Eagle Valley Inversion, first light—the South Wallowas [ click photo for next . . . ]
Eagle Valley Inversion, first light—the South Wallowas [ click photo for next . . . ]
The mist below, although it may indeed be a beautiful sight to behold, is full of particulate matter and others pollutants which essentially flow parallel to the course of the Powder River, from Baker City (± 60 k west from here) and the heavily-used Interstate 84. This is a common phenomenon in mountain areas.
The US, in my opinion, would do well to follow the Swiss example: when air pollution levels rise above levels thought to endanger public health, the speed limit is lowered to 80 k (50 miles per hour) using a real-time system of digital signs. This creates, in my view healthy direct connection between your gas pedal and the actual fact of environmental degradation, a fact which North American
car-culture seems to be determined at all costs to avoid. That is, until we make the connection between our child's asthma, our grandmother's cough, and perhaps one's own high blood pressure . . . .
On the road in the Northwest of America.
MOUNTAIN PATH
As two learn to walk
together as one,
one of their most primal of fears
is that they might somehow,
by some accident, be separated—
perhaps irreversibly.
That is why Love seeks to protect
every step Freedom makes.
TWO LITTLE POEMS
ABOUT NOTHING
(1) ZERO
Zero,
such a shy performer,
at first hiding behind the no’s “n”,
you step out onto the clear, open page;
0,
inside your tight boundaries lies amazing space,
the mouth of a bottomless well dropping down into
the dark waters of unknown significance,
where absence is not naught and a mere
nothing adds more to the already full.
Cipher of silence, swollen round with fresh beginnings,
of curtains about to open, the choir’s first breath... . . .
Origin of origins which comes forever before
the sound which can never be played.
(2) NO REPLY
.....This waiting for that which does not come,
perhaps, will not come.....rings left in-
complete.....
The paper which remains blank after so
many years, turned yellow and dry,
still thirsty for rain;
The book left half-read, whole shelves
full of dust and desire;
The ardent letter which finds no reply,
a hole burnt open in nothing;
.....The song spreads its wings and waits for warm air,
and wait it must, for in a room without echoes
we quickly stop our play.....
(from FIREWEED POEMS)
| download mp3 TWO LITTLE POEMS ABOUT NOTHING |
The avian soloista featured here are a
Song Sparrow, and a Western Meadow Lark.
(both recorded yesterday, IV.19.2011,
Powder & above Snake Rivers)
All Photographs & texts by Cliff Crego © 1998 -2014 picture-poems.com
(created: IV.27.2008)
