Saturday, April 29, 2006

the south st. vrain





named after the french trapper ceran st. vrain, the south st. vrain rises up out of the continental divide and runs along highway 7 through allen's park and raymond and on down to lyons where it joins the north st. vrain. the two rivers form a loop around a section of the colorado piedmont before their not-very-impressive confluence in lyons.

i took the truck up out of lyons friday evening and fished a stretch of the south. it was cold and grey. no rises or hatches. it was my first time out this year and i felt rusty. like a clumsy beginner, even though i've been fly fishing for thirty years.

the runoff has just started and i stumbled on the rocks fording the river. the" greased bowling balls," as my friend bill calls them. snagged on an underground rock, i lost a favorite tippet, the last one of my hand-tied leaders from rusty gates' fly shop on the au sable in michigan. hands frozen from the frigid water, i could barely tie up another leader.

but even with the cold and frustration i couldn't miss this intense feeling of almost-spring up here. the green haze of new growth on the deciduous trees along the banks upstream. the sweet, vinegary smell of the pines in bloom. the detritus of winter in the stream; water scoured branches, leaves, plastic bags.

in a few weeks the snowmelt will be screaming down this stretch of river and where i was standing will be five feet underwater. and all the remains of winter will be scrubbed away. during the runoff you can't put your toe in this same water for fear of ending up in kansas. and the fishing will be over until the melt turns to a slow, steady run in late june. (with the heavy snowpack this year, maybe july.) by then the canyon will be lined with RVs chugging their way up to miniature golf and pony rides in estes park. the mayfly and caddis hatches will be on, but crowds will be out and i'll have to find another place to fish.

this, from a poem called "springwood" by jack ramey, first published in the toucan, the kent state literary magazine, circa 1968.

"...a close, a narrow gestation shaves
against our bark, trembling along springwood
to break loose the scale of buds
leaving scars, rings, for next season's building.

among these fragile units, paths intrude,
fretted like tight weavings of a tapestry.

listen. tear loose a piece of the bark;
place your ear against the naked cambium.
close your eyes to the liquid temper of steady
murmuring; the sound of water in secret pathways."

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

mothra


mothra was the guardian of an ancient race of tiny humanoids named the cosmos who lived on earth. she lay dormant for many years, but apparently is back.

pho

“no matter how hard your day, no matter how tough your choices, or how complex your ethical decisions, you always get to choose what you want for lunch.”
denny crane


the lady at the asian market in longmont pronounces it “phaaaaaaaar”. a vietnamese street dish, pho is a beef soup stock that is spiced with ginger, garlic or anise. rice noodles are cooked in the hot broth. i order pho tai, beef broth with rare, thinly sliced steak. the beef also cooks in the hot broth. it comes with a large plate of leafy condiments that usually include dandelion leaves, limes, bean sprouts, jalepenos and basil. at pho duey where my friend karen and i go for lunch, they give you a handful of basil that would cost $3.95 at the grocery store. karen adds plum sauce and chili paste to hers. i like mine plain.

and then there’s café sua da. strong vietnamese coffee brewed at table, mixed with sweetened condensed milk and poured into a tall glass with ice. it costs a dollar and a quarter (in vietnam, on the street, it costs 25 cents,) and is better than any four dollar coffee drink at starbucks. i believe café sua da has thirteen million calories.

and that's what i chose for lunch.

jane





i played a gibson L-50 in a music shop in lyons, colorado one day after work. for hours. and i thought about the guitar all the next day. i went back the next evening after work to buy it. and even though the guitar had just arrived in the shop, it had sold by the time i got there. to a guy who was dying. i don't blame him. i spent the next year searching for another one. i scoured the internet. and then when i finally gave up, i found another one in a another shop in colorado. the neck was so worn at the top you couldn't make an F chord. i bought it for eight hundred dollars and put another seven hundred dollars into a shaved neck, a fret job, a new nut, saddle, pickup and a blush erase on the finish.

when i picked it up, my repairman showed me that someone, at sometime, had carved the name "Jane" into the heel of the neck. if my house was on fire, i'd run back in to save this guitar.

kent

i want to bury my face in the past. sell my houses, find someplace nice, be with old friends, be in kent, drink some gin, play guitar and talk about giants and listen to the trains. hey momma, i aint got a dime.
peggy mainwaring

there are places i remember
all my life
though some have changed.
john lennon/paul mccartney

oh, way to go
O-HI-O
chrissie hynde

once upon a town,
water and whiskey neat.
no one comes around here anymore.
i’m down
on water street.
the bottomfeeders

she's gone everywhere but home.
tom rush


Tuesday, April 25, 2006

when giants walked the earth


the ground covered in white this morning. all the heavy equipment dusted with snow.

it's almost eight and i'm still in my robe. its almost impossible to drag myslef to work some days. i want to go back to bed and read books.

i got an e-mail response from my friend bob lewis this morning. we went to kent state together. we waded through the later 1960s together. we were in love with the same girl, together. we rode around northeast ohio in his maroon 60-something chevrolet and smoked hash together. we wrote poetry and listened to blues records together. he says in his e-mail, and i quote, "i long to be old enough to dress as the immaculate old man. white shirt buttoned up all the way - black suit pants at nipple level with suspenders. high-top lace up dress shoes from Redwing: 'fuck you young punks - you guys don't know nothin' . . . when I was young there were giants on the earth."

indeed, i replied. we had professors who were giants. i think about my daughter and the giant-less earth she walks today. when i was 20, there were so many giants we didn't know what to do. which one to be. the beatles. goddard. chavez. leary. farina. ferlinghetti. corso. kesey. de kooning. ginsburg. kerouac. dorn. donleavy. warhol. dylan. kennedy. arbus. hayden. hoffman. king. pynchon. miles. barth. bellow. frost.

and, as bob said, we got to see elizabeth cotton. and reverend gary davis, i reminded him. in the cafeteria at the student union. pre-cult of personality. pre-video disk jockey. pre-people magazine.

giants, indeed.

and , on my iPod yesterday this came up in the shuffle. written in 1963 by a 23 year old bob dylan.

i got a letter on a lonesome day
it was from her ship a-sailin'
saying i don't know when i'll be coming back again
it depends on how i'm feelin'

well, if you my love must think that a-way
i'm sure your heart is a-roamin'
i'm sure your heart is not with me,
but to the country to where you're goin'

so take heed, take heed of the western wind
take heed of stormy weather.
and yes, there's something you can send back to me,
spanish boots of spanish leather.

giants, indeed.


Monday, April 24, 2006

weather underground

yesterday at nine o'clock i was in the garden seeding my wildflower bed in shorts, filp-flops and no t-shirt. today, at three o'clock it is 37 degrees. flurries and misting rain. heavy coat and gloves for the drive to work. one hopes that the apple blossoms don't freeze tonight. it happens some years. last year the blossoms on the apple tree were astonishing, but not many apples.

i turned the heat down sunday morning and thenwhen i came home at midnight, didn't think to turn it back on. igloo morning. saw two white-crowned sparrows at the feeder this morning, the first i've seen. three goldfinches deperately clinging to the niger feeder.

i think i'll make spanish meatloaf tonight.

primera

this is my first post. why? i haven't the faintest idea. to write something other than advertising copy, maybe. because it's spring. because i'm planting wildflowers. because i bought a truck. because i need to look busy at work. because i want a place to post pics, art. etc. because idle hands are the devil's playground. because what goes is writing if i just save it to my hard drive and no one ever reads it. my daughter zoe says she's going to start a blog. and boots has one. and i like boots' blog.

why "bad guitar"? because it's stupid. because my guitar's been bad. because i'm a bad guitarist. because all guitars are bad. which reminds me. i need to get in touch with my friend dan who went to the dallas vintage guitar show last weekend...to a drafty arena filled with old, bad guitars.

so here goes my blog.