Western Hawkweed Leaves—close-up (Hieracium albertinum) Member of the Aster family.
Hawkweed is a perennial which is densely pubescent with long white hairs
and a milky sap found in the entire plant. According to Charles Johnson,
Hawkweed was used as a source of chewing gum by Native Americans.
Eagle Cap Wilderness . . .

Close-up photography is for me a form of meditation on form. A meditation
on structure, on how the normally not clearly visible parts of especially
the wonderful world of plants fit & work together.

In my dumstruck, simplistic way, I find myself frequently saying aloud,
"Why isn't this enough?" Why isn't this revelation of Nature's beauty not
enough to turn us all into humble and devoted monks, scientists and artists?

This is what I think of as the mystery of the middle realm. The central
image of this middle realm——a space residing between the incomprehensibly
small and the incomprehensibly large——is for me a three-fold composite:
the branching structures of a tree, a river, and a fundamental tone
with its overtones. I'll come back to this idea in another miniature,
but for now, just let me say that I believe that we——despite the great
and fantastic achievements of Western science——do not understand this
middle realm very well. Why do I say this? Well, because it is in a
self-evident, obvious way, demonstrated in the short-comings of what
we make & design.

Take one of my recurrent themes: the imposition of the straight-line
grid that car-culture designers overwhelming seem to prefer. (If there
are anywhere exceptions in North American to this rule, the burden of
proof is on you.) In the Northwest, the rectilinear pattern dominates
all, resulting in a strident 'wolftone' or contradiction with the
immense beauty and spirit of the land itself. Indeed, I might have
expanded the phrase had the measure allowed in the last little piece
below to: "In the West, Cut down. Dig up. Pave straight roads.
Put barbed-wire around the rest."

Here then is a little set of three 37-step poems* which plays with this
theme of the unfortunate misfit between natural and cultural structures.
The "man of of one cup" is in this case me. This is really true; that is
how I live. (Well, two cups, if I include my thermos...) I long ago
embraced and took my vows, as it were, with Lady Poverty. This, I find
liberating. I periodically go down into the low country to pay my bills,
get provisions, see friends, and do my necessary web work, etc. But each
time I return to the mountains, I say,"Ah, the end of survival, and the
beginning of living." One of the first things I do is go to a fast,
clear-running stream, and wash my cup.

One Cup Only

(I)

Empty, round metal
cup I use every day, how I've
grown fond of the feel in my hand,

center with

gifts from far and near.
Hot teas steeped in cold spring water.



(II)

Square grid without a
center, towns built with quick money,
with gold, whiskey, easy women.

Home was

always someplace else.
O Silver Maple, so far West.



(III)

Boom days of easy
plunder now a thing of the past,
Speed's run flat dead knowing that the

direction

was wrong. Cut down. Dig
up. Put barbed-wire around the rest.

Camp Lost & Found,
Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon, IX.15.2008

*In order for a variation form like this to really flower, one needs to do
them in sets or sequences. Try reading them out-loud to get a sense of
how the rhythms and accents change in surprising ways while still keeping
to the basic 37-step pattern.