A scene in a steel mill, Republic Steel, Youngstown, Ohio

A scene in a steel mill, Republic Steel, Youngstown, Ohio. Molten iron is blown in an Eastern Bessemer converter to change it to steel for war essentials (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

A scene in a steel mill, Republic Steel, Youngstown, Ohio. Molten iron is blown in an Eastern Bessemer converter to change it to steel for war essentials (LOC)

Palmer, Alfred T.,, photographer. 1941 Nov.

interior steel mill

IMG_0720, originally uploaded by f0rcylracer.

I missed the glory of steel production in the Mahoning Valley and am rapidly catching up via some great portfolios on FLICKR.com this photo by f0rcylracer being one of them-- see:

sketches

preliminary studies and sketches for a pen-n-ink project




in the studio something always lurks

a sketch of mine

where did it come from?

In answer to a friend's query: First I took an ordinary lousy photo of some wildflowers I picked--this is untouched photo: (click all these to see larger) then we used "levels" & "contrast" on photoshop:

then we played with channels (of colours) some:

then we tried desaturating:

then we played with channels some more:

then we cropped out a really yummy tile:

and with our little tile.....

we tiled out some bigger pieces of digital real estate:

see a little bigger variations and more in my Art Archives

Anatomicus

Anatomicus, originally uploaded by renzodionigi.

Stumbled across this while searching to see if there was a need for a Sundials group on Flickr

Lady Slipper Carbide Lamp

DLudwig-LadySlipperCarbideL, originally uploaded by Art Youngstown Gallery.

Art Youngstown posted all the artwork from the Great Room Ohio One Show.... click to view all

those who did not run

These gravestones are in Rehrersburg.

There is a great song by The Cutters: Fields of Gettysburg -- written by Phillip Morgan, quoted from the liner notes: behind the song,"Phillip's twice great grandfather, Creed Henry Harper, enlisted in the Confederate Army at age 16, two weeks after Virginia seceded. He was one of five brothers from a family that had freed their slaves years before. All five enlisted, out of love and loyalty to Virginia and to a Southern way of life. At Gettysburg, he was a first sergeant of Company C of the 53rd Virginia Infantry in Armistead's brigade of Pickett's Division. This song is largely his own words, passed down by Phillip's maternal grandmother, who was raised by him."

THe lyrics are moving. It's on their album, Sail Away album on Amazon.com

snowdrops

Snowdrops blooming along the Clarion River, click picture to enlarge

signs of snow

Kestrel on the line, kestrel lifeless on the hard rock highway, kestrel in the sky, Canada goose in a still pond, no leaves only reddish buds, crumbly.
Swollen streams and rivers, skeins of goose bodies dotting leaden greys,
sole redwinged black bird clings every tiny tree top, spring singing.
Or croaking "ckerr-ank".
Nuthatches creeping, tufted mouse tits in the hemlocks, jayblues swoop and jump, chickadees...
crows everywhere.
New trailing arbutus leaves but no buds. Picking 2 fields edged with strong pine scarfs, wrapping and clutching -- what is the pine hold? Is it because the first visions came then and it was a time of hope ("Lordy mercy if there comes a time...")
My brave forsythia looks so promising; Two bird nests in the neighbor's ancient forsythia hedge.

Gravel snow and river.
Snow on the high Forest hills, "Caution: water not drinkable" signs posted at Slocum springs, Sawmill burger sign spins, at the Harley shop in the forest: "Support the troops, end the war" ("Sally go round the roses, the roses , they can't hurt you")

The Desire for wood

Why doesn't Obama or Hillary talk about class unequalities instead of focusing on the colour of our skins? Mike Moore sure talks about the income gap but does not call it class; I'm not sure about Nader although he does talk about eco inequality.
Computerized weather voice for part of an hour, coffee-trucks: truck-coffees.

Fluff of a dead skunk across from the Catholic church on the hill, parishioner steps into the road for the Good Friday service and steps back out of the way of the incoming car, (squeal of the stove door heralds warmth of wood, the firery furnace ), writer strings together spring, resurrection and vampires' undead-ness, and 2 shows deal with techincal descriptions of death by crucifixtion -- what 's the fixation? I like my hotsauce closet very much flaming endorphines of the state, of the zone, on the sidewalk in the rain a wide wide bandaid wet but never wide enough to cover all the valleys and wooded hills, with snow, ice and discovery.

Yet another copper thief starts a fire, it's cold, then it's warm, who's got the cat?

Late talk with the northern man out of his watershed, strung out on sere edges, the barren, the stark, slashing, and burning up with art, whirly-gigging a werld dance, poring over words on a page in the long quiet.

syncro I used to own

I used to own this 1991 Volkswagen Vanagon Syncro Minivan view more photos here

223,426 miles

I was the original owner (and the legendary "little ol lady", having babied it and rarely took it over 61 mph!) I never had reason to take it "off-roading" -- except for the dirt roads that can be seen in some of the photos. Often went on state forest dirt roads for TrailCares (hiking trail maintenance).
4 + L speed Manual transmission, Baulk-synchronized with additional compound Low-speed traction gear
water-cooled gasoline engine, 2.1 L fuel-injected engine, digifant engine management system
Syncro 4-wheel-drive, ("all wheel drive"), manually-operated locking rear differential (what is this?)

14-inch steel wheels,
high ground clearance, skidplates underneath
Folding rear bench seat/bed combination *,
2 rear-facing removable seats **, grey cloth interior, rear compartment heater, 18.5 gallon fuel tank.* The bed wasso comfy and roomy we spent hundreds of nights outdoors in the van just parked in the driveway! ** Seats and bed are easy to fold up & down and/or take in or out-- see photos...
Power rack & pinion steering, power front disc/rear drum brakes, independent front suspension, coil springs & telescopic shock absorbers, front & rear, double-jointed drive shafts
Electric rear window defroster, analog clock, 4 speaker sound system,

No War No More for you and me

No War No More book is now available here: click to view at authorhouse.com

click here to preview only

Description:
These are poems, essays, artwork and photos for the cause of peace. We take a stand for peace, independently and collectively, artistically and politically. In these times it is imperative not to let slip through one's hands the opportunity to say again and again, with whatever means possible, creative and peaceful, that war is wrong, that love is the only path to peace, justice and freedom, and that we will not stray from this path no matter the consequences. This idea fed this project and I hope will feed the minds and hearts of those who share in our efforts by reading this book. A.F.Jenkins is a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism & a peace activist. Her photojournalism can be seen at www.allreelimages.com Greenwood/Blue Lotus Press and No War No More grew out of the ideas and hopes of a few activists in the Mahoning Valley in Ohio. The philosophy of our press is rooted in a Buddhist, environmentalist and social consciousness.

Product Details:
Printed: 92 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, black and white interior ink
ISBN: 9781434309839
Publisher: Greenwood Blue Lotus Press
Copyright: © 2007 Standard Copyright License
Language: English
Country: United States

preview only here:

http://www.lulu.com/content/791399

purchase here (authorhouse.com)

purchase through Amazon.com

not light and light

eight-pointed buck stumbling in the dark on the side of the roadbank, he's slow-moving for it is autumn
crunching up and down the gravel an eerie hoot-howl wavers in from down the valley of the river through the pines and darkness: pondering the mailbox faeries--they are not large like angels whose wings are SO LouD black cat body out of nowhere, black angel with the trail of her black kitten ghosts wisping behind in the shadows, just out of sight
moon-sliced orange rises over pennsyl-vania state of mind/mine following nick on its heels silverywisp of a paper sun, pinky-disk wraithed with tissue-shreds of fogglers...over the Jersey banks along the Atlantic
and then it's all no good
On WKCR there is a Birdfight 89.9 but there are too many stoneloaded tractor trailers heaving and yawing us all into the pit

Shenk's Ferry, Tucquan Glen Preserve, wildflower heaven early in the spring. On the left is ragwork, miterwort or bishops' cap and wild phlox. On the right is wild geranium (or "germanium" as certain physics souls would say) and more wild phlox

Mom and me and Aunt Mary in Lancaster County; me and Arthur; has anyone seen Dennis Ludwig?

snowy river

Giant wings going down the road –or props of a windmill blades –or the wings of an angel so big.

A man points out that Security is a a type of Theartre now. It is all about feeling, It is a kabuki dance.
Three Little birds are at the door to my park
Sitting for split seconds, flinking about and away
A chickadee, a blue-grey nuthatch, a reddish wren –winter wren in the winter?


Tired a little from shoveling snow, hands burnt from photos in the snowy river banks.

The snow winds roar down up the thru our river valley the cabins hear them coming ang crouch before them
Then there is a blurry sea of drifting snow, a watery thingee to float thru

Out and across the lot of the post office, now we know what the moaning schreeching sound was, it is the scream of the wind thru things, car parts, light poles, electric wires, joined by church bells tolling and overhead roil rolling glittery swarms of stars...a clear cold cacaphony.

Kristin's Wilderness

look further here
or here

crow vote

hemlock crow flap, green river voting, 2 crows fly slow overhead, one near and one far.
later: black cats tripples down the road in the dampness, in the gloaming...down below the pines, unprepossessing cabins hug the ground, tiny gaps of window reveal warm orange slitts of hoarded warmth within.
exchanged the doors
made a shutter fastner
mulched the forsythia on the bank and the tamarack in the boot
picked up firewood
got the heat tape going and the furnace
covered some windows clarington rock, capped lichen and pussy toed plants

The bridge will be closed for six months and the village cut off; some people say they are not going to go around, just going to hunker down for that long

canoe-barn contra dance

Doug dancing in Willimantic, Maine, photo by Doug Plummer (another doug!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougplummer/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougplummer/270786148/in/set-72157594330144300/

moose and spruce

moose and spruce,
loons, otters, rose pogonia, Great Northern Paper, helleborine galore and we learn it is an invasive, waves and wind, floating bogs, Graveyard Point, homemade rootbeer, marsh St. John's wort, some kinda pyrolla...
smartweed floats like sweet pink candy on the water as we stroke by
thunder in the distance and here is hummous, dates, and dill pickles to eat, chocolate with a love poem from Dante read aloud under cedar, spruce and fir

wooden and canvas canoes, a paddle carved by an Alexandra...biscuits, woodsmoke and rain....we have loved our journey with old and new, watery and true, trails winding round and round between labrador and missoula

North Woods Ways, Willimantic, Maine

it's all too beautiful

Little bird harassing large bird…swathes of growing corn are candy green….teasle blooms lavender…iowa, new york, tennessee, michigan, connecticut, indiana, wisconsin, rhododendron blooming in mounds of icescream…it’s all too beautiful…(

Over bridge of sighs
To rest my eyes in shades of green 
Under dreamin' spires
To Itchycoo Park, that's where I've been

What did you do there?
I got high
What did you feel there?
Well I cried
But why the tears there? 

I'll tell you why
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful

I feel inclined to blow my mind
Get hung up feed the ducks with a bun
They all come out to groove about
Be niceand have fun in the sun

Tell you what I'll do (what will you do?)
I'd like to go there now with you
You can miss out school (won't that be cool)
Why go to learn the words of fools?
What will we do there?
We'll get high
What will we touch there?
We'll touch the sky
But why the tears then?
I'll tell you why

It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful

I feel inclined to blow my mind
Get hung up feed the ducks with a bun
They all come out to groove about
Be nice and have fun in the sun

It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
Ha! It's all too beautiful    
ITCHYCOO PARK - Steve Marriott/Ronnie Lane

EMI United Partnership Ltd   

) the neighbors' plastic newspaper mailbox explodes with shrilling baby wrens, there’s yellow mushrooms growing all over the driveway…pyrolla blooms, teaberry and whorled loosetrife (world loo strife!) the new batch of kittens (always black) have ripped the door guardian’s hair out of her braids but we’ve finally figured out the secret of the solar lamp. One of the kittens has a tan foot…hot then cold, rain then stars.

mushrooms of every shape and color except blue "shroom, shroom, shroom"

The bats protesting behind the shutters throughout the day sound like pump actions spray bottles: “squeetch, squeetch, squeetch”

Unknown animal den at Wintergreen Rock with neon mushrooms on its doorstep…seven blossoms on the teaberry "berr, berr, berr"

Crow and mockingbird

Crow and mockingbird argue on a snag; Wren over the doorway warbles his annoyance--- fallen twigs betray her plans ;Vulture at the roadside totters and ducks his shoulders shyly; Three blue herons fly together east away from I-80....

rainy

blue heron one day

blue heron another day I hear him in the morning talking to a blue jay in the driveway

Being driven into the lake, the water covers the car…. Over our heads

Walk this way o living, through darkened halls… it smells, the cardboard crates are most startling.

Garlic and flames dissolve her first communion dress,

traffic in the rainy street, this is how to do art

Cherry blossoms infinitely unreel all the way to creaking wooden floorboards above the river

pairs of crows, clouds of bluets, glittering wet violets

little yellow car bounces out of the muddy green green ditch, crushed in & clodded with brown

it rains

it rains

the green is unbelievable

and everyone sez This is getting ridiculous

The thyme of away-ness, so we leave

all gone

all done

You know—they are choke cherries….

Deer Breath

Deer Breath on Belltown Road
Ludwig Art

rhodadendron float pale

pair of rhodadendron blooms float pale on the cliffside in dark above the river...across from the noisy campers

snowcats

cat tracks in the white snow, dark concrete shows through,
wet and cold.

Kitties don't eat oatmeal cookies.

go not movie see

not to the movie just to have black tea in a white cup, to write, to walk around th edges of a leaf, to breathe silence
brown leaves piled up in layers everywhere hiding the brass luger shell casings around the blue trailer
spidery witch hazel frills begging for an admiring glance, shimmer yellow in the feeble November sun
to Where the Trailing Arbutus Grows

herd

Current mood: indescribable twenty juvenile turkeys trotting across the sunny piney meadow above the river

raining cats 2

wet black kitten...

boreal?

Two nites in a row have heard a trilling owl around the house that doesn't match the sound of a screech or sawhet owl-- sort of a bip-bip-bip sound kind of like dripping water so it might be a boreal... Heard coyotes early this a.m. then saw a bright meteorite streak overhead.

hummers

At least 2 female ruby-throated hummingbirds bickering over the feeder I just re-installed, squeaking those tiny nasal squeaks in alarm & annoyance. In between they sit on white pine branches & the washline, preening & cleaning their long needle-like bills.

city

o I ran all the way down to GALLERY NAME on STREET after getting off bus to see what the advertised Judy Chicago Kitty City performance is about even though I may be late—am giddily surprised to find a gallery packed with her detailed story of their cats through pen-like watercolours done like huge pages in Book of Hours, bunch of gold paint, weird perspectives.—as in the Book of Hours. They were done over 4 yrs covered even the kitty poop in the kitty pans, their deaths, lots of silly things about cat behavior—cat alarm clocks, sitting on their heads because they want to be fed, all sitting on the bed before bedtime, how they got sick, the different ways they each ate. One had three legs. I’d thought J Chicago was a stern character! She even apparently has had a husband for some time. I wished I had asked my mom along. I’ll bet the gallery operators get tired of Kitties after a few days
o First thing that hit me was the stench & stink of the City.. sort of get used to it
o This trip was struck by how shallow life seemed here, so based on the dollar bill—not based on humanity or nature or the earth, not based on any interaction with those things; makes it seem empty & superficial values; this population lives like animals. They are cut off from the essence of life.
o All the lovely architecture—never noticed before—I’m getting older—always see different things The churches, all the older buildings, noticing how dif streets of buildings looked
o The elevator somewhere in one of the gallery buildings has a regular steel door w/ no windows you pull open at some point I wasn’t able to figure out. Some other gallery owners helped me get up but I gave up & took the stairs down afterwards.
o All the languages, all the costumes, turbans – its good to walk around & hear & feel the World bubbling out all around
o Bike courier/messengers delivery persons in ragged clothing—all of them, riding crazy
o All have bike locks consisting of a heavy linked chain they wear around chest or waist – no one using the kryptonite locks since it was revealed.. pen/..could break into themo Everyone on the phone – gives chance hear more conversation--- one lg black guy yelling at his old lady--- a trio of young people snickered with me
o Went pelting past famous B & H Photo – at least noticed it this time – and saw just as Rich B had said, there were all the Jewish workers in formal back & white & caps—the same guys I’d ordered over the phone from so often. Also saw the famous J R’s electronic World computer store.
o Earlier the cops & motorcycle traffic cops (in their funny-looking jodhpurs & boots) held up all the cross streets so a platoon of speeding black & frosted glass limousines & other cars could sail at high speed up 6th ave to Trump Hotel. It was good to see the native New Yorkers as openly curious, puzzled & gawky as any visitor about what was going on—and making guesses like anyone else. They all stop to stare at what might pass along. A crowd of probably visitors gathers across the street from the Trump Plaza hotel when I finally get up there; someone sez I just want to see their faceo The universal concierge --- in grand uniform, sometimes a woman… whistling for taxis & greeting its residents
o George Sorrels did many tiny paintings & possibly drawings from one or more trips to Big Bend. The paintings were oil & bland – probably some cerebral reasoning of his. $3000 price—I think. CHECK he put the Girl With a Pearl earring in one of the portrait ones WHY? –the ones w/ leaves rocks landscape & flesh part. The woman handling the gallery coolly thanked me for visiting. Perhaps because it was on the street level—well below street—one had to buzz to have the door opened. At the entrance was a book of a woman’s paintings look up her name … The Homer upstairs for $300,000 was gorgeous – 8 x 11 beach dune scene grass & women sun & wind.
o Ate yummy lemon yogurt granola bar & yummy grape juice I brought w/ me in between finding galleries. When I ‘d gotten through Sorrels at Peters way up by the Park on 78th I got a great hot pretzel – even turned out to be only a buck at the one I stopped at, & headed to the park to eat it w/ my orange & foil pack of tuna I’d brought – most excellent, eaten while watching people from a bench in the park—but cold!! Company of tame pigeons, sparrows, & squirrels. Lots of angelic, cherubic little children dressed to the nines in name brands & escorted by rather plain dressed dark-complected women – nannies. Not too many people. The zoo is popular, it has strangely sculptured toy trees—ala Lord of the Rings –it costs to go into the dif animal houses, or to pet goats & llamaso An English-accented couple had me take their photo on the bridge over the pond at the bottom of central park
o Near here was a signed area of the park that claimed to have been left untouched, as somebody wanted.o Leaving Central park through one of the curved stone underpasses there was someone sleeping in an army surplus sleeping bag with their belongings
o Stopped to take sinus allergy on bench in Pace Print galleryStumbled on a Rauschenberg on the floor in storage room there leaning against racks of artworks. 3 gorgeous colors of grey edition of 45 – with dancer photo maybe himself The gallery director curator (?) saw me & showed me another in her office, large Both 1999. In all the galleries the amount of canvases & other works stored in bins & racks in back rooms was daunting. In another the African one, gallery a black man was showing the female director his big portfolio and she sounded encouraging to him… but it just seemed so hard… so many artists, so much bad art, so many weary directors… so much trudging around, the expense. Artists have to pay lots of the expenses of any exhibit they might get—re: Vickie Tyndallo Show by poet stunk!! Find Description which sounded great in the description Big word or 2 on each wall huge maybe about flying
o I asked to take photos of Johns show---took pictures of entrance—what one could see from door looking down near streets—getting headache again man left woman to lock up metal folding chairs & tables focus on process – how tos Make your own camera kits for sale. I’d gotten down there with little more than an hour to spare.
o Went to bottom to find WTC – verfoodled by river of people from ? office going to or from some subway? They climb vigorously as if nothing stairs & platforms all around the Site. Muddled around went back found platform--- still sticking things flowers in chain link fence---few confused people wandering around—a display sign w/ brochures forgot to take--- just construction like many other areas of the city.. a large ramp into it—surrounded by platform things, like train stationso A Dozen cop cars in a row went flying cross-town --- surprising how little even the natives know what is going on & how their blasé façade drops so easily--- they are curious, confused, worried, concerned, trying to figure out what’s going on
o Late afternoon in downtown crowd a man shouts at someone for us all to hear that he wanted that cardboard that someone was carrying away because they sure didn’t need it, they didn’t have to sleep outdoors.
o Later I find out Neil Young was around NYC being treated a t a hospital for an aneurysm & when I get home I find an old Rolling Stone with a big U2 article & on the table of contents a smiling Bono is gleefully brandishing a hot slice of pizza on the streets of Nyc. They had played up & down the streets in November.
o So many same-sex partners cuddling around the streetso In early evening a walking prayer vigil went buy—or rather the crowds came to a standstill to allow this endless river of alter boys pass by – I think it was for the pope. At the end was a couple monks priest with 4 people holding the cloth canopy over him & then the cloth on a stick of I thinks the church’s saint. The cop cars were flying around again in their noisy packs probably holding up traffic somewhere so this block or 2 length procession could cross the streets safely in their circuit. They say there’s a parade everyday due to all the ethnic groups & cultures & politics there
o Got deli salad late other confused tourist girls in there 2 groups store split in 2 Peas, asparagus, tofu, feta hot & cold together – another required expenditure per trip. Ate salad in one of tiny triangle parks, I think McDougal crossed—had 5 roads together- near East Broadway>? 2 old men talking on another bench.. the store keep tidying up his fruits.. walking around talking to regular customers.. photo of biker movingo In a crowd was a couple, the man had 2 cats balancing precariously on his shoulder – he seemed familiar.
o A pair of pigeons lie as if placed like sleeping in a corner of a façade, where the sidewalk meets the building.
o I have to try to walk by obliviously as 2 theatre-going touristy guys pee into corners of facades
o Both the carriage drivers & the bike couriers drive/ride while also smoking & using their cell phones
o Hispanic or dark complexted bored police on horse assigned to let tourists pet his horse, public relations, in the theatre districto There are lots of bicycle rickshaws, which strike me as odd. It also seems like it would be really hard. Rickshaw bikes all over; lined up in rows at theatres. One driven by girlo PARTY –BIKES – red, swerving, laughing delightful About 5 people sit facing a center like spokes on a wheel & the 6th is the guy (owner) who steers somehow- I don’t remember seeing handlebars—and everyone has their own set of peddles & they’re all hooked up to drive the main chaino Everyone is holding up their cell phones to take pictures & video to stream (the next nite I got to hear Garrison Keillor doing his spiel parodying Nyorkers including the phone thing—he talked about walking lots of blocks the same night I was prowling aroundo Walked 20 blocks down, 58 back up, 80 or 90 back down, then 50 back up, then circled back & forth & around & around just absorbing sights & scenes from 9 – midnite or 1 am. I got a huge watery blister on my heel & couldn’t walk right for a few days. And taking lots of photos by resting my camera on various street things & snapping away. I had emptied the card totally for once beforehand. It got cold & I had to put on the red fleece ear band I’d brought just in case. But there was an apparent unspoken rule that once it was April none was allowed to wear a hat. O well.
o Church of Scientology—man saying hello – could hear people asking questions—across from theatre—all golden metallic glitter insideo Inside a entrance of PABT late in evening a couple cops or security guards stood chatting & behind them a homeless man or drunk swayed as if performing, caught himself and as I walked by fell over like a tree toppling and the cops or guards exclaimed (as if cared) whoa buddy & went to his assistance. I think later I saw him outside the doors doing ambiguous magic hand tricks to himselfo A girl horse police person w/ long blonde hair
o There were a bunch of costumed Star Wars fans milling about a certain theatre—lots of those white plasticized soldier outfits, some robed peopleo An Asian woman with a huge yellow cloth shoulder bag half her size, hanging almost to the floor.
o $1.00 hot soft pretzel (at least 1 required per visit)$5.35 mixed deli bar platter – all those luscious tofus & fetas & eggplant & artichoke & asparagus things. $1.08 coffee got at McDonalds so I could use their locked & mirror-guarded buzz bathroom1.00 Friday NYTimes (also required)-------$7.43 total – a good thing since I only left with $8.00 cash+42.00 round trip bus ticket (VISA) + 2.75 spent to test a new ATM card at a non-bank in Elysburg

doorway to rain

rainfall

the roof over the doorway

dobsonfly 

cold fall!
Thuds in the dark longness terrorists get painted by morning light into black kits and kats. The gambolling fawn doesn’t even stop for pleasantries with me kneeling in the moss on the hill. Lawn mower Brown, I say Mr. Brown…
Running scrambling spiders frightening in their knowledge Now its cold. It is 42’.

dragonfly
Battering the windowglass with his beak in pursuit of his reflection, a cardinal wakes me from a dream where I’m helping Brad Pitt flee though the desert.
Garter snake and dead dragon fly. Dying in the pine needles is a Dobsonfly, or hellgrammite from Silodea (suborder), in Neuroptera (order) which also includes lacewings, dustywings, mantispias, antlions, springlions, spongillaflies and snakeflies, in Pterygota (subclass).

goldfinch
A fawn and 3 doe. Yarrow. Wood peewee. Woodsmoke. Springs flowing from mountain foot. Kingfisher. Bonesett. Jewelweed. Lifeless body of immature goldfinch. Thirty feet over the road little bat flutters down the dusk. White splotches move in the hemlock darkness: skunk. Wavery screech owl, calling, it drifts long and swirls, as long as the river.

Queen Anne in all her lace dances for summer’s end with golden Rod and Iron Weed John. Mail (my heart) man sez appreciatively, “Them’s tanks, eh?” Aye. My tank. My mailman my vw van.

Studio  Down in the valley lies the river. Old phoebe nest in the clothespin bag.
Sun sez shouldn't we have autumness now, here she comes
  snarking through the deadlimbs, looking for orange leaves. Acorns fall a quarter mile to bang like gunshots on the stacked sheet metal waiting patiently for its journey, under dead leaves and branches, sinking into moss and hummus and tiny toads hop.  Cook doglerettes bark. Baneberry taller than I across the road.  Moon and window make a painting -- Wyeth, Andy's, ghost slips silently, behind the pines back into the shadows, smiling to himself.

In the even’tide dimness two doves startle from maple haven, from wildmeadow haven, a cottontail hops slowly down the path. A piece of blue glass pulled from the dirt; it is for him.

Today must be the day to abandon dogs, it’s rainy. They look into every car that goes by and into every face. The sherriff rolls up. Once I walked over a mountain dirt road with a dog named Rain-Rain.

Jingle jangle shnuffling invisible dog on dutiful night patrol without pause, through the yard, round the corner, he's gone…and late in the nightness a freight whistle turns musical in half-dreaming, playing long and melodic. No West but nuwest, the wilderness inside. Tall trees fall.

Black fur with big eyes soft slow and unflurried amongst the sweet fern and pussy toes, under white pine boughs. There's a nest in a low branch crotch made of moss & pine needles. Bending without breaking.

Junco ringing like a bell!

Depthford pink – no flower guides!---and namesake tiny toads. Hawkweed and dark crawling blackberries to swallow, sourfully. Sweet, sweet sorrow till the day I die. Soapwort, chives, lemon balm, applemint, asparagus.

Foggy crescent moon through white pines hand in hand with lightening bug against black needles. This - this - will be a painting.

red orange violet green: mushrooms all. Moss, fern and Indian pipe. Jay, crow, wood thrush and wren. Bat shrudders behind shutters, lost energy with each tremble. A lucky stone sheared by stress or blows reveals its clean, fresh, pure surface…glistening white. Force overwhelming but yielding clarity.

The roof begins to leak, drip drip through the white ceiling crack. (Solaris, The Last Wave, the woman artist in Cleveland Museum) Cardinal whistle in the falling rain, in the pine fog.

“Our life is a balance of liturgy, work and lectio divina. We try to follow our 12th century Cistercian founders by becoming lovers of the place, lovers of the sisters, and lovers of the Rule.” Trappistine Chocolate company

The Big Open: On Foot Across Tibet's Chang Tang by Rick Ridgeway Publishers Weekly sez: "Adventure writer Ridgeway (The Shadow of Kilimanjaro) crafts an urgent, poetic narrative as he guides readers across Tibet’s barren and treacherous northern plateau in search of the calving grounds of the chiru, an endangered antelope. Along with his three companions-late nature photographer Galen Rowell, Conrad Anker, who wrote the foreword, and Jimmy Chin-the seasoned mountaineer traces the female chiru’s 200-mile migration route."

Insulation of pink, pricklies stabbing and licking to madness, thick rolling in dirty dry sweat. Pounding the sweet words (once they were) into sad squares of unforgiving wood… attacking poetry like bombastic carpentry, he will drill and screw and tighten the clamps, forcing it true.
What do I see… what do see… what see… See, there in the buttercup under the truck, look and you can’t see with me…the truck driven there… I the flower under the truck… gold, bright, reflecting up, fragile, alive… to drive away, to pay…from the prussian blue stepping away, so far away…gone…the flower under the Ford truck… reflected in the buttercup the staggering lie with whiskey on its breath. He down digs dirt with a shovel and asks me what I see.

Pine tree in my shoe…oh just to be the nice lady Who Brings The Food.

Choke cherry, sweet fern
Black River Falls Wisconsin
Rust
Mustard
Glimmering mayapples
Hooves akimbo, death lies fur-covered beside the road

Frost warning for Des Moines; so tired i almost eat a postage stamp. R.A.G.E. Residents against property devalueation due to garbage expansion. "Big-assed steaks" special at Vince's. Work. Skunk-scent.

Outside is moss, tiny young white pine seedlings, warm air breathing down the mountain slope, blowing blood warm into all life vessels tethered to the riverbank, bobbing in the icey whacks. Fresh British soldiers marching down the log, sweet sweet trailing arbutus down clinging to the earth below their feet. (view here: at the Toad Hall studio )
Mourning dove calls, calls; a woodpecker, a crow.
Late in the evening rain falls.
The workshop smells of old hope, and dreams, sawdust. Hot wind fills house, thawing desires. A single yellow forsythia bloogy fragile: all there is.

Upon second inspection dozens of white arbutus waxiness are found, spilling down the hillside.

When I went to rest my elbows on the rail, there were rubbery numb blobs there instead of a bone, that didn't belong to me; severe thunderstorm warning, daffodil yellows and a pink haze of new buds over trees, piles of spent flares from wreck on the curving mountain and the charred remains of Ohio woman's 4th house. Wind blow.

coons and woodcocks

Pair of coons splashing in the spring freshet gurgling through the woods, in the dark, their white masked faces peering uncertainly at me...woodcock peenting, circling, then dropping whistling.

next night Big Dipper lying upside down on the roof of Greenwood studio, just out of reach, i can't stop it from pouring the universe down all over the house, getting art all over Doug's wood... piney glittterings over the road, sliced by a meteor...most are asleep. Drawn to a forgotten light, a mammoth moosehead lurches into the room, widening my eyes.

DM number two, or is the same Displaced Mouse returned?, 1 am relocation program hike down another dirt road.

Code of the Eco-Warrior

Rule Number One

Nobody gets hurt. Nobody. Not even yourself.

Corollary: The eco-warrior hurts no living thing, absolutely never.

Corollary: The eco-warrior is strong, lean, tough, hardy. The eco-warrior can hike twenty miles overnight, over any terrain, in any kind of weather, with a fifty-pound pack on his back. Maybe sixty pounds. And do it night after night, through brush and swamp, cactus and rattlesnakes, mountain and forest. The eco-warrior does not chain-drink beer or chain-smoke cigars. The eco-warrior takes care of himself, herself, bounces back from injury and exhaustion, never gets sick or if sick carries on despite sickness. The eco-warrior is tough, the eco-warrior is brave, taking on the risks of a soldier in frontline combat, the dangers of a commando behind the lines. The eco-warrior is a guerrilla soldier fighting a war against an enemy equipped with high technology, tax-extracted public funds, legal privilege, media protection, superior numbers, police and secret police, communication police and thought police. Fighting them all, the eco-warrior cannot even carry a weapon; his own Code of Honorable Conduct forbids it.
Corollary: The eco-warrior does not fight people, he fights an institution, the planetary Empire of Growth and Greed. He fights not human beings but a monstrous megamachine never seen since the days of the Late Jurassic and the carnivorous dinosaur. He does not fight humans, he fights a runaway technology, an all-devouring entity that feeds on humans, on all animals, on all living things, and even finally on minerals, metals, rock, soil, on the earth itself, on the bedrock basis of universal being.

Rule Number Two

Don’t Get Caught.

Corollary: The eco-warrior avoids capture, passing all costs on to them, the enemy. The point of his work is to increase their costs, nudge them toward net loss, bankruptcy, forcing them to withdraw and retreat from their invasion of our public lands, our wilderness, our native and primordial home.

Rule Number Three

If you do get caught you’re on your own. Nobody goes your bail. Nobody hires a lawyer. Nobody pays your fines.

Corollary: The eco-warrior works alone, or with one or two old and trusted comrades that he’s known for years. The eco-warrior forms no network, creates no club or party or organization of any kind. He relies on himself (or sometimes herself) and on his little cell of two or three, never more…a small circle of trusted friends, a tiny felonious conspiracy to commit non-felonious misdemeanors against the perimeters of the techno-industrial ordnung. The eco-warrior must also be a man or woman of heroic dedication to the work, avoiding organization and all forms of networking, operating strictly on anarchic principles of democratic decentralism. Not fanatic dedication—no place for fanatics here—but heroic dedication. Because the eco-warrior must do his or her work without hope of fame or glory or even public recognition, at least for the present. The eco-warrior is anonymous, mysterious, unknown, is awarded no medals, is granted no privileges of rank. Not only does he win no taste of personal fame, he must expect the opposite, namely and to wit, public obloquy, vilification, and verbal abuse. He must expect that certain elements of the power structure will murmur against him. Editorial writers will denounce him, anonymously, from the safe security of their editorial offices. Commerce chambers will burn him in effigy—or in person if they catch him. Congressmen will fulminate, senators abominate, bureaucrats denunciate and all the vipers of the media vituperate. Those who should be his admirers will also denounce him. The official conservation societies and wilderness clubs and wildlife federations and defenders of fur-bearers and national resource defense councils will scramble and scurry to place maximum distance between themselves and him, insisting that they deplore his work and even going so far as to offer monetary reward for information leading to his capture and conviction. Not only does the eco-warrior work without hope of fame and praise, not only does he work in the dark of night amidst a storm of official public calumny, but he works without hope of pecuniary recompense.

Corollary: The eco-warrior does his work out of love, the love that dare not speak its name, the love of spareness, beauty, open space, clear skies and flowing streams, grizzly bear, mountain lion, wolf pack and twelve-pack, of wilderness and wanderlust and primal human freedom and so forth.

Rule Number Four

No domestic responsibilities. The eco-warrior does not marry, if he marries he does not breed. Better not to marry. She does not marry or bred. The eco-warrior, like a priest or priestess, like a samurai, like a dedicated revolutionary, forgoes he personal pleasures of ordinary life, forgoes ordinary life, for the sake of the great case. For a time only, naturally. When he reaches the age of forty, or she of thirty, if they’re still alive and not in jail, then they retire from the war against goliath and rejoin the natural, evolutionary mainstream of organic life. The eco-war is only for the young.

Extracted without permission from Hayduke Lives!, Estate of Edward Abbey. Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1990. pp.110-114.

May 18, 2002 keeping this active

Not there..So beautiful and quiet. Nice park ranger wrote about trail that might not be. We have aor shall invite over for medicinal nature cure: Larry, Carrie, Bunn-E, Louie, Jim, Anne, Jim, Ted, Rich, all those of troubled heart and sore of spirit and weary of mind come to along the river and hear the chimes of peace that always were ringing inside your rib-cage..and SEE.

I'm not there--miss my life so much!! Tomorrow should call over to get name of trail across the river.

I'm not there/here to see and hear April come bungling noisily down the wooded hill all the way to the river... Soon! Soon!