Even God had Respect for a Wooden Boat, but It is in Tennessee, and it Won't Float

I did not know, when I was young,
what a beautiful place was
the Pacific Northwest.

I do recall, after having left
to begin graduate studies,
which corkscrewed me
through California--another gorgeous place--
and on to Arizona and Illinois
and settled for a settled time in Iowa,
of having written a poem which said
that always in my mind
there was a mountain.

That mountain was Mr. Rainier
and all its attendant and serious siblings.

This time,
more than sixty years since first leaving--
and never really returning
except for a pepper of visits--
it was as if everything was new and old
all over again.
Familiar things were surprises.

The Pacific Northwest is a conspiracy
of rock and rain, gravely soil and rain,
sun and wet moderation of temperatures,
of grass and moss and blackberries and rain.

Logged over, the hills which begin at the Sound
climb intently toward the place where even rock
cannot resist the pull of gravity,
and on top of every ramble and rubble

of rock running toward the sea,
the trees seize everything needed
to turn the world green and brown.

Once, on such a visit,
a logging truck, carrying its own trailer,
shook a thousand memories loose,
as piles of small logs did this time.

Moss claimed everything.
Everything recycled itself.

Since we were West Seattle near,
Stan and Becky offered,
and we delighted to help move their boat
from Lake Union to Everett.

There, where their boat lay,
a Norwegian skute adjusted its pores
to the water, again.
as beautiful as wood can become
when it goes to sea.

And across the way, Stan's boat,

its bottom newly painted
after a summer in Southeast Alaska,
dozed like the elegant beauty it is.

Its muscular old diesel engine
rumbled into life, comfortable in its role
of power and ballast at once,
something like a string bass
at the bottom of a satisfying song.

We drifted like kids going nowhere
while the boats ahead of us
took their turns easing down to sea level.
Then we, all alone in the lock,
went where the fresh waters go at last.

It was a lazy August day on the Sound,
mid-week, with scarcely anything to watch for
except a lazy drifting log; not even sea gulls
curious enough to sail by, hoping for bait.

Mari mused.
Stan considered.
I attended to a beer.

In Everett,
bow thrusters made docking a delight.

Becky, who had driven the car

from Seattle to Everett, met us for lunch
at an almost perfect Marina restaurant.
"Cioppino", Becky said to the waiter.
"Cioppino." "Cioppino." "Cioppino."

We agreed.
We agreed again:
"That was wonderful Cioppino!"

The wine made harmony easy.
Almost like the alto in a satisfying song.

Comments

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy. Those were skills to be learned and practiced. I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop. He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes. He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade. Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore. The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up. I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth. I knew how to do that. Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down. On the second try, aimi

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back: two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed! Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore. The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil. We farmed, too, of course. All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor. Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. Even when all they wanted to do w

SmokeSound

Search This Blog