Spring Song

Spring comes up.

Spring comes down.

Spring comes

All around.

Spring is gray.

Spring is clear.

Wake up.

Spring is near.

Spring will take.

Spring will give.

What dies

Will yet live.

Revive, Spring 2014

Revive yourself right HERE.

"The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop

"The Fish" Illustration by Lucas Mehmel

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat,
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
- the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly-
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
- if you could call it a lip,
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels- until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

flymage, #22, March 2014

Eurogoodness.

Get it HERE.

"You can't waste your life making money, and then go back and try to buy that life back..."

Word.

"Mindful" by Mary Oliver

"Meadow Marsh 3" by Dannielle Mick

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for — 
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world — 
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant — 
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these — 
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

"Mindful" by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early. © Beacon Press, 2005. 

River Report: Oh My

Oh my, what a beautiful day. 

Oh my, what a good day for fishing.

Oh my, what a high muddy state the river is in.

Oh my, what a shame.

Dude, Check This Out: Townes Van Zandt

John Townes Van Zandt was born on this date in 1944. He was a tortured super-addict. You name it, he was addicted to it. His ravaged body gave out January 1, 1997.

In his short time on this earth, though, he wrote some beautiful songs. He never made it big himself as a performing artist, but, starting with the likes of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, and including Emmylou Harris and Bob Dylan, his songs were covered by everybody who was anybody.

These songs are from his 1972 album, The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt.

Maybe his best-known song, and most covered--and my favorite--is this one, Pancho and Lefty. I discovered it on one of Emmylou's albums, and I still like her cover version best. But I really like Van Zandt's original.

Having lived with addicts, and having loved and lost addicts, I have sympathy for their pain. But I have no patience anymore for the romanticizing of the "outlaw" or "troubled genius" lifestyle. So I reject the view of Van Zandt and his ilk that downplays the addiction by saying, "But look at what he was able to accomplish."

No. Rather think of the cost to friends and family and children. And think of what he might have accomplished.

That said, these next songs are beautiful and poignant--and deeply sad. The title of the last one, To Live Is to Fly, is engraved on his tombstone.

Family Post: Riding the Rocket

My daughter posted these photos this week of sledding with my granddaughter Iris. I wondered why Iris was crying in the first picture. Was she afraid?

So then Laura posted this photo. This was Iris's first run, just before the photos above. I can picture the excitement and delight on her face as she climbs trustingly onto the lap of her parent and they begin the descent. And then, in a horrifying flash, blinding speed, and this blinding baptism of snow--the full, in-your-face initiation to the joys of sledding. I have to wonder what Iris's expression is under that stinging plume of snow. But it's probably better that I can't see it--it would break my heart.

And it happened in a place called Rocket Park.

No wonder she was crying. But then, bless the child, she stopped crying and went down the hill again.

Keep riding that rocket, sweet girl.

Prototype Three

Ireland's Wild River

I'm sorry you missed this, if you did. It first aired on February 26. I didn't see it until last night when I dipped into my stash of previously-recorded programs.

It's superb. If I had known in time I would definitely have gotten the word out to all who love rivers. If I could, I'd post the whole thing now.

But here's the next best thing. Here's the trailer, and two clips from the film. And if you're fortunate, your local PBS station will do what mine does sometimes--replay this at a later date. I'd recommend you watch for it.

Fly Tying: Prototype Two

Dude, Check This Out: Fishing Music

When you can't fish, listen to music about fishing. Or when you can fish, play this on the way.

This collection, produced by Ben Winship and David Thompson, and released in 2003 by Snake River Records in Victor, Idaho, is "a spirited mix of songs and tunes inspired by fish, fishing, and rivers, performed by some of the country's finest acoustic musicians." There's something here for everyone, and when it's good, it's very, very good.

Here are my favorites.

"Upstream" David Thompson

Matt Flinner -- Mandolin

David Grier -- Guitar

Rob Ickes -- Dobro

Jason Thomas -- Fiddle

David Thompson -- Bass

"Ocean of Dreams" David Thompson and Ben Winship

Tim O'Brien -- Vocal

Reina G. Collins -- Harmony Vocal

Ben Winship -- Mandolin, Bouzouki, Percussion

Leo McCann -- Button Box

Mark Dunlop -- Low Whistle, Tin Whistle

David Thompson -- Bass

"Fly Fishing (Peche a la Mouche)" Django Reinhardt

Mike Dowling -- Guitars

Billy Novick -- Clarinet

Ben Winship -- Mandolin

David Thompson -- Bass

"Madison Brown" B. Winship, D. Thompson, and J. Lowell

John Lowell -- Vocal, Guitar

Ben Winship -- Harmony Vocal, Mandolin

David Thompson -- Harmony Vocal, Bass

"The Wicker Creel" Traditional

Leo McCann --Button Box, Tin Whistle

Mark Dunlop -- Bodhran, Low Whistle

Karine Polwart -- Guitar

Ben Winship -- Mandola

"Banks of the Moorlough Shore" Traditional

Karine Polwart -- Vocal

Rob Ickes -- Dobro

Ben Winship -- Bouzouki

Leo McCann -- Low Whistle

Mark Dunlop -- Bodhran

In Like A Lion...

Out like a lamb?

Clearing Up This Whole Spring Thing

Some people are going to tell you that today, March 1, is the First Day of Spring. Don't believe it.

Most people know without a doubt that the First Day of Spring won't arrive until March 20. That's because it's tradition. And their calendars say so. But they're wrong, too. That won't be the First Day of Spring either.

March 20 will be, instead, the first day of what is known as Astronomical Spring. That's because March 20 is the day of the Vernal Equinox, and the Astronomical seasons are determined by the tilt of the earth's axis. So March 20 will be the first day of Astronomical Spring. But Astronomical Spring is not the first Spring of the year.

Those people trying to tell you that today is the First Day of Spring think they've really pulled a fast one on you. That's because they've discovered what is called Meteorological Spring. Meteorological Spring is based on temperature rather than on what the earth's axis is doing. The three coldest months--December, January, and February--are Meteorological Winter. So, guess what, March, April, and May make up Meteorological Spring. So March 1 is the first day of Meteorological Spring!

But if they had read further in Wikipedia, like I did, they would realize that Meteorological Spring is still not the first Spring of the year.

Here's where it gets good. There's a third way of classifying the seasons. These are the Solar Seasons. Solar Seasons are determined not by the tilt of the earth's axis, or the temperature, but by the amount of sunlight the earth receives. Solar Winter consists of the three months that receive the least sunlight: November, December, and January. Therefore Solar Spring--the official First Spring of the Year--begins on  February 1.

I think you've heard me say or seen me write that I have always considered February to be the first month of Spring. All this time I thought I was just being ironic, and it turns out I was right.

So when is the actual First Day of Spring? It doesn't matter. We missed it.

"Choices" by Tess Gallagher

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don't cut that one.
I don't cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.

"Choices" by Tess Gallagher from Dear Ghosts. © Graywolf Press, 2007.

Breaking News: EPA Vs. Pebble Mine

Big news as the EPA takes strong action on the Pebble Mine.

Mark McGlothlin does an excellent job of reporting over on Chi Wulff.

For additional information check out these links, found posted on other blogs:
ABC News
Washington Post