Category Archives: love poems to the world

A book that makes you want to get out and walk

Cheryl Strayed and her journey on the PCT have become so ubiquitous that (I hear) PCT hikers this year refer somewhat contemptuously to "Strayed gear" — all the crap you bring along out of ignorance and discard along the way. A friend turns me on to a very different kind of book about walking, RobertContinue reading “A book that makes you want to get out and walk”

Secrets of the PCT: Pinyon Point

This doesn't look like much, does it?

Trailnearpinyonpoint

This is a section of the Pacific Crest Trail, section F, heading north through the Mojave Desert.

Let me say I grew up far away from the desert and never thought I liked its lack of trees and aridity, but well, maybe I should have known better. Should have listened to my elders. For example:

Plazaatpinyonpoint

This is a sort of plaza, at about six thousand feet, overlooking the vastest desert in Southern California. This area, which I'm calling Pinyon Point,has numerous sites in which to roll out a pad in beauty and serenity (and perhaps wind, for at its height, it does experience weather — that's why, I think, the pinyon pines grow so well there).

Yet it's all but unused. I made a fire there a year and a half ago, after a snowfall, and near as I can tell, the campfire hasn't been used since. I confess I kind of like it that way, so I'm not going to reveal the exact location, although readers who would like to know can write me, and I'll probably tell.

I was rolling up my tent this past Sunday, and heard a pair of PCT walkers stop and chat on the other side of a rock, not fifty feet away, and yet completely oblivious of my presence.

Let me show you a little more —

Listen (a poem about a dog, by Miller Williams)

Listen  I threw a snowball across the backyard. My dog ran after it to bring it back. It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow. She stood confused, seeing and smelling nothing. She searched in widening circles until I called her.  She looked at me and said as clearly in silenceas if she had spoken, I know it's here,Continue reading “Listen (a poem about a dog, by Miller Williams)”

The unsayable: Rilke (snow in the desert)

Give thanks to Kurt Harvey, for sharing this photo of mountains near Tucson this new year to Google+'s California and Western Landscapes community , and for the words that follow from Rilke: Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a spaceContinue reading “The unsayable: Rilke (snow in the desert)”

Joys and sorrows of section e of the PCT: November 2014

Every section of the Pacific Crest Trail has its joys and sorrows, its highpoints and its lowpoints, but section e, jeez. Not a lot of highlights, unless you count the industrial: Which I don't. Or unless you count camping by the Los Angeles Aqueduct, built back in the l920's by the famous/infamous William Mulholland/Noah Cross. Continue reading “Joys and sorrows of section e of the PCT: November 2014”

Have compassion for everyone you meet: Williams’s

On an election night sure to plunge us into yet more political discord and disputation, tonight might be a good night to mention the record of the year, sez here, Lucinda Williams' Where the Spirit Meets the Bone. The record begins with Williams'  musical version of a poem by a man who happens to beContinue reading “Have compassion for everyone you meet: Williams’s”

Nature in a can: Tenn Williams and Thom Pynchon

In Night of the Iguana, a play first performed in 1961, but evolved out of a short story over a period of about fifteen years, Tennessee Williams expressed anger at our species for ruining our planet.   In the movie of 1962, starring Richard Burton as a disgraced priest, his character, at the end ofContinue reading “Nature in a can: Tenn Williams and Thom Pynchon”

To be young (and old) in the wild: This Feeling

Last week, in his un-ostentacious but no bullshit way, Nicholas Kristof of the NYTimes wrote a great column on the joys of being on the PCT. I'm not going to quote it, because it's hard to know which bit to choose, but encourage you all to take a look.  Today, in a similar vein, butContinue reading “To be young (and old) in the wild: This Feeling”

The slow pulse of nature, via Beethoven (and others)

Alex Ross of The New Yorker is by acclamation the most loved of classical music critics today. This spring he gently lauded a new pianist, Igor Levit, for his playing of Beethoven at his most natural.  In his words I heard an echo of an idea from Carl Jung about the connection between introspection andContinue reading “The slow pulse of nature, via Beethoven (and others)”