Up Bear Creek / 28apr50011

Norwood’s Elle Metrick honored for poetry

SAN MIGUEL POET LAUREATE … At the risk of infuriating one of our county curmudgeons who find little to praise anywhere they look and everything to criticize, it’s wonderful to see the County honoring poet and editor Elle Metrick for her fine writing, her performance chops -- both solo and with the poetry ensemble EAR, her success in forming a monthly poetry circle through ACE of Norwood, and her overall devotion to the lyric valuables … She takes the mantle from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer of Placerville, who served two terms: 2006-2010 … There’s no money involved. No sinecure. It’s just a way to honor one of the many arts that enrich our lives. Poetry. Dance. Theater … Would that we created more awards for those that bring beauty out into the open air.

SOUR GRAPES… It’s curious to see a citizen in our neighboring county railing against Ouray County Commissioner Lynn Padgett for using county travel money for honing her leadership skills. She’s already proved her worth to citizens there by winning election to the National Association of Counties … Our state association (CCI) collects dues from counties with public land within their boundaries (San Miguel, Ouray and Montrose all pay into that CCI fund, and have for over a decade). The money is used to pay expenses for eight commissioners from around the state’s 64 counties to go to NACo meetings in DC and to an annual meeting at different place around the country (this year in Portland). I’ve represented San Miguel County at NACo for ten of the last 13 years. Montrose has had representatives for much of the last decade. Ouray County hadn’t made the cut for one of the eight seats, until Commissioner Padgett’s election last year. That gives her the chance to lobby Senators and Congresspeople for issues important to Ouray County, with no additional cost to the citizens than a fee they’ve been paying for years. And in the process she (and Ouray County) have become leaders on the regional and state level … To kibitz because Padgett wants to develop even better executive skills at a leadership conference (which is non-partisan and has nothing to do with subsidizing anyone’s “political development”) – with money budgeted for an annual CCI meeting that only one of the Ouray commissioners can attend -- demonstrates either a lack of understanding on the part of this Wojciechowski fellow, or just more of the same petty partisan politics from Ouray’s hardcore Republextremists.

TELLURIDE AT RISK? … I’ve never heard anyone talk about this, but imagine this scenario reported on by Jeffrey St. Clair in Counterpunch last month: “An October 2000 report from the Sandia Labs in Albuquerque painted a grim picture of the consequences from a pool fire. The report, which was kept under wraps for years by the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission], found that “a waste pool fire could spread radioactive debris over a 500-mile radius, including Cesium-137, a carcinogen linked to birth defects and genetic damage” … Volcanic eruption. Meteorite. Terrorist attack. Who’s knows what (next) could trigger a “worst case scenario” in New Mexico’s Sandia Labs? … The driving distance from ‘Bourque to Telluride? Three hundred and fifty-five miles. By air it’s 206 … So, let the spinmeisters tell you it’s an acceptable level of danger. That the chances are nil. The odds astronomical … But the truth is, Southwestern Colorado isn’t out of possible harm’s way. We are well within multiple rings of radioactive fallout from existing nuclear reactors -- in a worst case scenario … This is the true risk. As assessed by the regulators … We could call ourselves a “nuclear-free-zone” until we’re blue in the face. It might make us feel smug, but it’s no protection in case the “impossible” happens. As we’ve been warned by the regulators, it could.

SAWPIT MERCANTILE … Telluride Bud Company wasn’t the only local business that slipped through the cracks in our competitor’s “open-for-off-season” listing. Downvalley, the good folks in Sawpit wanted customers to know they’re open for business all through off-season this year … Plus, they have an added attraction. The last time I stopped there to shop (they have some of the more curious gourmet food items for sale, not to be found elsewhere), I saw a herd of almost a dozen Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep ewes (they look like Mountain Goats with their short horns, but they aren't the pure white of goats). I watched, riveted, as they dashed up a butte to a lone sentinel who had been standing guard as the herd crossed over the road from the river. Stop, shop and see if you can catch sight of Ovis canadensis canadensis

STARTLED … Walking by the barn and sheds on my way back to the house from my studio at Cloud Acre the other day, I heard flapping and looked up. A big-winged bird soared above me just over the roofs of the outbuildings … A owl? No, bigger. An eagle? No, it had gray plumage and long trailing feet. Suddenly I realized it was a Great Blue Heron. It was the closest I’d ever been to that reclusive critter … Amazingly, it hadn’t seen or heard me. It glided a hundred feet to my small pond and disappeared behind a living fence of red willows … I was outside an working. I wanted to do some spring mowing before the sun went down, but I weeded instead for 10-15 minutes. Finally, I figured I’d wander down to the pond and see if the heron was still there, before I kicked over my lawnmower’s engine … I got about 10 yards from the pond, came around a berm and this magnificent bird with a huge wingspan lifted up from feasting on my pond’s minnows and sailed into the thick spring air.

THE TALKING GOURD

Alamos, Sonora

We walked into the small café

to see the Master Shaman

surrounded by eager apprentices

in the corner booth

Their rapt attention     focused

on his hands

as he compressed

the energy between his palms

tighter             tighter

A sudden sharp snap

of wrist and shoulder

he flung it down

off the center of the table

a steel ball-bearing

off hard formica

KATAK!

My juggler’s hand

shot up and out

instantly calculating

angle and trajectory

to save the customers

to save the crockery

to save the day!

A short-stop’s stretching catch

the ground-hop ball still spinning

sizzling in the glove

At that sharp metallic sound

surprised patrons spun around

to see       me staring

into my shocked

and empty

palm

-Lightning Heart

No Name, Colorado

Up Bear Creek / 21apr50011

Reassessing Nuclear Power’s Risks

RISK … Every human is a great evaluator of risk. Throughout our lives we make judgment about what can hurt us, what could kill. So, I’m not so sure we should look to others to assess our own personal risk in continuing down the nuclear road. Or the risk to our loved ones ... You don’t have to read the Wall St. Journal or listen to Fox News to know it would likely be unwise to look to the leaders of our capital-driven, growth-obsessed, industrial materialist society for a fair risk assessment … Citizens, when it comes to assessing the risks of nuclear power, I think we are called upon to consider the kind of radical action that Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin modeled for America – to start thinking for ourselves. To weigh as individuals what our risks are. With nuclear, and without … Otherwise, you may as well “Leave it to Beaver” as effectively as any industrial expert paid to convince you everything’s hunky-dory. Radionuclide’s are harmless. Radon is good for your lungs … Time to realize that all those too familiar “expert” nostrums --“state of the art”, “best available science”, “as low as reasonably achievable” (ALARA), or “practicable” (ALARP), or “cost effective,” etc. – for what they really are: educated guesses with incomplete data … Should we really risk $300 billion+ in damages and hundreds of American miles cordoned off from human contact for thousands of years to pay less on our monthly electrical bills? … Forget the “experts.” What does common sense tell you? Is the benefit worth the risk?

WRONG … Just my luck to have based a lot of historical research on a rare publication that appears to have been rife with errors … In 2004 Dr. Andrew Gulliford published my historical essay “Mining the Gold: Telluride and San Juan History” in his book, San Juan Sampler: Selections from the Nita Heald Webber Southwest Postcard Collection (Durango Herald Small Press). One of the primary sources I used to do research for the historical section was Ray L. Newburn, Jr.’s Postal History of the Colorado San Juan. It was a book none of the regional libraries or bookstores had a copy of – more manuscript than tome -- and it had been generously loaned to me by Buzz and Jean Zatterstrom of Nucla … Buzz was fascinated with postage stamps (as am I) and had secured a copy of Newburn’s monograph (along with a postmarked envelope he showed me from Cameville – a long-vanished post office townsite at the juncture of Tabeguache Creek and the San Miguel, just upstream from Uravan) … Thinking (as many amateurs do) that my single rare historical source could give me literary advantage – mining, as it were, the gold of found information, I rushed ahead without checking sources and cross-referencing what I had. Alas, my own hubris caught up with me … In his book, Newburn cites the name “Rio del Cado” as the appellation first given to Leopard Creek by the Dominguez y Escalante expedition of 1776 (the good padres were seeking a route to Monterey from Santa Fe, while ancestors on my mother’s side – the Santa Cruz family – were just arriving in Monterey from Mexico -- at about the same time). Newburn translates it as “River of the Elbow” (I think a better translation might be “Bent Creek” or “Crooked Watercourse”) … Nevertheless, I wrote up my little history and cited Newburn for my Leopard Creek story. Then, I got an email from former Tellurider and Colombian-American friend Lito Tejada-Flores a couple months ago and things started to go south. Somehow, in one of our exchanges, “Rio del Cado” came up and Lito replied curiously that “Rio del Codo” meant “Bent Creek” but Rio del Cado was a much more obscure word, literally “rabbit burrow” but really slang for “a hideout of crooks.” I was intrigued. Maybe Butch Cassidy was just the latest in a long line of outlaw denizens of Dallas Divide … That tantalizing theory collapsed, however, when I conferred with local historical sage Dirk de Pagter – whose collection of ancient maps of this region is legendary. “I think ‘Rio del Cado’ must have been a spelling mistake by Mr. Newburn,” wrote de Pagter, “because it is the only time it was called by this name. Hayden [earliest government surveyor of this region] first referred to it as ‘Rio del Codo’ in 1874-1877 and this name was used by many cartographers like Louis Nell who copied Hayden’s information. But, after the initial gold/silver rush, by 1886-1887 the name was changed to Leopard Creek. I cannot find any reference before Hayden” … So, not from Dominguez y Escalante. Not “Cado” at all … One more revisionist footnote to the comprehensive history of San Miguel County that’s yet to be written.

AND OOPS … Mea culpa, dear readers. Win an award & you start making mistakes all over the place. My only excuse: writing under deadline in the wee hours can carry one into strange corners that even copy editors don’t check … We are NOT on the cusp of the 21^st Millennium of the Christian Era, as I asserted quite falsely last week. We HAVE entered the 21^st Century of the Christian Era, but only the 3^rd Millennium … Thanks to my old sem buddy Gary Saso of Cupertino for putting me straight after my flagrant off-course boo-boo.

GREGORY GREYHAWK … Another bright star flames out … One of those giant souls, huge-hearted, a string of his own hockey teeth pearled around his neck. Brilliant, erratic. I loved being around him. Anything could happen, and sometimes did …. Just ordered his book, Wailing Heaven, Whistling in Hell (Howling Dog Press, Berthoud, Colorado, 1996) … Gonna miss the wrap of his big arm as we caromed down a Denver sidewalk, and the wild grin of his gap-toothed smile.

THE TALKING GOURD

Remembering Karen Chamberlain

lanky stalk of grass

singing in the autumn wind

your voice packed with seeds

-Carol Bell

Fort Collins

Paleohippie

Addicted

Chocolate to morphine. Acid to ecstasy.

I could jones on you forever.

Your taste on my tongue.

Sure, at times we trade tit-for-tat.

Give or take. But ultimately

both of us get taken away.

You say, Pay attention to my clock.

It’s on Tibetan Tantric Be-Here-Now time.

But what I hear are the crazed

bees of electricity

humming in the wires

& the sweet drawl lisp of your voice.

Love’s a dented circle

pierced with arrows. I bring you

a heart of rough-cut alabaster.

Take my anger & polish it

to a sheen where at last

my own scuffed self can be seen.

Time to dance, I shout

Hooping & hoofing it while we can.

Give me a hand, darling,

Let’s do a Tarentella Napoletana

under the slickrock black of our Anasazi sky

looking south to Lone Cone.

Once more I’ll ignore the stars to stare

into the polished juniperberry

blue of your eyes.

Glazed. Longing. Hungry for

the grip of the other. So here now

we’re gone.

Capt. Barefoot Broadside                                          Union of Street Poets

Vincent St. John Local / Colorado Plateau / Aztlán

 Kuksu Brigade (Ret.) / San Francisco

50011

Along the San Miguel

Winter in the San Juans

Along the San Miguel,

rock-studded slopes of P-J

& Ponderosa get hot mid-day.

Even with winter’s bite, snow

melts off, though it’s too cold

for new growth. Just

last year’s hardy perennials

scratching out roots in the

Dakota sandstone, Gambel

oak & leaf litter. But it’s

a tolerable kind of cold. Just

about sunny enough to roll up

your shirtsleeves. Even if

your forearms get goosebumps

with each passing cloud.

Capt. Barefoot Broadside                                          Union of Street Poets

Vincent St. John Local / Colorado Plateau / Aztlán

 Kuksu Brigade (Ret.) / San Francisco

50005

Up Bear Creek / 14apr50011

Looking Back on Vatican II

CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-MONK … The dawn of the 3rd Millennium of the Christian Era has not showered its graces upon the Byzantine stained glass of Roman Catholicism. Revelations of widespread sexual abuse among deviant members of the Roman Catholic clergy have rocked the faithful and non-believers alike. Bishops and Cardinals have been touched by the smoldering, decades-old scandal (even, some claim, the Pope). Not for any predatory sexual behavior themselves, but for allowing ordained predators to continue in the priesthood – instead of shutting the offenders up in mandatory seclusion. Or sending them off into the world, excommunicated. Or (God forbid)  turning them over to the civil authorities … As a young man I had such hope for religion. I was a believer. Even with the allure of Fifties Rock & Roll parties and Eighth Grade first dates, I decided at 14 to dedicate my life to making this a better world with a better life for all. Which, in my young mind, translated into entering a diocesan seminary south of San Francisco (Colorado Supreme Court Justice Greg Hobbs was just a class ahead of me there). My intent was clear – I would help convert the world into believers in the gospels of the RC Christ ... Of course, the deeper I got in my studies, the more my goal morphed. We aspiring clerical Turks wanted to get rid of the old Latin Mass. Bring the ritual into English, so all could participate. And understand. Ours was an American kind of Catholicism, imbued with Jeffersonian principles and Catholic Worker tendencies. Many spiritual greenhorns like myself embraced the near heretical writings on the Omega Point by Jesuit philosopher-paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, as well as the complete oeuvre of Trappist poet, pacifist and celebrity monk Thomas Merton, who pioneered interfaith dialogue among East and West religious traditions and bridged the spiritual chasm between modern literature and contemplative life (Cables from the Ace, New Directions, 1968) … But the retrenchment of the Roman Curia once Blessed John the XXIII (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli) died and my own wrestling with existential phenomenology (and a looming vow of celibacy) led me out of St. Patrick’s Seminary and off to Montana and the land of the Absaroka (but that’s another tale) … All of this to say I have a confession to make. I’m addicted. Every spring, as my mail box fills up with lurid photos of the most beautiful creatures, I have come to accept that I am addicted to the pornography of garden catalogues … Omygoddess, I could leaf through their Technicolor pages for hours. Entranced with the beauty of this bulb. Lusting to purchase that flowering annual. Pining for the rarest heirloom spud seed … And, honestly, I’m not a bit ashamed. When it comes to the sin of gardening, I’m completely unrepentant.

DICK BRETT … An old sem buddy of mine reporting from the interior of China sometime last week … “The weather is Chengdu gray here. Spring is not in the air … The Chinese just finished celebrating their tomb-sweeping three-day holiday where they remember their beloved dead. I was the only foreigner in Pingle, a 2300-year-old Chinese town, where human beings first used natural gas. I was surrounded with Chinese who have gotten a little bit bigger piece of their ever growing economic pie. The Chinese know how to relax with their family and friends, tea and beer by the river -- talking, playing cards or mahjong, and eating fresh, delicious food … The four hour trip back to the big city was worth it.”

WEEKLY QUOTA … In a letter to Nicaraguan poet and cultural minister Ernesto Cardenal, Thomas Merton wrote: "The world is full of great criminals with enormous power, and they are in a death struggle with each other. It is a huge gang battle, using well-meaning lawyers and policemen and clergymen as their front, controlling papers, means of communication, and enrolling everybody in their armies."

THE TALKING GOURD

April Aubade

When you finally

sleep with the

window open in

a century old

house, the itch

of April enters,

a highway breathes

through, trains woo

darkly westward. Come

morning, wood pecker

drills a hole

into your waking

mind. A pin

of light shines.

Air sucks your

closed door against

its frame, trying

to make a

path through you.

Wood knocks wood.

Your metal mechanism

clicks in its

lock, hinges almost

creak. Everything begs

a thin opening.

-Rachel Kellum

Brush

Afoot with Visions

Hospice Leave

odd to go

from fast-track

county meet & greets

to sitting

with Grandpa Vincenzo

in the rest home

weaving baskets of twine

that was once vine

& now’s the only line

back to the rainbow garish

sun flash San Miguel

end zone I’ve left

to sit on the foggy San Fran sidelines

as Dad makes his own last

end run dash

Capt. Barefoot Broadside                                          Union of Street Poets

Vincent St. John Local / Colorado Plateau / Aztlán

 Kuksu Brigade (Ret.) / San Francisco

50011

When is a Loss a Win?

How many times has someone asked you to write them a job recommendation, and you do? Sometimes they get the job, and sometimes not. Here's a poem responding to one just-about-to-graduate friend, after not...

When is a Loss a Win?

-for Dr. S. Lynn

Part of me

was almost sad

to help you net that job

you’d had

Admin done well

without doubt

But I wanted to say

Make a play A big catch

with that postdoc basket

of East Afric skill sets

Why not angle the reel

for more?

Maybe seconds’s a better

success

regardless of what you

wanted most

or thought

went first

 

Old Man Crow taught me

on the rez

You cast intent out in the world

& then just fish with the flow

Watching

instead of willing

Or like my wobbly

red monk hobo balladeer

tracker guru Utah Phillips

sez

Every so often

you have to wake up

& jump

off a cliff

 

Capt. Barefoot Broadside                                          Union of Street Poets

Vincent St. John Local / Colorado Plateau / Aztlán

 Kuksu Brigade (Ret.) / San Francisco

50011