I worked for six summers on fire lookout towers in northern British Columbia. This solitary existence was in turn ecstatic, enlightening and excruciatingly painful. I was daily faced with the reality of who I really was. As the sensory input of urban life faded everything that had been buried under this shield came floating to the surface. Item by item had to be faced and resolved. This was the painful and humbling time. When all this was over the ecstasy took over my days – I was empty, and filled with nothing but the beautiful neutrality of nature. The following writings are some of what came from me during those unforgettable summers:
Through wanting to know, I look.
Through wanting to look, I see.
Through seeing once
I anticipate twice.
Through confirmation
Of anticipation
I am lost in my dream.
The singing silence of the mountain,
The silent singing of this man
Are but single notes
Moving through the magic,
Endlessly,
As all notes sing
Through eternal silence.
Between us tonight
Only the silent singing
Of the summer wind.
Singing to magic I open my arms to embrace her.
I fly through the wind, fishing for angels.
I am joined to my body by tenuous filaments
And cannot remember the name
That defines me.
Voices call from forest and rock
As I rise through vapors and pollen,
Through clouds of faces
Who have kissed or cursed.
I embrace the sad clown of my life,
My child self, my lover, my mystery.
Opening more each day,
Reaching for surrender,
My heart is washed with tears and
I am lifted and creased
By towering waves of sadness and
The dam bursts
Carrying me, a helpless babe,
Doubled and sobbing
Into the crystal waters
Of sleep.
I hear the drums
And the chanting of mothers.
I hear the spirits of trees
Whisper and call.
I remember the music
That swells inside.
But when I sleep in the bed
Of the Great Spirit
There is nothing but silence.
Inside and outside become one and
Flesh dissolves into spinning atoms of light and
I am resolved,
I am whole.
As a bird I shall sail the sky.
I shall be Walowtah, cloud maiden.
I shall be Lowechah, the eagle.
I shall be proud.
As proud as the tall pine.
As proud as the voices of mothers.
As proud as the beater of drums.
Hands blur on painted skin,
Feet pound the dry earth,
Hot blood surges and
Serpents uncoil and
Rise through my spine.
Proudly I move to the drum.
I am a dancer and a warrior.
My spirit is as straight and true
As the feathered arrow.
Close to the earth, my mother.
Close to the sky, my father.
I understand the song you sing.
From the stars to the deepest caves of my heart
Nothing will darken the light
That burns within me.
I walk this world proudly
And in beauty.
Reborn, the light,
Now reaffirmed
Rises crystal in the sign of clarity.
And he gives thanks
To his mountain home
Kneeling in the mossy duff.
He gives thanks, but
Autumn smells remind
This empty hermit shell of home,
The touch of others, and
The sound of his own voice.
Peak over peak,
Wrinkled lake,
Only squirrels come.
I am content.
The mountains were nodding yes
A million years
Before you asked the question.
Last night a star fell
Catching in the hair
Of a small fir.
I saw it this morning
Flashing in the early sun,
Held forever in the memory
Of its own beauty.
Wrecked on the greasy iceberg
Of this tumbledown town
I am cowmoosed frightened
By my helicopter heart.
The mountain I take off this September
Will fit well enough next spring.
