This tree loomed in shadows alongside a small stream.
Art and I finished the process of getting the boat fully stowed in the boathouse for the winter. So that’s done.
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
Month: September 2023
Caveat: Poem #2614 “Seventy-third stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon woke from her dreams with a start. Somehow she'd lost herself inside some art: paintings her grandmother'd done long ago, cabins in forests and wide fields of snow.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Tree #1707 “Lined up”
This tree is lined up with others of its kind.
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
Caveat: Poem #2613 “Harvest Moon”
ㅁ moon is full fall harvest happy chuseok today is the korean thanksgiving
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1706 “파주시”
This tree is a guest tree from my past. I took this picture while on a hike through a rural area near Paju, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea (경기도 파주시), in October, 2011.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 5hr]
Caveat: Poem #2612 “And a glimpse of the sun”
ㅁ Driving home last night, I saw the bold sun, setting... out there behind me.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1705 “You take what simple pleasures as you can”
This tree enjoyed the clouds.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
Caveat: Poem #2611 “I said to myself, ‘This is a dream'”
ㅁ Dreams crowded by worries and random thoughts; then, a lucid moment, levitating. Flight above... but control was elusive; I saw a child trapped in a prison cell.
– two tetractys (tetractyses?) enchained.
Caveat: Tree #1704 “Long ago, in a sunny land”
This tree was down by the river’s mouth, half a mile from my home. I took this picture a couple weeks ago, which was the last time I saw the sun; it has rained ever since.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km;]
Caveat: Poem #2610 “In need of a solution”
ㅁ Cup's empty. Seems someone drank my coffee. Probably that was me, still not awake.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1703 “Bye, sun”
This tree waved at the departing sun.
A busy day at the store. Trips to the bank and city hall, organizing paperwork. Trying to complete a full-store inventory.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; retailing, 9hr]
Caveat: the dogs go on with their doggy life
Musee des Beaux Arts About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. - W. H. Auden (British poet, 1907-1973)
Caveat: Poem #2609 “Best served cold, and smelling of the sea”
ㅁ Blood flowered on knuckles, along fingers. Those beastly barnacles were fighting back.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1702 “鹿児島へ行ってきました”
This tree is a guest tree from my past. I took this picture in Kagoshima, Japan, in April, 2010. I was staying there for a while as I waited for my Korean employment visa to be approved.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 3hr]
Caveat: Poem #2608 “No words”
ㅁ Days eaten by rainclouds, intemperate challenges toward the laconic earth.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1701 “Barnacle Day”
This tree existed.
Today I spent a major portion of the day scraping barnacles off the bottom of Arthur’s boat. Arthur tried to help but he didn’t really do much.
It’s not perfect, but good enough to put into storage for the winter. Here’s an effort to compare “before and after” on the debarnaclization project – it doesn’t show up very well but the right side in the picture below is already scraped.
It’s easier to see on the back of the boat.
[daily log: walking, 3km; barnacle-scraping, 5hr]
Caveat: Poem #2607 “Futurology”
ㅁ Stress shows up, settles in, uninvited. My gut ties itself up in baroque knots.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1700 “Jeep”
This tree remained unaware of my newly acquired junker vehicle.
I bought a junker vehicle yesterday. A Jeep. Doing so was a kind of “chess move” in my battle of wills with Arthur over his wanting to drive. By making clear that the Tahoe is his car, and that I’m borrowing it, I’m hoping he’ll back off on his ambitions. So I’ve explained I bought the jeep in order to have a “backup car” here, but it also means that if he insists, I have an alternate route to town. Anyway he can feel that I haven’t taken his car away from him. I’m somewhat confident that it will be like the situation with his boat: by telling him he’s free to take it on his own, anytime he wants, I believe he’ll feel okay about the situation and never avail himself of the “right,” so to speak.
I got a CT Scan this morning, part of the annual post-cancer wellness check. It’s the first scan I’ve gotten since returning to the US. Hopefully everything’s fine – I’ll find out results at some future point. I realized as I lay there that it was the first time I had a CT scan where the attending technician spoke to me in English. It was a bit weird. in my mind, I was expecting the instructions to be in Korean. [UPDATE, a few days later: The results came back fully negative. No new cancer.]
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
Caveat: Poem #2606 “The congregation”
ㅁ Black ravens swirled like storms congregated. They'd found something they wanted to discuss.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1699 “Waiting”
This tree is probably still in South Korea. I took this picture in September, 2010, in the northwest suburbs of Seoul where I was visiting a friend.
“Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.” – Herman Melville (in Moby-Dick)
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 4hr]
Caveat: Poem #2605 “Denials”
ㅁ Don't even bother me. I'm sure you're just making all this shit up.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1698 “In an anthropomorphized manner”
This tree expected the sun to set, in an anthropomorphized manner.
I had a very stressful day.
This was due to a conversation with Arthur, this morning, at airport after seeing his brother Alan off. We had driven into town for the early flight at Klawock Airport, and I’m sure that in Arthur’s reasoning, it would have been helpful for him to drop me and for him to come get me from work later – saving me a trip out to the house to drop him off and come back. He was just trying to be helpful, at first, and forgetting (as he so often does) his disabilities, or the years elapsed since their onset.
Arthur: I can drive. I’ll drop you at your work in town and come back later to pick you up.
Me: You haven’t driven in 4 years. I’m not really comfortable with you driving.
Arthur: I can drive fine.
Me: I told you before, you’re free to drive, but I don’t want to ride with you. I don’t feel safe.
Arthur: (blank look)
Me: Four years ago, when we were driving to town, we had an incident where basically you seemed you forgot you were driving. You were trying to multitask, digging around in your pocket, and we went into a ditch slightly. I got scared. I told you I didn’t want to ride with you when you were driving after that.
Arthur: I don’t remember that happening.
Me: I’ve told you about it many times since then, but yes, you’ve forgotten. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Arthur: (a confrontational look, right at me) I think you’re making that up.
Me: Why would I make that up? What reason?
Arthur: (Angrily) I don’t know!
Anyway, I think with all the guests we’ve had over the past several weeks, this broader social context has “stirred Arthur up,” in the sense that he’s suddenly feeling more constrained by his lifestyle than his usual pattern of disregard and lethargy. I also think with my recent increased responsibilities at the store (and his financial loan) has got him feeling more “entitled” at some level to concessions on my part. In principal, this makes sense.
I understand where this is coming from, but frankly it terrifies me. Although this is maybe the third time he’s directly accused me of making up a memory of something that happened as a way to thwart what he expects to happen, this is the first time it’s been about such a serious subject – the previous times were about whether we’d watched a certain TV show episode before, or bought something or not at the store. I’m not sure how to handle this. Especially in the context of the other stuff happening right now.
Later, after I cooled off some, I tried to talk about it more. But he then he kept wanting to change the subject. He did say at one point “I want more access to the car.”
I reiterated what I’d told him before: “I won’t tie you down and prevent you from driving, but I won’t ride with you. And with what’s happening with the store, I realize you have less access to the car than usual.”
So now I’m thinking – maybe I need to buy a car. Just so he has the car sitting there in the driveway, to assuage his sense of abstract liberty – I suspect strongly that he won’t actually use it. That would be the same as with the boat: I’ve told him many times that he’s free to go out on his own in his boat, too – how can I prohibit that? I only reiterate that I think it’s not safe. And he’s never done. Perhaps he’d do the same with the car, sitting in the driveway?
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
Caveat: Poem #2604 “Approaching equinox”
ㅁ Sun shone down, but the light wasn't summer's: the afternoon sun's angle has shifted now.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1697 “Some seagulls”
This tree was along a river where seagulls found dead fish to eat.
The rain stopped and the sun came out in the afternoon.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #2603 “I slept, and this happened”
ㅁ Dream: future Mexican dystopia - robotic programmers stacked like firewood.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1696 “Redwood redux”
This tree is a dawn redwood (metasequoia) that I got in the mail. I had two of these two years ago, but they failed to flourish (which is to say, they went to the great compost heap in the sky). I am going to try again – this time, I think I’ll not put them out in the damp until they’ve had a year to establish themselves as indoor plants first.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Dehiscing of inscrutable / energies
Muezzin Before light’s encroaching Beams, across wavelengths Of glints, in between yawning Protocols of waking, The cocks strike a redundant Note. Choked by their own sensitve Yodelling spree, muted by Spittle of outstretched, moaning Clouds, frayed and piqued by The lusts of flying machines, Hours stretch on rubber’s speed. The rain is a common spiv, holding On the crests of soaking waves Upon night’s purloined Sleep. On the roof, the rain pelts With energy, hunting the Fire-caked degree of heat, Insufferable to the dictates Of yelling protests. Faint mirrors of earliness hang Loose on frescoes of heaven, peeking Through serrated drapes above Window panes. And these, like neighing, Spavined horses, wake Memories of puking slumber... And the hours of dimmed contours Stretched. And the lilt from the Pluvial melody humbles the Insomnia monody, drummed Into the silence of fastened hedonism. No sunrise within the grey Patterns of veiled clouds... Cocks’ crows, subsumed within This muffled protocols, become Distant trumpets of varieties, Preening themselves of the usage Of establishing culture. Allah, Allah, Allah! ! ! The presence became fixed! At the very hour of the cocks’ choir, When piddling gathers the froth of First waking with the grogginess Of drunken dreams, the muezzin Reads out the laws.... From the jungle chambers, elated Spirits from pricked ears and Rising furs soothe the voice, Arched, raised and powered Even to the birth of essences and Dehiscing of inscrutable Energies of efflorescences. Allah, Allah, Allah!
– Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu (Nigerian poet, b. 1968)
Caveat: Poem #2602 “Not just a leak”
ㅁ Words start slow, tumble out... then suddenly: whole sentences spill out like a burst pipe.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1695 “Wet lumber”
This tree saw my new pile of lumber get wet – we’ve received 5-6 inches of rain in the last few days. The rainforest fall has arrived.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km;]
Caveat: Poem #2601 “The sky’s arena”
ㅁ Clouds became luminous scintillating stray beasts colliding like gray goddesses.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1694 “The boat”
This tree was by a boat.
Art, Allan and I drove up to the north end of the island, on a sight-seeing tour. We went to a village called Whale Pass. We didn’t pass any whales, though. We saw this boat, a float-plane dock, a “city hall” (?) and “clinic” – all closed. I was reminded of some of the end-of-the-road towns I saw in Chilean Patagonia, with no commerce and just some wooden houses and a few public services type buildings but nothing happening. It rained most of the time, though the sun peaked out as we drove back south, at one point.
[daily log: walking, 3km; driving 200km]
Caveat: Poem #2600 “Upādāna”
ㅁ gifts given bought and sold dull detritus these physical things imbued with meaning
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1693 “Under a lively sky”
This tree glowered under a lively sky.
I had a day of bureaucracy and bureaucracy-adjacent events. I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning (post-cancer annual wellness check-up – 10 years!). I am dealing with a lot of stuff for the gift store (more on that later). I had to renew my driver’s license at the bustling Craig DMV (I wasn’t LATE – I had until midnight, today, the woman said). Et cetera.
[daily log: walking, 4km;]