L'aura del Campo

Dreams of the oriole. Images from Mary's Lake.

Letter to David

         dreams of the oriole

Dear David; When my molting's done I'm flying to Montana, low flight by streetlight and neon signed cafés (that never close) along the way. Do I come in summer when the sky is big and blue? Or winter when the passes close and every trucker knows Missoula's just a warm oasis along life's needy veins, along this varicose roadway that will burst someday. But first ... I wish to see Montana come the dust or hail, climb The Sentinel, inhale dried moose poop burning in a brazier, its fragrance wafting over town and gown below. Ah, David ... the rhymes we'll share, perhaps some dust, a shower or a flurry. My best until we meet. Your molting friend, your Kåre.

© Kåre Enga [164.118] 07-06-24

This is what happens when I read Richard Hugo who wrote prose poems to poets and taught for years at the University of Montana in Missoula. I hope to visit Missoula before winter.

IMAGES:

Mary's Lake:

Two fishing piers on this pleasant pond of damselflies and butterflies and dragonflies and flies. One heron spreading long grey wings. Birds chitter in the woods behind me. Clouds mirror their cotton puffs in the muddy ripples that have caught a breeze. There's a certain ease and stillness in the peals of children's voices, the peel of bark, a green festoon of poison ivy, a shroud draped across a dying tree.

Snow-white fluff floats from the black willow. Blue darning needles dart through the dappled shade. I find a 6" yellow bellied slider by the "pond turtle" sign. A yellow swallowtail flits between the fragrant blossoms of a button-bush. A waft of honeysuckle; the crack of fireworks.

OVERHEARD:

As related to me by his grandmother Eileen Strong: Finn Strong (4 years old) told Aimée, his mother, while playing with his brother's "Noah's Ark" that he couldn't find Noah and using a zebra instead wouldn't suffice:

"I need the boss."
"Why?"
"The flood is imminent."
"Do you know what imminent means?"
"Right now."

THOUGHTS:

After reading koans at http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html

#78: "Father dies; son dies; grandson dies." The concept of happiness when things happen in their 'proper' order.

#84: "Cutting of the harp strings" Who will hear my voice when I am gone? Who will read or remember what I wrote? Will it matter?

#88: A chinese poetic form ... A quatrain of: line1 = subject A; line 2 = subject A expanded; line 3 = subject B; line 4 = bringing it all together. This seems to be a short form that I would really enjoy and much easier than the shorter Japanese haiku.

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