Traveling with Tree Walkers – Through a Photograph, Into a Poem

Reflection in Sugar River

Tree Walkers © 2010 Bo Mackison

There is a photograph tacked upon my wall.
A photograph of the Sugar River.

If, by magical means, you could reach your hands through the print,
you could dip your hands in cool, running river-water, cold from autumn’s breath.

Then you’d pull your hands from the river through the frame, and be back in my room,
shaking droplets from your fingers, wiping dampness on your jeans.

I look at the photograph through creator’s eyes.
The reflection of two trees in the foreground, their trunks slender, their upside down branches split,
and I name them Tree Walkers.

Slipping through the photo paper, I stride along the river’s circuitous route
Tree Walkers at my side, my companions.

All is never what it seems and
what I need shows up in odd, inexplicable ways.

Today I have no need of clean hands, but I do need to travel with Tree Walkers.

A Country Road Meander — In the Midst of Wilderness, In the Presence of Divine

Door County in Autumn

Tree Line ©2014 Bo Mackison

In the midst of the wilderness, in the presence of the divine.
Perhaps there is nothing astonishing about this meadow with its spattering of seeded sumac
Or a dense tree line that separates the land from the cloudy skies.

Meandering on a country road in the middle of this northern county,
two miles west of Lake Michigan, an endless expanse of water to my eyes
and two miles east of Green Bay, again, with no distant shore in sight,
only a few bay islands splashed by frothing waves, inhabited by seagulls.

Door County in Autumn

Door County in Autumn © 2014 Bo Mackison

Who thought, many decades ago, to say no to billboards, to shopping malls,
to franchises of any kind – no hotel or restaurants, fast food or not,
that represent giant corporations instead of families and local businesses.
Some one did.
You can’t recognize this part of America by familiarity. Only by its neighborliness
and small town pride and heritage.

In the midst of wilderness, in the presence of the divine.

Kangaroo Lake in Door County – The Magic of Studying Details, Then Turning Around

Kangaroo Lake

Kangaroo Lake – South View © 2014 Bo Mackison

The mid-October day was mercurial – one moment skies were blue, the next a wave of gray clouds pushed in from nearby Lake Michigan. Blustery winds buffeted me, causing me to lose my balance more than once. Then calm would descend for a brief respite for the wind and chill.

October in Door County, for sure, Wisconsin’s northeastern most point, a peninsula sticking out into tempestuous Lake Michigan.

Kangaroo Lake is one of the more protected places on the peninsula in fresh water lake in the center of Door County, and a wonderful place to go during the autumn festival days. Most of the crowd who comes to enjoy the views hug the shore of Door County, bay side and lake side. But there is much to be said for the wild beauty of the interior, too.

I loved studying the autumn changes of Kangaroo lake, standing on a narrow bridge of road that crosses the northern most bay. Fallen leaves were bobbing on the surface, the reeds were stripped of there green finery and their fuzzy seeds, and stood knee deep in the cold, stunningly blue water. Beyond, fir trees lined one side of the lake, and deciduous trees in this year’s last blaze of glory hugged the opposite side.

Then the sun disappeared in the scattered clouds.

Once I had taken in the scene with all my senses, as is my habit, I turn around to see what is behind me.

Kangaroo Lake

Kangaroo Lake – North View  © 2014 Bo Mackison

And the sun slid from the cloud cover, causing the lake ripples to shimmer in a sheet of dancing light.

A solitary island caught my attention. Birds were darting from the trees to the water and back again. Creatures were slipping in and out of the shadows and the shoreline brush.

Kangaroo Lake — its two faces. Both to be explored and adored.

Tenacity – Part I: Sunset Crater National Monument and its History

Sunset Crater National Monument

The cinder-strewn slope of Sunset Crater sweeps up a thousand feet into the blue sky.

Vincent Randall. He introduces himself in his native Apache language…my given adult Apache name means “Old Man Hunter.”

Randall, a Tonto Apache elder, has been coming here since the 1940s. He first came with his father in a 38 Chevy pickup… His people roamed the high country of this part of northern Arizona before they were confined to a tiny piece of land in the Verde Valley. But he says Sunset Crater remains a holy place:

“This is my people’s old homeland, you may have a piece of paper that gives you the deed which is a piece of paper that gives you the right to say you own this place, but in my heart, it’s still my land, it’s was given to us by God himself.

“One of the first things is when you enter a place like this you pray. Even today, I prayed this morning coming here.”

…from the transcript of Ken Burns’ The National Parks

Sunset Crater National Monument

Today Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument protects the Colorado Plateau’s most recent volcanic eruption.

It is the least-eroded cinder cone in the San Francisco Volcanic Field. The park is just a few miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona.

Sunset Crater National Monument

Part of what restricts us seeing things is that we have an expectation about what we will see, and we are actually perceptually restricted by that expectation. In a sense, expectation is the lost cousin of attention: both serve to reduce what we need to process of the world “out there.” Attention is the more charismatic member, packaged and sold more effectively, but expectation is also a crucial part of what we see. ~ Alexandra Horowitz, in The Art of Looking

Sunset Crater National Monument

Lava flows and twisted Ponderosa Pines © 2014 Bo Mackison

Most of the lava in this region is black, bubbly basalt, called a’a.

A’a starts as hot lava that erupts from the Earth’s surface. Contact with the atmosphere or water immediately cools the hot lava and begins a rapid hardening process.

See the dark horizontal cave? It is a called a vesicle.

When flowing lava was still hot and fluid, gas bubbles formed. Once the lava flow surface cooled,  then hardened, the gasses were trapped beneath the crust and formed a bubble. The lava hardened around the gases and a cave (or vesicle) was born.

Sunset Crater National Monument

“Much of the ground surface is covered by lava flows or deep volcanic cinder deposits; at first glance, the landscape still appears stark and inhospitable. But look again – within the dramatic geologic features are small islands of pine and aspen trees, desert shrubs, and wildflowers. These provide small but unique habitats for wildlife as well. Slowly but surely, life returns.”~ from Sunset Crater National Park publication

Sunset Crater National Monument

Cinder trail scattered with Ponderosa pine litter — nature’s litter – layers upon the ashy earth.

To walk this trail is to walk in a sacred space. Nature left to its own. Both the struggle and the survival.

Sunset Crater National Monument

Sunset Crater is one of the younger volcanoes in the contiguous United States and was named for its brilliantly colored frothy textures on the cone.

The last eruption took place sometime between about 1080 and 1150 AD, only 900 or so years ago.

Sunset Crater National Monument

Searing basalt lava and hot gases erupted from Sunset Crater Volcano.

The cinders on the rim of the cinder cone, bathed in these vapors, chemically reacted with them to form iron oxide, sulfur compounds, and gypsum The result — red, yellow, and purple basalt cinders which still color the Sunset Crater Volcano’s summit.

Chemical interactions, gases, fire and heat, a crust of ash and a’a. And still, the trees and plants grow. Life.

That’s the history and geology.

Next post is Part II. A different take on tenacity.

 

On the Edge of the Canyon – Flowing Water, Glowing Trees

Living on the Edge © 2014 Bo Mackison

Living on the Edge © 2014 Bo Mackison

“You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge.” ~ Danielle LaPorte