the mountain
The summer of 1984 was unusually warm and sunny in the American Pacific Northwest, even on the slopes of the Cascade Range where Pacific Ocean moisture meets cool mountain air and manifests in near-perpetual fog and drizzle. I was a volunteer on a resource management work crew at Tipsoo Lake in Mount Rainier National Park, transplanting alpine perennials to repair damage to fragile meadows. Every day that summer at Tipsoo we had unabated postcard views of Rainier, the tallest, most majestic Cascade volcano, only a few miles away as the raven flies.
So I was bemused when a tourist called out to me from below in the parking lot, “Hey Ranger, where in the heck is Mount Rainier?”
I put down the shovel, turned to face the man and the mountain, and wouldn’t you know it, the mountain was gone, enshrouded in mist. I explained to the man that Mount Rainier had been visible in all its glory for all of July and August, in fact, until just five minutes before.
“I’ve been to all the world’s great peaks,” he told me, “Mount Fuji, Mont Blanc, Kilimanjaro, Denali, Chimborazo, and I’ve never seen a one of ‘em. That’s the story of my life”
And so we present poetry by new and returning contributors – mountains seen, and unseen, and a few life stories. I hope you will enjoy this mountain trek as I have and find yourself in spaces of quiet and beauty and even transcendence along the way, but of course no two of us make the same journey, or, as Han-shan, the Master of Cold Mountain writes:
Where’s the trail to Cold Mountain?
Cold Mountain? There’s no clear way.
Ice, in summer, is still frozen.
Bright sun shines through thick fog.
You won’t get there following me.
Your heart and mine are not the same.
If your heart was like mine,
You’d have made it, and be there!
Following the poems you will find 15 scenes by Michigan artist Cynthia Coté, inspired by a recent trip to Iceland. Of the series, Coté says “These drawings are composed of hearty Icelandic people and the beautifully unusual landscape as I experienced it. I draw with pen and ink and colored pencil. Each drawing is a record of the time.”
So grab your rucksack and walking stick. Onward!
Ray Sharp
Guest Editor
the zen space
__________
Joyce Joslin Lorenson (and her granddaughter, Trinity)
__________
Simon Hanson
Into the Sky
gilt edged
snow-capped
mountain dawn
:
alpine lake
drifts of pink cirrus
in still water
:
highland path
ten thousand steps
into the sky
:
starry night
mountain silhouette
black light
__________
ai li
-
a song
for the night
i colour it purple
:
-
love finds me
on top of a mountain
wanting to fly
:
-
i wait for you
in forests
long gone
a maple leaf
in your last book
:
-
afternoon nap
the plums darken
when i wake
:
-
taking the pilgrim’s path
to the source
the air is so thin
:
-
temple life
a falling leaf
brings music
:
-
chanting
across the valley
before dawn
before the world
was new
__________
Rachel Sutcliffe
-
summer’s end
stealing every summit
morning mist
:
-
evening shadows
falling through
the valley
:
-
mountain climb
at the summit
our deep breath
:
-
snow on the peaks
these piles of rice
on my plate
:
-
sunlight through mist
the mountain returns
one stone at a time
:
-
mountain trail
a faded cap
at the summit
__________
Richard Stevenson
since when have
ladybugs gone in for
racing stripes?
:
trusses going up
a cabbage white
picks a peak
:
window side table
water tower restaurant
for the car parade
:
In the interval
between chirp and twitter
the nail gun
:
second day
first wall of the neighbour’s
new addition’s up
:
no coffee
the tap’s metronomic
drip
__________
Canne Mills
zero correlation, but –
lazy by the river, minus care
bicycle by, silent
:
eyes for Fuji
snapping lesser bulks –
:
gulls inactive, feet wet –
PM. Tsukiji
:
bicycle by, silent
with wall, bicycle
bamboo shooting, orange bands
:
metallic sound of joining wood
glazed ramen, working café
necessary tack
:
sidewalk, noodles corrugate
dwarfed land and
vertical circuits
__________
Bruce England
Daughter asks again,
“what’s the oldest thing
you have? not yourself!”
:
Out together
we become younger man
older woman
:
When the hose
turns cold in my hand
I drink
:
Barbwire
does not slice
the moving fog
:
In her crib
my daughter sees what
with her uncarved face?
:
The flag flaps
in the wind, the flag flaps
in the mind
__________
Miriam Sagan
Terminal
0.
before dying
she packs up and ships
her fossils
:
1.
it was beads on a string, Navajo pearls
it was not like that at all
it was like a tiny Mata Ortiz blackware pot
the size of a thumbnail
no, it was a miniature turret shell
containing
a homeopathic dose
of the sound
of the sea
actually it was more like
a pregnant woman in a great metropolis
weeping at a siren, saying
someone is suffering
:
2.
someone
asked me if you
had accepted death
this is a problem
of syntax
who is this “you”
does this “you”
exist at all
as to “accept”
I very much doubt it
and when we say death
I’m fairy sure
we have no idea what we’re talking about
:
3.
I know myself
for the ordinary
woman I am
as well as for
the girl
who ran
:
4.
a man is selling aspen from a truck
next to the Mexican food cart
on my way to see you
I like to go all the way
to the end
of Aurora Street
see the white horse
and the two brown ones
standing nose to nose
curved bird
in the scrub
and panic grass
I just like to go down to the end, turn around
have always been like that
go all the way down
the dead end and wait
for a moment
in the cul-de-sac
:
5.
what can be covered?
a woman’s mouth
lies
treachery
a flame
nakedness
eggs
the dead
our eyes
a table
a bed
arithmetic
the face of the deep
:
6.
misty coastline
decaying totem poles
in a cubist hand–
you turn the pages
without seeing…
armless torso
of a woman
legless too
sculpted in bronze
:
7.
I’m alone this morning
sipping a lazy woman’s
cup of Nescafe,
I don’t trouble myself
that those yellow roses
do as they please
:
8.
the desert might be
monotheistic
or
homeopathic
you hate it
you love the ocean
Pacific more
than Atlantic
but you are dying here
in town
the neighborhood
slightly run-down
yet a place
someone else
might rejoice in
:
9.
early maps show it
River of the Mother of God
and then its course
disappears
emptiness–
while the Greek word
for “desert”
transmutes
to “hermit”
I am simply
waiting
I am simply
waiting
to feel
I am simply
waiting to feel
the connection
between your swollen, roped, blue-veined
hands and mine
:
10.
I believe
there is a prayer
of one word
but what
word
is it
and is it
a word
I know?
:
11.
black doves among skyscrapers
a sooty rain
better to live here
where nothing ever happens
except for two girls, back neighbors
playing their guitars
whose songs
come note by note over the coyote fence
and whose last names
translate, if you choose to
as “black doves”
:
12.
you fold your nightgown–
actually, I fold it
and place it beneath your pillow
where you can find it again
playing Chinese jump rope–
a chain
you can weave
from rubber bands–
at dusk
on the driveway
fireflies…
oh little sisters of darkness
you knew
even then
I had to go.
__________
Cynthia Coté
Family at the cave at Hjorleifshofdi
Approaching Westmann Islands
The Scientist
Rowing
Out for a ride
Mother and son at Selfoss
Star on the Hillside
The Writer
The Day’s Catch
The Explorer
Hunting Eels
Fox going up the road in Heimay
After Jon Stefansson
The Storyteller
Pensive Boy
Cynthia Coté divides her time between work as founding director of the Copper Country Community Arts Center in Hancock, Michigan and her work as an artist. Her drawings are a composite of people from found photos and records of her real life experiences. She has had the good fortune to travel to Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cuba, Mexico, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Nova Scotia.
__________
The next Showcase at the zen space will be Winter 2017 which will be released, subject to karma, on 1st January 2017.
Please note that the copyright of all written work and images used in this Showcase and elsewhere in the zen space is held by the creating author/artist, even when not explicitly stated, and may not be used elsewhere without permission.
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