark
I probably fell asleep where Muir might have.
That is photo one of my trip report.
The shot from the ground at the bench.
After rolling my pad there was a nut dropped by some trad
And I had slept on it. No one training there claimed it.
My lucky day was well-begun.
Then I visited SAR, met two new friends.
I was building a rack, hardly out of the sack.
Coffee and bagels to a stranger returned,
Tales of speed climbs and dream climbs
And all manner of shenanigans.
So I am selling gear today, I feel I could sell cheap
While sitting on Raffi's bench reading H.L. Blank.
"Against the winter sky
Behold the elegant pecan.
Dark flowers cling
Long after summer's gone.
The winds may sing
God's praise upon the lyre
Of her arms uplifted."
automatic +1 for the Weej.
another shot or two from the Swan
then I'll move on
The profile of YPB, the Castle Cliffs, the Lost Arrow Tip, and the Upper Falls,
Hidden by the slope of Swan as it plunges into the growth at its base.
You are standing on the trail which passes through the area.
The second shot is kind of grim.
By standing at the base of Lenna's Lieback and looking up, the trees have grown so much in 41 years, they obscure the view of the upper two pitches.
I would not want to fall into those branches. I took that screamer there in '71 and those branches were nowhere the size they are now. Yuck! I wouldn't want to really press my luck.
Let's get back to Big Columbia boulder and Raffi's bench.
You know he dropped an "a" from his name and Peter Paan picked it up.
So the boy's resting his nogg on his hands lying stretched out on the marble
He's thinking of the Fires of his youth (a "relative youth" even when purchased; God had just learned to "tie His shoes, always tie His shoes") that are in the bag for sale with the iron
He thinks how he hates them they've never been nice,
What the f*#k would good old Helen have to say if I laid that on her?
Back in the darkroom of my mind I am framing the view with my head on the SAR site side of the slab of granite, it's granite, I get it. I just took it for granite it was marble earlier.
so the boulder I'm weejing on the left side, the twisty cedar grows next to it behind the bench is bringing in the right side
snap the shutter and you see mainly tree
its branches spiral. its trunk twists. its barry bates in the fiber!
bump for the tree which has mastered the lightning and the bench which lies below
and Columbia's the gem of my notion
Helen was my wife's stepfather's mother.
Why all the blank looks?
And the sun sinks west of Screamy Valley.
And the lights wink on.
And the dreams move in.
But I'm back on the bus.
(Barking Dog Good dog Good beer)
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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May 21, 2012 - 04:04am PT
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Frothing forth through my insipid dilemma
Aw fuhget about it...
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Da_Dweeb
climber
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May 21, 2012 - 10:49am PT
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I used to wonder what friendship could be.
Then I took an arrow to the knee.
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