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Oh Lord, won't you buy me a
20-tooth gear
(Words by Rob as developed on the Schaefer Scrunge, Day 5
of Disraeli Gears - bicycling the White Rim.
It is sung to the tune "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin):
Click
here to see Disraeli
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
My friends all run 19's, I must change I fear
Working hard on this old, uranium trail -
No sweat do I feel
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
(Puff, gasp; grinding, sand-laden gears squeak in the background.)
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
My knees don't like this 24, no matter my tears
Curt is on top, Harry in pursuit, the grade goes without heel
All of my half a century of high mileage grind do I feel
Hey Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
(Wheeze, argh; crunching rocks, poofing dust and squeaking gears
form the background 'vocals'.)
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
The lactic acid is overflowing down there
Old sol is drilling holes in my skin, I fear
If only I can make it to that shade respite up here -
Say Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
(Gasping, hacking; scuffing sounds of friction and gription breaking
from the knobby rear tire.)
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
Below, sounds of the chase jeep grow near
Will it catch me as I jam for that nonexistent gear
I can beat this 1500' angle of repose and the heat, though it sears
Hell, Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
(Yips of yahoo as I reach for those big chainrings when we reach
the Navajo Sandstone layer and the trail angle drops to 4%.)
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
6 miles of click and a half gain brings nary a fear
There's a chance for big chainrings, right here
We've ridden the Scrunge, all without beer
But, Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 20-tooth gear
My friends all run 19's, I must change I fear
Working hard on this old, uranium trail
No sweat do I feel
Yet Lord, don't forget to buy me a 20-tooth gear
Poems from the Jarbidge 2000
in assorted styles, by Rob
Click
here to see the Jarbidge 2000
SIX TO JARBIDGE (Day 1; acrostic
style - title makes first letter of line, vertically)
Six people joining, and just two tents
Introductions and then we went
X-ing into where Tsawaawbitts said we be sent
Talking round the happy hour
Our wilderness home we devour
Jarbidge is our acrostic duty to rhyme
And searching for Hummer Spring this time
Ribald jokes of T.P., just to be kind
Before long, we searched for trail sign
In the Jarbidge, wandering is sublime
Don't come to join us, cause we will whine
Good it is to have somewhere free of population slime
Experience vicariously, if you so incline
A RUBAIYAT OF CAMP CREEK
(Day 2)
A lounging rubaiyat at Camp Creek
Where George has paused to repair his feet
Bracketed by bounding volcanic hoodoos
This Jarbidge hiking is beyond neat
TIC (Day 3; acrostic with visual
structure to show movement)
Tic lighlegs it across my calf
Immerses herself, head-first by half
Conjure up this vision, with sage to your ass
Tic lighlegs it across my calf
Introduces herself and decides to stay
Consumes too much, then goes...
.... away
LOST (Day 4; Haiku - the haiku poem breaks at
five syllables, seven, and again five)
Lost, North of Camp Creek
Canyon, haunting Raven soars
Search, to reunite
Off route tour, to where
Discover country superb
All done off the course
VERDANT RING (Day 5; Rubaiyat)
Emerald Lake glows a turquoise hue
Hulking Mary, we're always with you
Round the alpine loop we lope
Returning to camp as sky goes black from blue
Cinching The Loop (Day 6, Haiku - sort of)
Hike over Right Fork
Undulating without torque
Wildness!, our retort
With Delight we see
Wandering Brent, before we
We all are with glee
Here, cinching the loop
Out, tomorrow we will troop
Leaving wildness loot
No delight to go
You, who know wildness, you know
In the wild, one grows!
Selway Somewhere Serenade
by Rob
Click
here to see the report about the Selway Somewhere Serenade
Selway Somewhere Serenade?
Wildness, Lochsa ramblings?
Exchange for money? No, no trade!
Where in the Selway? You ask
Bitterroot Mountains? Trammeling?
I will not tell, lest wilderness spirit take me to task!
Hotsprings capers, known by few
So lovely, so hot you'll poach
Ranger Sarah, George and llamas, here's to you.
Blackberry, Service, Thimble too
Loads of berries, on trails they encroach
Selway country, here's eating you.
Round the circle, shade of Redcedar
At happy hour, we burble
No tent poles, and who cares to be the leader?
What's that, a boulder in the lake?
Sounds of gurgle
It's Ms. Moose, and she's no fake!
Black Bear prints, deep in the dust
Eating berries, I assume
On a 15 mile tent pole quest, a mind is free of rust.
Moose guzzling from the hotsprings
Wild experiences bloom
In the Selway, wildness is a love thing!
A Ruba'iyat about the Crestival
by Rob
Arriving in the rubiginous sunshine,
I relished in the rubric of the Rubys without
mankind.
Rolling the wondrous, rubescent Crestival, I
enjoyed a wilderness festival;
You might someday revere these wilds, then write your own Crestival
Ruba'yat, if you are so inclined!
Click
here to see: Hiking the middle section of the Ruby Mountains Crest
Click
here to see: the Consummate Rubaiyat Crestival
Note: The ruba'i, plural rubaiyat, is a two-lined stanza of Persian poetry. Ruba'i is an Arabic word meaning "four-some." It was a very popular form of poetry in the 11th and 12th century in Persia. The first, second and last of the four hemistiches must rhyme, while the third does not need to rhyme with the other three.
Poems from Cedar Mesa Somewhere
by Rob
Click
here to see the 'poetic' report about the Cedar Mesa Somewhere
Timoring Towhee (Day 3; Haiku)
(the haiku poem breaks at five syllables, seven, and again five)
Timoring Towhee
Kicks out bugs within our sight
"Towhee!" said with glee
Murmuring - "Wildness delight!"
Ancient Way
Hard boot, hard trail
it's not the Ancient way.
Hiking through graupel and hail
We dream we could, yet will not stay.
We see etched petroglyphs, pictographs,
exploring pueblos, ancient ones.
Perhaps, this might be our epitaph
today, our wilderness moniker is "having fun!"
Pictos, petros, rambling art?
At first, just squiggles.
Where's a story, not just a part?
Perceptions comical, we revert to giggles.
Lines so pure
and handprints slapped.
Chiseled features, by hands sure,
atheistic, artistic, inscriptions rapt.
We hike into and then out of
canyons cluttered, middens of yore.
Pausing, we languish, relish songs of Mourning Dove,
canyon bend, more ancestral work by those who trod before.
Adobe fingerprints
arching alcoves.
Broken shards glint
in ancient treasure troves.
Scurrying reptiles
and lizards leaping.
Broken matates in piles,
near granaries, for corn keeping.
Four friends packing
reflections reticulated.
Clear water not lacking,
we won't end up desiccated.
Ravens spiral,
floating buzzard hawk too.
Sun slips, after awhile
giving canyon colors a wondrous hue.
Coursing dust devil, Redtail too
sacred cows make the best hamburger
I'll relish in wilderness, will you?
vegetarians rejoice, share the Limburger.
Wondrous things we see,
and ancient way beckons.
Comrades are we,
returning, we reckon.....
Shallow End Of The Gene Pool
Ode to gw bush-leaguers...
from the shallow end of the gene pool.
Our public lands they rape, they beleaguer
doing industries' bidding, an oil man's, miners' tool
The West ain't where you're bound
but where you play, work and stay.
Wall Street Journal in New York. Paris. Moab?
the geographically challenged, sipping eastern lattes.
Every day is Earth Day
when you're dabbling in the dirt.
Contrast corporations, full-spread marketing array
while coating cyanide with money, the future becomes inert.
Everywhere's a boom town
because we're hurtling to 7 billion.
Technology's facade crown
genetically modifying foods, us? Seems vaudevillian.
Is life quality important?
Or is money, power, all!
With greed, population corpulent,
as a species, we're due a long fall.
Bigger homes, families, coffers?
Can economists learn to subtract?
Imagine what a sense of space and place offers
wildness has no value, if not in a stack?
Make kindness our religion!
replace "faiths" that marginalize?
Which urge overpopulation as mission
all this amounts to genocide?
Ultra conservative with the compassion!
Corporate "religion" shoved down throats?
Star wars frenzy, our futures look ashen.
Humans starve while republicans bloat.
ORVs, the blue smoke hoard, scourge to our public lands
these, if gw was a conservative, he would prohibit.
These wasteful chainsaws on water, snow, dirt be banned,
air, water, sound, visual pollution he would inhibit!
Coyote canyon, raucous raven, spiraling buzzard hawk too?
keeping Mother Nature pristine is not a wall street aspiration.
gw folk will take the resources, money, give future toxic brew,
Sentient citizens fear the result will be an aberration.
Take my advise I'm not using it
imply the rich, supply-side cabinet
Big SUV, big family, big oil, big hypocrite
If a citizen of earth, please be a big reticent!
Is the glass half full?
could it be a matter of perception?
Dormant pawns of right-wing pull?
Consider the here, the now, the next election!
The shallow end of the gene pool?
Money around republicans' waists is a green belt?
Over wilderness, open space, oil men do drool
and accumulating social/ecological impact felt. :-(
Rob’s Autobiography
in 5 Short Chapters
I walk down the trail.
There is a deep hole in the path.
I fall in.
I am lost, I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
2
I walk down the trail.
There is a deep hole in the path.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in, again.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes forever to discover
a way out.
3
I walk down the trail.
There is a deep hole in the path.
I see it there.
I still fall in. It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.
4
I walk down the trail.
There is a deep hole in the path.
I walk around it.
5
I walk down the trail with you.
adapted from: There’s a Hole in
My Sidewalk by Portia Nelson
Here's a song from the
"Long Ranger"
report (click here
for the full report):
Esplanade Terrain
- Sung to the tune of "Acid Rain" by
the Austin Lounge Lizards: Highway Cafe of the Damned - 1988 (Sugar Hill Records;
SUG-CD 3901)
Off we go, the intrepid eleven;
As we grunt into Snake Gulch heaven.
While we keep on rolling, Without refrain;
Toward that Esplanade terrain.
Because of monstrous pack weight, we are all in pain;
Packing for 9 days; we do not hike in vain.
On and on we are hauling, toiling;
Thinking Esplanade terrain.
Esplanade, keep on rolling;
As we 11, we are strolling.
While here is great, we all exclaim;
Where's that Esplanade terrain?
Seeing pictos in the shelters;
And some petros, scattered helter-skelter.
This is just exactly what we came to do;
You cannot imagine doing this, can you?
Some go out Swapp;
To Fredonia it's a quick hop.
The rest remain;
heading to that Esplanade terrain.
Now we are the Magnificent Seven;
In this country like heaven.
Marching down rock slabs;
Just South of Bigotville, Kanab.
Cow fondlers and tree huggers;
Without Ed Hatch water, all would be strugglers.
And against the Zane Grey sky;
Neither has a reply.
The Lost Ranger trail 41, where is it?
Looking, scanning, we could have a fit.
No Esplanade on which to be roaming;
At the mouth, we are foaming.
Esplanade, keep on rolling;
As the rain, it is falling.
And with the sun, it's like a flame;
On this Esplanade terrain.
Walking around slickrock canyons, without a handrail;
Inching, striding, promenading - mostly like a snail.
Esplanade, keep on rolling;
As the rain, it is falling.
When we came to Lawson - thought we were half-way;
Without the clouds & showers we would not have survived the day.
Esplanade, keep on rolling;
As the wind, it is blowing.
After 13 on the Ranger and only 3/4 done;
If not for rain-filled potholes, we'd be raisins drying in the sun.
Esplanade, keep on rolling;
As the sun, it is glowing.
So, thyne Jugs of Jeremy* did fall from the sky;
We made camp on the slickrock, and did not fry.
Esplanade, keep on rolling;
As the shadows they are growing.
And, we did speak of the scrolls of Jeremy;
Up on this gentle layer, so much better than hegemony.
It's delightfully deluxe, we all acclaim;
This glorious Esplanade terrain.
Well, the rain provided rescue;
While we enjoyed a panorama view.
Respite from the desiccated trudge;
Over all this world we judge.
Esplanade, keep on rolling;
As the sun, it is glowing.
Even with the sun, hot as a flame;
I love this Esplanade terrain.
First foreigners of the trip today;
We hope they do, then they go away.
At the Mountain Sheep;
All those frogs go "bleat."
Too soon we are climbing;
Out of the canyon, I am rhyming.
A report of our adventure, I sing the refrain;
About that wondrous Esplanade terrain.
The "real" lyrics by the Lizards go like this:
Acid Rain, keep on falling;
while her name, I am calling.
I walk the shores, of Lake Champlain;
in the placid acid rain.
Walked together through the forest of dying trees;
tasted the sulfuric acid on the April breeze.
went canoeing on the lake, fish were floating by;
she read me her manifesto, I had no reply ...
Click here for Long Ranger:
Kanab Creek Wilderness: Snake Gulch to Sowats Point, 2006
A Mountain Valentine
by Kathleen King, from "Famous Potatoes,
Southeast Idaho Poety"
Blue Scarab Press, Pocatello, Idaho, 1986
A haze, sunset reddens the mountain
to the west snow breaks
into lace beneath her skis
like the Valentine poems she writes
each year the lines deepen
in her face the eyes darken.
She telephones last year's Valentine.
Long distance as they say
remember me and I love you
a thousand miles and six months apart
voices electric through copper wires
remember skin and chocolate
Sunday mornings of strawberries
the lazy kisses and tangle of legs.
Late that night she cries for
his hand on her naked back
the way she curved to him
their faces turned toward each other
when his skylight glowed morning
with rumbled hair and bare feet
he stood at the top of the stairway
she at the bottom. Both wished.
She steps into a cold red dawn.
In Watermelon Sugar
The Forgotten Works
Excerpts from a book by Richard Brautigan
In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon
sugar. I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.
Wherever you are, we must do the best we can. It is so far to travel, and we have
nothing here to travel, except watermelon sugar. I hope this works out.
I live in a shack near iDEATH. I can see iDEATH out the window. It is beautiful. I
can also see it with my eyes closed and touch it. Right now it is cold and turns like
something in the hand of a child. I do not know what that thing could be.
There is a delicate balance at iDEATH. It suits us.
The shack is small but pleasing and comfortable as my life and made from pine,
watermelon sugar and stones as just about everything here is.
Our lives we have carefully constructed from watermelon sugar and then traveled
to the length of our dreams, along roads lined with pines and stones.
This morning there was a knock at the door. I could tell who it was by the way
they knocked, and I heard them coming across the bridge.
They stepped on the only board that makes any noise. They always step on it. I
have never been able to figure this out. I have thought a great deal about why they always
step on that same board, how they cannot miss it, and now they stood outside my door,
knocking.
I did not acknowledge their knocking because I just wasn't interested. I did not want
to see them. I knew what they would be about and did not care for it.
Finally they stopped knocking and went back across the bridge and they, of course,
stepped on the same board: a long board with the nails not lined up right, built years ago
and no way to fix it, and then they were gone, and the board was silent.
I can walk across the bridge hundreds of times without stepping on that board, but
Margaret always steps on it.
I looked forward to seeing Pauline and .... we might go for a long walk, maybe along
the aqueduct.
Then maybe we would go to her shack for the night or stay at iDEATH or come back up
here, if Margaret wouldn't knock the door down the next time she came by.
The sun was going down over the Piles in the Forgotten Works. They turned back far
beyond memory and glowed in the sundown.
We made a long and slow love. A wind came up and the windows trembled slightly, the
sugar set fragilely ajar by the wind.
I liked Pauline's body and she said that she liked mine, too, and we couldn't think
of anything to say.
The wind suddenly stopped and Pauline said, "What's that?"
"It's the wind."
I spent a HALF AN HOUR or so pacing back and forth on the bridge, but I did not
once find that board that Margaret always steps on, that board she could not miss if
all the bridges in the world were put together, formed into one single bridge, she'd step
on that board.
Five Poems by Edson Fichter, "Dr. Pahsimeroi"
(Edson was one of my mentors at ISU.
As a graduate student, he worked with Aldo Leopold. He studied Pronghorn Antelope in the Pahsimeroi
Valley of Idaho for 25 years and considered himself "a student of animal behavior,"
never allowing anyone to call him an "expert." Here's to you, Edson.)
from: "Pahsimeroi, Land Beyond Words" by Edson Fichter
Blue Scarab Press, Pocatello, Idaho, 1988
Eden Beyond
As in the shadowed afternoon
The hidden thrush
Must flute its lyric spell -
Symphonic now
With all the languages of love -
So must I listen,
Lost in wonder and in longing
On the fragile edge of Rapture.
Before the Night
Walk with me among the vesper hills
To some forever-listening place
Where thrush song will be more
- - than thrushes singing
Because of evening radience on your face.
Forgotten then the masks of daily work,
The words we weave -
- - to keep the heart concealed.
At one with earth's -
- - transcending stillness, we
Can know the towering gift of self revealed.
Pahsimeroi
No wilderness of my remembered years
As sweetly sang to me -
- - as this possessive land -
The night-sad voices of its haunting winds
That only searching hearts can understand.
Too late I came to consummate a bond
With every sensuous meaning
- - of its perfumed air,
Its brooding slopes and secret valleys that
Will never feel my shadow moving there;
Too late for total being. Yet I know
These hills will never let me go.
Two Loves
I would go back to the trail,
To the silent hills and the coyote's wail
And the cold stars over our bedding place.
I would go back to the windy ridge
--- and the gray face
Fighting the slanted snow,
I would go back - if you would go.
I would go back to the lonely plains,
To the prairie grass and the sudden rains
And the shout of thunder across the night.
I would go back to the willow marsh
--- and the flight
of mallards dropping low.
I would go back - if you would go.
I would go back to the osprey's cry,
To the long canoe and the endless sigh
Of the wind in a yellow pine.
I would go back to an autumn woods
---- and the line
Of flight of a crow.
I would go back - if you would go.
Evensong
When thunderheads no more for me
Are piled above a summer afternoon
And silence is more than silence
Whispered in a thrush's twilight song -
When the smoke of countless campfires
Is lost among the stars
And all of love no more remembered -
I will turn towards the mountains.
Bittersweet
(From: Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Sister Sweetly)
A little light looks through her bedroom
window
She dances and I dream
she's not so far as she seems (or
perhaps much farther)
Of Brighter meadows, melting sunsets
Her hair blowing in the breeze
And she can't see me watching
And I'm thinking love.
It's bittersweet, more sweet than bitter,
Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender.
I'm older now. I work in the city.
We live together.
But it's different from my dream.
Morning light fills the room.
I rise...she pretends she's sleeping.
Are we everything we wanted?
And I'm thinking love....
It's bittersweet, more sweet than bitter,
Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender.
I know we don't talk about it...we
don't tell each other.
All the little things that we need.
We work our way around each other.
As we tremble and we bleed.
It's bittersweet, more sweet than bitter,
Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender.
The Rise and Fall of the Anasazi:
Why Should We Care What Happened to Them?
taken from: "The Summoning God" by Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W.
Michael Gear, 2000, New York: Forge Books
Text below © copyright 2000 by Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael
Gear
Click
here to see the WV specialty page about: Pictographs and Petroglyphs
During the eleventh century,
a high desert valley in northwestern New Mexico named Chaco Canyon became the cultural
center for a people we call the Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloans. Their culture encompassed
over 115,000 square miles and included approximately 100,000 people. The Anasazi built
five-story buildings with over eight hundred rooms in them; they charted the solstices
and equinoxes, the cycles of stars, even the 18.6-year cycle of the moon; they established
far-flung trade routes that brought them scarlet macaws and cast copper bells from Mexico,
seashells from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf Coast, the buffalo hides from the northern plains;
and they engineered a road system that would be unequaled in North America for seven hundred
years. But by A.D. 1400, they had all but vanished.
Perhaps the two questions archaeologists are most often asked
are: "What happened to the Anasazi?" and "What do they have to teach modern people?"
Though both questions are linked, the latter is the more important, because the answer
bears directly upon the survival of our own civilization.
Around A.D. 1130 the climate began to change. In Europe it
would become known as The Little Ice Age, but the Anasazi knew only that a new drought
had begun. Not in their wildest imaginations could they have guessed that the period of
deep cold and reduced rainfall would last for more than three hundred years. The count
of tree pollen in the archaeological record drops dramatically during this period - meaning
they cut down every tree they could find to clear fields for crops, to build their homes,
cook their food, fire their pottery, light their kivas, and keep warm during the bitter
winters. When the trees ran out and the soil became depleted, they imported many of the
basic items of their lives - wood, pottery, food, and animal hides. But, in the end, not
even that would save them.
To understand what was happening to the Anasazi, we need to
look no further than our own lives. Since the arrival of Europeans in North American we
have cut down 90 percent of our forests. Most of the wood we use to build our houses
comes from forests hundreds of miles away. We import a great deal of our meat, fruits,
and vegetables, often from distances like South America and Hawaii. Much of the oil
that fuels our automobiles and heats our homes is shipped from the Middle East. Why?
Because we, too, have over-utilized our resources and are now relying upon trade to
provide us with many of our most basic needs. But the parallels to our own time do not
end there.
In 1900, 80 percent of the people in the United States lived
in rural areas. Today, 80 percent live in cities. In the 1200's, as the shortages grew
and the climate deteriorated, the Anasazi abandoned their small towns and moved to large
pueblos. Let us make this point clearly, before A.D. 1150 there were hundreds of Anasazi
settlements, small and large, scattered across the Colorado Plateau. By A.D. 1400,
there were three: the Hopi villages in Arizona, and the villages of the Zuni,
and Acoma, in New Mexico. The rest of the traditional Anasazi homeland was a vast
no-man's-land.
How could such a thriving and sophisticated culture be reduced
to a mere handful of survivors? Despite the romantic image that the Puebloan peoples
were peaceful farmers, we have abundant archaeological evidence to demonstrate that during
the thirteenth century the Anasazi were engaged in brutal annihilation-oriented warfare.
Massacres, scalping, slavery, torture, and even cannibalism occurred.
The vicious cycle that led to the rise and fall of their
civilization has become clear as a result of excavation of hundreds of their towns:
the rise began with a warm wet climatic episode that resulted in a period of affluence
and scientific achievement. With the affluence came swift population growth. In the
process of feeding their people, they exhausted the soil, cut down the trees, over-hunted
the animals. Then the climate changed. When their crops wouldn't grow, they expanded
their trade routes. When their trade routes were cut, they turned to warfare to keep
them open. When they couldn't keep them open, they took what they needed from their
closest neighbors. They must have fought to protect their homes from their victims'
wrath, then the fight became a struggle to stay alive.
We leave it up to you to decide where in that cycle our modern
civilization stands, but several things are clear: we've over-utilized our resources,
the climate is changing, and we've already begun to "fight."
End of quote from "The Summoning God"
by Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear
Despite what king george says or demonstrates, please show some
restraint - Click
here to see the effects of and what you can do about reckless population
growth and consumption.
And, Click here for
a link describing the relationship between population growth, consumption,
and the death of nature.
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