Unearthing a life.....

Strange ... something about this January's weather that reminds me of Scotland in early May.

SAGEBRUSH SAM SEZ'

Ages ago, when the Earth was young, Wind lived in a log house on the High Peak of Saddle Mountains. In those days the mountains were covered by a vast forest and, with the help of his seven grandsons, Wind built himself a magnificent house. The remains of his home, although turned to stone and scattered about by the passing centuries, are still in evidence near the peak.

At times these seven grandsons were a great worry to Wind. If he failed to keep them busy from dawn to dusk, they would invariably wander off and get into trouble. One of their favorite games was to creep down the mountainside to the grassland valley below and then run howling across the valley to the village of the Muskrat Tribe, where they would proceed to blow down everything in sight. These antics did not, by any stretch of the imagination, meet with the approval of the Muskrats. Finally in despair, the Chief of the tribe asked Coyote to speak to the Wind about these youngster's conduct.

Obliging his Muskrat friend, Coyote went directly to the mountain and held council with Wind. The old man was saddened by the mischief his grandsons had committed. He called them before the council fire and said:

"I have given Coyote my word that you shall disturb the Muskrats no more. Hear well, my little sons! For if you disobey, it shall be He, not I, who will pass punishment on you."

The grandsons did not obey. Instead they grew very angry with Coyote for spoiling their fun. They followed him back to the Muskrat village. When he sat down to eat at the Chief's fire, they formed a howling gale and ran through the camp, blowing over teepees and raising great clouds of dust. One of the embers that flew up out of the Chief's fire, lit on Coyote's tail and scorched his beautiful fur.

Enraged, Coyote leaped high into the sky and, grasping the seven brothers between the palms of his hands, sent them spinning like tops across the prairie lands to the east.

Perhaps, if you were to look out your window right now, you might see one or more of these lads whirling across the fields, raising plumes of dust as they go.

....Royal City Capsule; Royal City, WA; Column #56.
.............Dustdevil Image lifted from Google Images.

I am still stunned that the Seahawks have made it to Superbowl 40. Each morning, I carefully sneak up on the Sun's sports pages in fear that I am going to see that they have been somehow disqualified .... or Hasslebeck broke his elbow at a PTA meeting .... or Shaun Alexander had a leg bitten off by that big brown bear at Woodland Park Zoo.

The gamblers are picking sixth seeded Steelers to beat top seeded Seahawks. No respect out there at all. None, none, none! Well, I'm going to walk upright out onto a big strong limb and declare that the Seahawks will smash, obliterate, and otherwise destroy the Steelers. It's gonna be ugly and it's gonna be fun!

It eventually seeped into my brain that I could have and should have posted a picture of Coyote's son along with the posting of the story. Here is Coyote's son ... pointed out by the red arrow. The arrow is pointed at the back of his head (he's in profile) and his face is nestled into a stone pillow and one shoulder is visible just below his head. This rock outcropping was about a quarter of a mile due north of the home I lived in during my grade school years ... and was one of our major 'playgrounds' ... snakes and all. As kids, we called these the Babyface Rocks. As an adult, I purloined them to create my story.

I have seen the Tokyo sunrise ... and when that great red ball rose vertically up out of the ocean, I really understood why they called it the Land of the Rising Sun. And then I finished off my beer, dropped out of the poker game, and went down for breakfast.

In the old days, when the animals still enjoyed a man-like form, Coyote spent much of his time searching for a wife. It was in pursuit of this goal that he journeyed up Crab Creek to the camp of the Raccoon tribe, which was located near the south bank of the creek on what is now John Shrom's northwest field. Here he paid court to the most winsome of the Raccoon Chief's daughters, and after giving a large dowry of frogs, fish, and ducks, he was granted her hand in marriage.

The couple was very happy. Before long a son was born to them and Coyote's heart was filled with love and pride. He was, however, unaware that there had been two other suitors paying court to his wife; and that these two, Owl, who lived on the cliffs of Saddle Mountain, and Raven, who lived on the dry valley floor, were very angry at him and were, at that moment, plotting their revenge. Ignorant of the impending danger, he took leave of his Raccoon wife and infant son, and traveled to the coast where he spent several days teaching some of his distant cousins how to build fish weirs.

On learning that their rival was absent, Owl and Raven seized upon the opportunity to execute their vengence. In the dark of a moonless night, they stole into the Raccoon encampment and carried off Coyote's son. These two evil creatures took the boy to the foot of Saddle Mountain, where, after laying him on the hillside, Owl cast a spell that turned the child to stone.

As he reached the crest of the Cascades on his return, the sharp ears of Coyote caught the sound of slowly beating drums. It was the Death Dance of the Raccoon tribe drifting softly on the winds from the far off desert lands. With great leaping bounds, Coyote sped homeward, a nameless dread wrestling with his spirit. Finding his premonition all too true, the poor fellow crept off to the creek bottom where he covered himself over with a blanket of tule reeds. For many days thereafter, his lonely howls of grief echoed endlessly against the rocky, unsympathetic bluffs of the somber valley.

Then one night, as the moon reached its fullness, a great white fury rose in his heart - a fury that laced the cloudless night sky with sheets of lightning. Choking back the helpless tears, he pointed his long nose to the Heavens and began to sing his power song. The crashing thunder of his voice reached out and hammered at the ears of Owl and Raven, causing them to fall to the earth shaking with fear.

Coyote picked up the two quivering cowards and hurled them into the sky, crying after them in a voice wild with rage, "For you, Raven, I pour gravel in your throat and bring the blackness of your spirit out for all to see. And for you Owl, who haave chosen to be a killer of the night, so shall it be forever!"

Stooping low, Coyote pulled a coverlet of earth over his cold, silent son, then turning, fled to the hills where no one could see his grief. Occasionally he returns to the bluff to sing a mounful lullaby to the boy, who lies there with his head nestled against the side of the mountain just above the Smyrna store ... by the bend in the old wagon road.

Originally published about forty-three years ago in the Royal City Capsule, a weekly newspaper in Grant County, WA. This is a sample of a weekly column I wrote for the paper for about two years ... under the byline Sagebrush Sam Sez'.

At the main gate to the bishop's residence, a Spanish friend of mine stopped me.
"You know," he said to me, "they've killed the poet you used to love...."
"Who?" I shuddered with horror.
"Federico Garcia Lorca."
"Lorca! Who killed him?"
"Some say the Reds. Others say we did. Nobody knows for sure."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Maybe there was some misunderstanding,"
he added, shrugging his shoulders.

....NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS

Near the end of my paper, 'Three Views of Spain', I came across this poem I wrote 23 years ago as an homage to Federico Garcia Lorca.


SONG OF THE BLACK HORSE

Amargo's black horse
gallops on skulled hooves;
jaws lined with little knives
that catch at the moon.

Galloping. Always drumming, drumming.

Under the dark saddle
of Estrella's pelvis
he marks the sweep
of night's advance.

Galloping. Always drumming.

Empty eyes, hollow belly,
moving drum of death
beating on the earth
slowly, steadily

galloping. Always.

Death horse, horse of death:
Empty skull, hollow legs
drumming, drumming,
drumming the earth.

Galloping.

Always.

Drumming, drumming.


....by FossilGuy, 15 November 1983
.........Illustration: Pen and ink by FossilGuy (1983)

The sound of black horses.
The clatter of black horseshoes.
The glistening short cloaks
stained with ink and wax.
The skulls poured of lead
to prevent them from weeping.
Patent-leather souls that ride
the wind along the highroad.
Mournful hunchbacks
whose movements command
the hardened silences of the dark
and the fine sands of fear.
They go where they wish,
concealing in their minds
an uneasy astronomy
of ghostly pistols.

Oh, city of the gypsies!
With flags aloft on your corners.
Where the moon and the gourd
are filled with cherries.
Oh, city of the gypsies!
Who could see you and not remember?
City of pain and of musk
and of cinnamon towers.

When the night comes,
the night of death's own darkness,
the gypsies at their forges
hammer out suns and arrows.
A wounded horse
summons the people to their doorways.
The crowing of roosters crystalizes
along Jerez de la Frontera.
The wind, flying naked,
rounds a corner of surprise,
finding the night edged with silver,
the night of death's own darkness.

The Virgin and St. Joseph
throw down their castanets,
and seek out the gypsies
to warn of the coming blow.
The Virgin appears dressed
in the habit of a mayor's wife,
a gown of chocolate paper
with a collar of almonds.
St. Joseph moves his arms
beneath a mantle of silk,
while behind follows Pedro Domecq
with the three sultans of Persia.
The half-moon slumbers on
with the open eye of a crane.
Lantern-hung standards
invade the flat rooftops.
The slim-hipped dancers
are sobbing before their mirrors.
Water and shadow, shadow and water
along Jerez de la Frontera.

Oh, city of the gypsies!
With flags aloft on your corners.
They will extinquish the green luster
of your greatness.
Oh, city of the gypsies!
Who could see you and not remember?
You are left far from the sea
without combs to catch your parted hair.

They advance in ranks of two
upon the city of festivals.
Their cartridge belts heavy
with the smell of onions.
They advance in ranks of two.
Double uniformed in darkness.
The eyes of Heaven are blinded
and refilled with a fluid of spurs.

The city, asleep to fear,
is a multiplicity of doors.
Forty civil guards
steal through to sack her.
The clocks are stopped,
and to arouse no suspicions,
the brandy flasks
wear the mask of November.
A flight of long screams
lifts above the weathercocks.
Sabers sing in the breezes
to the skulls trampled underfoot.
Through alleys of vague shadow,
the old gypsies go keening
with their lumbering horses
and little jars of silver coin.
For the drunken streets
are swollen with sinister capes,
where all is given up to
the double bladed whirlwinds.

The gypsies are driven
to the Bethlehem gate.
St. Joseph, sorely wounded,
enshrouds a young maiden.
The obstinate rifles and bayonets
fill the night with a dark sound.
The Virgin gives last rites to the children
with a spittle of stars.
Still the Guardia Civil
advances, sowing fires like seeds,
bonfires where the naked youth
are put to burning.
Rosa of Camborios
moans softly on her doorstep
with her two severed breasts
placed on a silver tray.
And other girls are fleeing,
pursued by their long braids
through an air filled with the crackling
bloom of gunpowder's black roses.
When all the roof-tiles
are sown in the furrowed earth,
the dawn will match its shoulders
against a long contour of stone.

Oh, city of the gypsies!
While the flames surrond you,
the Guardia Civil has departed
through a tunnel of silence.

Oh, city of the gypsies!
Who could see you and not remember?
This search for you in my mind;
A play of moon and sand.


...by Federico Garcia Lorca
......translation by FossilGuy, 1982
.........illustration, pen and ink collage of Picasso, Goya, Dali and other 'elements' by FossilGuy, 1983

Pleasant surprise(s)! I found my copy of 'Tres suenos de Espana', the paper I wrote in September-November 1983. And there were eight translated poems, not the seven that I had thought.




Beneath the dark moon
of the highwaymen,
the spurs sing.

Little black horse.
Where do you bear your dead rider?

...the cruel spurs
of the motionless outlaw
who dropped the reins.

Cold little horse.
That scent of the knife's flowering!

Beneath the dark moon,
blood spills down the side
of Sierra Morena.

Little black horse.
Where do you bear your dead rider?

The night spurs
your black flanks
with prickling stars.

Cold little horse.
That scent of the knife's flowering!

Beneath the dark moon,
a cry! and the lengthening horns
of the campfire.

Little black horse.
Where do you bear your dead rider?

....by Federico Garcia Lorca
........translation by FossilGuy, 1982
.............Illustration: pen and ink by FossilGuy, with a horse head stolen from Picasso.

No one understood the fragrance
of that dark magnolia of your belly.
No one knew that between your teeth
you crucified the hummingbird of love.

A thousand Persian ponies are sleeping
in the square beneath the moon of your forehead,
while for four nights I am united
with your waist, destroyer of the snow.

Between the gypsum and jasmines, your glance
plants a single branch of pallid seeds.
I search for a sign of yielding, in my breast
are letters of ivory that plead always.

always, always: Garden of my agony,
your body is an eternal fugitive,
the blood of your veins in my mouth,
your mouth is now as black as my death.

...by Federico Garcia Lorca
... ... translation by FossilGuy, 1982
... ... ... illustration: Sleepers by Picasso (1965)

[This is the last of the six translations that were published in 'Quicksilver', Number One, Fall, 1989. There was one more, a long, long poem titled 'Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard', that exists only in a copy of my O.C. class paper ... and I have misplaced it for the time being. I will search.]

"Tell you what, Mariel, why don't we get in a little skinny-dipping before that hurricane moves ashore?"

(The creature that was once Sheriff Underlay, makes a recreational suggestion to his wife. A life changing recreational suggestion.)

I want to still the dreams of the apples,
to remove them from the tumult of the graveyards.
I want to quiet the dream of that child
who would cast away the sea of his heart.

I have no wish to keep hearing that the dead do not
forfeit their blood;
that the corrupted mouth continues to beg for water.
I no lnger wish to teach of the martyrdoms of the grass,
nor of the devil-mouthed moon
that labours to the break of day.

I want to rest for a moment,
a moment, a minute, a hundred years;
but let all be assured that I am not dead;
that there is a stable of gold between my lips;
that I am the humble comrade of the Westwind;
that I am the infinite shadow of my own tears.

Hide me from the dawn behind a curtain,
while I throw off these handfuls of ants,
and moisten the roughness of my shoes with water
that the scorpion's pincers will find no purchase.

For I want to still the dreams of the apples
and learn a weeping that will cleanse me of earth;
for I would abide with that dark child
who would cast away the sea of his heart.

I want the water thrown out from its channel.
I want the wind torn up from its valleys.

I want the eyes of night to be as vanquished
as my heart without its yellow-haired flower;

the oxen to cry out beneath the great leaves
where the hidden worm embraces death in the shadow;

and the skull's teeth catches at the light
like a silken torrent of golden coins.

I watch the pain, the night's affliction,
entwined and wrestling with the mid-day.

It endures the sinking death of green venom
as these crumbling arches bear the ruin of time.

But do not show me the purity of your nakedness
like a black cactus standing free in the rushes.

You relinquish me to dark planets of desire,
Yet you will not teach me the coolness of your waist.

....by Federico Garcia Lorca; translated by FossilGuy, 1982
.....photo by FossilGuy, 'Dark Planet' (2004)

(If I recall correctly, 'Madrigal of Summer' was the first of Lorca's poems that I attempted to translate.)






Unite your red mouth with mine,
Estrella, my gypsy!
Beneath the gold floor of noonday
I shall bite the apple.

Amongst the green olive trees on the hill
we shall linger in the ruined tower,
and discover whether your peasant flesh
is more the color of honey or of first dawn.

You offer my your sunburnt body,
the divine nourishment
that gives flowers to the quiet riverbed
and day-stars to the wind.

Why do you give yourself to me,
you of the luminous brown skin?
Why give me these perfections of love,
the burnished lily of your sex
and the soft murmur of your breasts?

Not my afflicted figure?
(Oh! My obscene gait!)
Is your great pity, by chance,
for the creaking decay of my life?

Instead of my groans, why not prefer
the sweat-rivered thighs
of a handsome San Christobal peasant,
sluggish in the ways of love?

Murderess of my erect pleasures.
Woman as forest satyr.
This feast of kisses smells of wheat
dried for weeks in the summer sun.

You obscure my vision with your singing.
Let down your long hair,
spread it out like a ceremonial robe,
a shadow upon the meadows.

Paint for me, with your blood colored mouth,
a heaven of love,
in the depths of your flesh, a home
on a star of pain.

My Andalusian pegasus knows the captivation
of your open eyes;
and would fly in silent desolation
were he to see them lifeless.

And though you not love me, I shall love you
for your dusky glances,
as the lark loves the new day
for the dew alone.

Unite your red mouth with mine,
Estrella, my gypsy!
The bright noonday has left us
to consume the apple.

[At some point in the early '80's, I was inexplicably moved to do my own translations of Lorca poems from the original Spanish. To this end, I purchased a huge Spanish-English dictionary, a thick paperback of conjugated verbs, and a couple small tomes that purported to explain Spanish grammer and sentence structure, etc.,. I translated seven poems before my ambitions ran out of gas. They later appeared in a paper I wrote for one of those 5 credit Olympic College classes where you make up the study proposal and get an Instructor to agree to it. In the Fall of 1989, six of them were published in the debut issue (also the final issue) of the literary magazine QUICKSILVER. At the risk of becoming a stranger to humility, I've compared my translations to a couple others of supposed note and continue, some 25 years later, to find mine the superior effort.
Photo by daughter Kelly, 2005]


In Vienna there are ten girls whose
shoulders heave with sobs at the slaughter
of doves rent apart in a forest grove.
There are fragments of tomorrow traced
in the museum of frosted windowpanes.
There is a great hall with a thousand shutters.
Alas, alas, alas, alas!
This waltz holds us in its closed mouth.

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz
of consent for the heady liquor of death
that dampens its final note in the sea.

I want you, I want you, I want you,
by the armchair and the dead books,
in the melancholy hallways,
in the dark garret of the lily,
in our moonlit bed
and in the dance that the tortoise dreams.
Alas, alas, alas, alas!
This waltz imprisons us in the depths of its belly.

In Vienna there are four mirrors
that echo the amusement of your lips.
There are murders agreed to at the piano
that scar the young men with blue.
There are beggars who lie in hiding.
There are wreaths newly made for the flood of tears.
Alas, alas, alas, alas!
This waltz is taking its last breath in my arms.

Because I desire you, desire you, my love,
here in the loft where the children played
beneath the antiquated Hungarian lights,
the murmur of a flute in the late afternoon
blows the ewes and the lilies into snowdrifts
that obscure your forehead in stillness.
Alas, alas, alas, alas!
This waltz has taken away your love forever.

I shall dance with you in Vienna
wearing the mask
of a river god.
Behold my banks of hyacinth!
Leave my silent mouth between your legs,
my soul in photographs and white lilies,
and in the dark waves of your movement,
my love, my love, I shall escape both
violin and grave, the fishing nets of the waltz.

This bit of reportage is lifted from the April 6, 1936 issue of Time magazine.
I was nearing my second birthday.
Writing styles have changed quite a bit at Time over the intervening seventy years. This writing delivers its sub-text with all the gentility of a charging rhinocerus. Gotta love it!



Children of the Chimney

Heavily backed by Laborites and such ardent humanitarians as Lady Nancy Astor, a Government Education bill for raising the minimum school age from 14 to 15 years came before the House of Commons last week. Up to oppose it stood another noble lady, political junior but social senior to Lady Astor, Her Grace the Duchess of Atholl.

Born Katherine Marjory Ramsay, the Duchess of Atholl, musician and lawn tenist, has been a Member of Parliament since 1923. Among her accomplishments are the organization of the Perthshire District Nurse Associations; the composition, for pianoforte, of Song-Flowers from A Child's Garden of Verses; and the assemblage, at the suggestion of Lord Kitchener, of the world's finest collection of Scottish soldier's stocking tops. In 1899 Katherine Marjory Ramsay married the Duke of Atholl, chieftain of all the Murrays, colonel-in-chief of the Scottish Horse Scouts, a gallant soldier and the owner of 202,000 Scottish acres. Said the Duchess last week:

"I do think the Committee should not overlook the practical type of boy who wants to be out in the world making his own way. Industry needs children of that age."

On the composer of Song-Flowers from A Child's Garden of Verses, Lady Astor promptly turned the full force of her Virginian invective.

"I am horrified!" she snapped. "If industry depends on the little hand, then it had better stop. It is difficult for me to speak without emotion, and if the Duchess of Atholl had her way, English children would still be up the chimney and down the mine."

To see you naked is to remember the land,
the polished land, cleansed of horses.
The land without a single reed, pure form,
concealing the future: border of silver.

To see you naked is to embrace the longing
of the rain that pursues your fragile form,
or the fever of the sea's immense face
held back from the light of your cheek.

The blood will call out from the alcoves
and advance upon you with shining swords,
but you'll find no secret hiding place
from the heart of the toad or the violet.

Your belly is a struggle of roots
and your lips a half formed sunrise.
Beneath the careless roses of the couch
the corpses groan and wait their turn.

....Federico Garcia Lorca

[Translation 1984 by 'FossilGuy'; Illustration by Picasso]

.... figured out what to use this new year for(?). Re-education? Superhero Power Accumulation? An ongoing mystery to me.....
Eventually a light will dawn. Maybe.
[Photo Il Perfecto by daughter Kelly, Italy 2005]

Daughter Kelly spent a few weeks in Italy this past September. She was mostly in the walled city of Lucca and Venice, but also hit Rome. I had advised her to take a film camera and a supply of 200ASA film. She left her CD copies here with me so that I could download a selection of the best shots for posting on my yaFro site (use the link posted here to the right for quick access). I will be adding more of her pix over the coming days.

We are hoping for a slightly healthier and wealthier 2006. If the trick is to come into the New Year with horrendous colds and nearly broke, then we could get our wish.