I stood in the grass in my shoes, like a foreigner in the nature I love

Untitled, Draper, VA

-3 by Ray Carver. I saw a few geese scouring the remains of a dead cornfield by the New River today, and thought of the "shattered wheat" in this first poem.

PROSSER

In winter two kinds of fields on the hills
outside Prosser: fields of new green wheat, the slips
rising overnight out of the plowed ground,
and waiting,
and then rising again, and budding.
Geese love this green wheat.
I ate some of it once, too, to see.

And wheat stubble-fields that reach to the river.
These are the fields that have lost everything.
At night they try to recall their youth,
but their breathing is slow and irregular as
their life sinks into dark furrows.
Geese love this shattered wheat also.
They will die for it.

But everything is forgotten, nearly everything,
and sooner rather than later, please God -
fathers, friends, they pass
into your life and out again, a few women stay
a while, then go, and the fields
turn their backs, disappear in rain.
Everything goes, but Prosser.

Those nights driving back through miles of wheat fields -
headlamps raking the fields on the curves -
Prosser, that town, shining as we break over hills,
heater rattling, tired through to bone,
the smell of gunpowder on our fingers still:
I can barely see him, my father, squinting
through the windshield of that cab, saying, Prosser.

LATE FRAGMENT

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

AT NIGHT THE SALMON MOVE

At night the salmon move
out from the river and into town.
They avoid places with names
like Foster's Freeze, A & W, Smiley's,
but swim close to the tract
homes on Wright Avenue where sometimes
in the early morning hours
you can hear them trying doorknobs
or bumping against Cable TV lines.
We wait up for them.
We leave our back windows open
and call out when we hear a splash.
Mornings are a disappointment.

You've heard of trainwrecks in the mountains, sometimes there's shipwrecks on the sea

Vaughn-Bassett Veneer Plant (Back Lot), Galax, VA

2 James Wright Poems

LATE NOVEMBER IN A FIELD

Today I am walking alone in a bare place.
And winter is here
Two squirrels near a fence post
Are helping each other drag a branch
Toward a hiding place; it must be somewhere
Behind those ash trees
They are still alive, they ought to save acorns
Against the cold
Frail paws rifle the troughs between cornstalks when the moon
Is looking away.
The earth is hard now,
The soles of my shoes need repairs.
I have nothing to ask a blessing for,
Except these words
I wish they were
Grass.

A POEM OF TOWERS

I am becoming one
Of the old men.
I wonder about them,
And how they became
So happy. Tonight
The trees in the Carl Schurz
Park by the East River
Had no need of electricity
To light their boughs, for the moon
And my love were enough.
More than enough the garbage
Scow plunging, the front hoof
Of a mule gone so wild through the water,
No need to flee. Who pities
You tonight, white haired
Lu Yu? Wish and foolish
Both are gone, and my love
Leans on my shoulder precise
As the flute notes
Of the snow, with songs
And poems scattered
Over Shu, over the East River
That loves them and drowns them.

Dirty Three "Everything's Fucked," from Dirty Three

I'll be halfway to heaven with paradise waiting, just five miles away from wherever I am.

Donny and Paul Taylor's House, Sweeney Hollow, VA

I've known Donny and Paul most of my life. They make their livings with folk art, laurel branch carvings of men in overalls holding stringers of catfish or delicate birds or roosters and hens. They also make little houses/country stores similar to William Christenberry's work--not quite as detailed, but close. And I'm 99% sure they've never heard of William Christenberry, since they rarely venture beyond Sweeney hollow. They still get their water from a spring behind the house, and they usually have a family member travel into town to buy food, etc. The woman who sells their art drives to Sweeney hollow to pick it up, and brings them a check once it's sold.

I'm not sure if it's still there, but when I was a kid they had an tv antennae on a hill about a mile above the house. If they wanted to watch a different station, one of them had to hike the narrow path up the hill and turn the antennae. I suppose they knew which direction it needed to be pointed to pick up certain stations. My grandmother's place was close to their antennae, which is how I know them. My grandmother and I used to look for morels in the hollow behind their house, and sometimes we'd bring them some catfish after we'd been fishing. I was always fascinated by their carvings, and the old soda bottles they'd painted with their own designs. Although I was fascinated, at the time it kind of upset me that they had painted them. I also collected old bottles and I liked to leave them intact.

My grandmother died when I was 10, and I haven't been around Sweeney hollow much since then. A few weeks ago, since I was living in Fries, I decided to drive down to Donny and Paul's and talk to them, maybe buy a couple carvings. At different points, I've thought about attempting to make a documentary about their lives or at least document some things with photos, but they're very private, so I've been somewhat reluctant. On the day I took this photo, they didn't answer the door. I believe they were home, because there was smoke coming out of the chimney, and, as I mentioned before, they don't really leave home. I plan to get my aunt to go with to visit them soon, since they know her better. I hope to get some photos and stories, maybe a few morels if I visit later in the spring.

I wrote a poem on a dog biscuit, even the dog refused to look at it.

605 West Stuart Drive, Galax, VA

john updike RIP

3 poems by Robert Creeley

THE BUSINESS

To be in love is like going out-
side to see what kind of day

it is. Do not
mistake me. If you love

her how prove she
loves also, except that it

occurs, a remote chance on
which you stake

yourself? But barter for
the Indian was a means of sustenance.

There are records.

THE FLOWER

I think I grow tensions
like flowers
in a wood where
nobody goes.

Each wound is perfect,
encloses itself in a tiny
imperceptible blossom,
making pain.

Pain is a flower like that one,
like this one,
like that one,
like this one.

I KNOW A MAN

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,--John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.

You wish upon a star, and it turns into a plane. I guess that's right on par, who is left to blame?

Blue-Jean Jacket, Fries, VA

Shopping At The Ocean
-Bob Hicok

Trying to save the bug she killed the bug
and I won't call you dumb ass by saying
there's a lesson in this. There was a smear
in this and driving and some music
from our past that captured our hands
and heads with its embarrassing sweetness.
We were traveling toward shoes or spoons
or rice in white boxes, always we are buying
something, I haven't made anything useful
since I filled construction paper
with a red sky and green sun
and then unrolled my body into a nap. She
was talking and fortunately I watched
her lips form sounds about a grandfather
who shouldn't be alone because the lips
revealed a quaver hidden by the folds
of the sounds, her face needed to cry
while her voice pretended
it was in the next room asking
if I want tea. She's like this
more than anyone should be like this,
wanting to help her grandfather
wrestle with food and air and the suddenly
spidery nature of sheets, at 87
everything's a tangle and driving
to buy soap or corn chips she remembers
that making change last Tuesday for a paper
he blanked on quarter and dime and just
opened his palm and let the man
wade through the silver waters.
I won't call you idiot by saying emotions
are like plate tectonics but her chin
buckles to the upwelling fear and what
she can't change she fastens on with greatest
devotion. Now and then someone will live
forever but otherwise the trajectories
are fixed. She knows this and that the bug
she tried to scoot out the window
had seven hours to live before a bat
scooped up another pinging meal.
There's no possible segue to the romance
we'd intended our lives to contain. I'm
a dumb ass because what I offer
for comfort is straight off the shelf, hand
on the thigh, kiss on the cheek, I excel
at purring uh-huh in a way that drives
the speaker on toward exhaustion. For her
I'd be a poison eater, my mouth
divine, I'd suck the sorrow out and spit
its thrashing body from the window
and there, her grandfather would live
forever, there, her friend's father
would rip the cancer from his chest
and weave it into a basket, there, she and I
will see mountains get bored
with clouds and money turn
to swallowtails and the moon
split into seven moons so there's always
one in the sky when you drive
to the ocean instead of the store
and get out of the car and swear
at emptiness because you know it's the animal
that will win.

Upon Discovering My Entire Solution to the Attainment of Immortality Erased from the Blackboard Except the Word 'Save'
-- by Dobby Gibson

If you have seen the snow
somewhere slowly fall
on a bicycle,
then you understand
all beauty will be lost
and that even loss
can be beautiful.
And if you have looked
at a winter garden
and seen not a winter garden
but a meditation on shape,
then you understand why
this season is not
known for its words,
the cold too much
about the slowing of matter,
not enough about the making of it.
So you are blessed
to forget this way:
jump rope in the ice melt,
a mitten that has lost its hand,
a sun that shines
as if it doesn't mean it.
And if in another season
you see a beautiful woman
use her bare hands
to smooth wrinkles
from her expensive dress
for the sake of dignity,
but in so doing reveal
the outlines of her thighs,
then you will remember
surprise assumes a space
that has first been forgotten,
especially here, where we
rarely speak of it,
where we walk out onto the roofs
of frozen lakes
simply because we're stunned
we really can.

I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again

Fries, VA

I just learned that the band this blog takes it's name from--The Silver Jews--is calling it quits, which is kind of a bummer, but I also just learned that Drag City labelmate Bill Callahan is releasing an album, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, on April 14, which partially offsets the bad news about the joos. Here's a live version of a song that's supposedly on the new album...of course I have no idea what the arrangements on the studio version will sound like, but this is promising.

Jan. 14, 2009, Sydney Festival

Once I was a big old bear, reigning blows on sparkly snares

Kodiak Bear, Jeff Matthews Museum, Galax, VA
Launderama, Galax, VA

3 poems by Robert Bly

It's Hard For Some Men To Finish Sentences

Sometimes a man can't say
What he. . .A wind comes
And his doors don't rattle. Rain
Comes and his hair is dry.

There's a lot to keep inside
And a lot to. . .Sometimes shame
Means we. . .Children are cruel,
He's six and his hands. . .

Even Hamlet kept passing
The king praying
And the king said,
"There was something. . . ."

Moving Inward at Last

The dying bull is bleeding on the mountain!
But inside the mountain, untouched
By the blood,
There are antlers, bits of oak bark,
Fire, herbs are thrown down.

When the smoke touches the roof of the cave,
The green leaves burst into flame,
The air of night changes to dark water,
The mountains alter and become the sea.

The Buried Train

Tell me about the train that people say got buried
By the avalanche--was it snow?--It was
In Colorado, and no one saw it happen.
There was smoke from the engine curling up

Lightly through fir tops, and the engine sounds.
There were all those people reading--some
From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward Beecher.
And the engineer smoking and putting his head out.

I wonder when that happened. Was it after
High School, or was it the year we were two?
We entered this narrow place, and we heard the sound
Above us--the train couldn't move fast enough.

It isn't clear what happened next. Are you and I
Still sitting there in the train, waiting for the lights
To go on? Or did the real train get really buried;
So at night a ghost train comes out and keeps going...

Goodbye and welcome, troubled song

Galax, VA, Jan. 2, 2009

3 songs from Newness Ends by The New Year (Bubba and Matt Kadane, whose old band, Bedhead, is also very good).

If you save what you own, you are always alone

Vaughn-Bassett, Galax, VA
Iron Mountain Creek, Fries, VA

I've been feeling more out of sorts than usual lately, which is part of why I haven't posted any photos in a while. In any case, I plan to move to Pulaski soon to go back to teaching at RU, and I hope to resume regular posting, perhaps a photo a day, minus the pointless rambling.

Tema pointed me to this article on Will Oldham in The New York Times, and I also came across this interview with Oldham on New York's WNYC. In addition to discussing his forthcoming album Beware (March 17th), Oldham plays a stripped down version of one of the songs from the album and an excellent rendition of "The Brute Choir," from the Palace Music release Viva Last Blues.