Selections From

The Salmonberry Chronicles

ROUGH CUT,

Book Two

middle distance—painters and photographers are concerned with rendering this

the nun's tail—a porno?

if something is not understandable, that is, un-understandable, would it not then be "standable"?

one man's music is another man's noise

as I grow older I shall enjoy reading William Faulkner more than in the past, I suspect, especially books like Soldier's Pay and The Wild Palms. Am presently reading volume two of Blotner's great, long, definitive biography, volume one being unavailable at Seattle Public Library. [Later I bought it, when it was remaindered]

preparing for my fiftieth birthday. What hard work!

title, "Private Factotum"—a pun there, but a little hard to find

am writing like crazy, up here at the river, being steadily attacked by manure flies, alternating with clouds of mosquitoes

title, "Slapping Flies and Applauding Mosquitoes." Cf. the sound of one hand clapping? With mosquitoes, one hand won't do the job

it becomes increasingly unclear to me, each passing year, where to draw the line between fiction (the first love of my younger days) and that type of autobiography which makes use of fictional devices but is of such alarming first-hand importance and prevalence that I must disguise the extent to which it is "real" and the new love of my middle years, namely, to tell all, whether it hurts (me) or not. I am, after all, fairly indestructible, at least in a moral-social, societal sense

the heart of the lettuce is bitter and hard

wild sweet peas do not grow very high off the ground and consequently often are trampled underfoot when somebody walks through the tall mid-summer grasses. They cover the pink end of the spectrum and are shaped like individual Japanese fans, very small and asymmetrical, in the way that kidney beans are. Pale and pretty, in a greatly understated way, they are easily missed, as they never reach more than a foot or so from the tangle of waist-high grasses in which they grow

. . . where my car crouched waiting for me in the halflight, like some great slumbering prehistoric beast. I felt lucky when it decided not to turn on me. Such was the mood of being trapped out of time that the evening had left me with. The crackle of the car's radio was what, finally, returned me to the ubiquitous civilization of the Twentieth Century. > unescapable reality of the ever-present Twentieth Century, and I felt all the worse for it

otters in the river, a family, all playing where I wanted to fish and emitting communal noises. They were well aware of me

Tacoma reminds me of Stockton, California, what with its pall of low-hanging smoke and the heavy heat. Similarity between the small truck gardens of Puyallup and the vast irrigated oasis of the San Joaquin Valley is one of scale. The sky, the sun, the relentless la belle dame san merci. Tacoma proves its age and squalor with petty industry, and in contrast Seattle is indeed "most liveable," as the national magazines now proclaim it. Tacoma reminds me of Illinois, Indiana, S. Michigan. Never forget to be grateful for where you live

would you believe it, 98 degrees? One point short of the all-time record for hereabouts. It is reported to have hit 100 at Sea-Tac [airport] and 99 some places in the city. Our poor old cat, Solly, a Siamese, is stretched out full length on the tepid linoleum, seeking coolness. He mews his wan lament, "Make it cooler." Would that I could. Even to write these words is some sort of agony

temperature dropped to 96 degrees, then to 91. Today promises to be cooler—mid 80s

title, "Barns I Have Known." Sounds like a grade-school essay, I know. I have grown aware that a number of old barns I have enjoyed seeing are no longer with us. They have toppled over. I have photographed the Stillaguamish Valley in my amateurish way for ten years now. Lately, I have found myself staring at some weathered old boards on the edge of collapse, or just having collapsed. There must be something more than the compulsion to record decay, to freeze sagging barns on a cheap frame of film as their angles and curves grow more sloping, prior to complete failure. They are architecturally visually exciting objects. They fill the frame of the solemn negative in original ways, as they defy gravity, albeit briefly. Just as soon as the building becomes really interesting, down it goes. Then it is meaningless kindling. You come upon the heap and know you have missed your opportunity.

Once I stopped at Cicero in between showers on a stormy twilight and took pictures of an old silo leaning like Pisa beside a weathered barn. Both soon toppled over. What remained was burned to get rid of it. The camera and lens that took the picture I've traded away. The negative remains'; it is a bit thin and hard to print. The over-exposed backlighting requires many minutes of exposure called "burning in" to obtain detail. And the foreground has a tendency to go to black and lose its details. Both barn and silo are forgotten by nearly everyone but me. Yet they live on my photographer's negative. The photographer sees only what he wants to see. He is oblivious to everything else—which may include the heart of the matter. It passes him by.

Another pair of old buildings I photographed at Hazel in a storm of wet snow, one December. They too have disappeared. They leaned forward and their angle grew progressively more acute. Then one day, like an old friendship, they collapsed. Perhaps the weight of the snow brought them down. In spring, with the snow gone, they revealed themselves as a nameless pile of boards, pressed flat. I have eight good frames immortalizing them.

All the above reflections brought on by my discovering yet another collapsed barn that I failed to capture while I could

though my book, "Country/City: A Book of Days," was completed a month ago, the adventures that inspired it haven't ended. They go on, as does the compulsion to record them. Or is it more that old threads continue to unwind, their loose ends twisting?

the goldfish children are dead, perhaps murdered. One morning we found the pool torn up, the vegetation uprooted. Well, in the past dogs have entered the yard early in the morning and had themselves a swim, leaving behind a murky pool, the water lilies all torn up. The goldfish disappeared, but showed up after a few days, blithely swimming around, after the muddy water settled and cleared.

This time the destruction was thorough. The lilies, which had just begun to unfold their gentle white blossoms, were broken and shredded. When the water cleared, all five goldfish were gone. Where have they gone? Were they eaten? We are left with a sense of outrage—along with pain, bewilderment, loss. Even though they were dumb, cold-blooded creatures, they mattered to us. We bought them, fed them, watched them grow. They are children, innocent. We had overseen their welfare for years. We had been careful not let them become too tame, for fear that somebody's children or cats might snatch them up. But in spite of our vigilance, they got got.

Who committed this dastardly, early-morning crime? A heron? We don't have them, here in the city. A fish-eating duck that pursued them right to the bottom? Perhaps raccoons? Garth thinks so, and I bet he's right

work continues on the book-length poem, "The Redwood Traverse," which nears its end, but goes very slowly at this point, which is the intensely lyrical (and somewhat directionless) fifth and final section

hot. All days about 85 degrees, beneath a relentless sun. Have fished but three hours in the past three weeks. The month goes out in a blaze

"The River Anodyne"—new title for "Country/City?" [Think not]

the worst thing a man can grow into is a pompous, humorless, old fool

no, the worst thing is to become a religious person. Selfish, a terrible snob, cruelty to others, etc.

Faulkner, talking to Blotner upon the birth of F.'s second grandchild, a boy, says, paraphrasing and perhaps improving on Herodotus: "Those who decide to have children give hostages to fortune." Am not sure I understand the meaning of this, but perhaps it is one of those things that, over the years, clarifies itself from experience. Or perhaps it doesn't. [It doesn't. It may be intentionally obtuse. Faulkner well might do this]

from across the street comes the sound of baseball being played on TV. A few clouds remain low on the horizon, resting on the Olympics. My study remains in the low 70s until around two in the afternoon, at which time the air begins to tighten, the temperature to climb hourly. In the evening, everybody is as lightly dressed as he or she can get away with, in that person's scheme of himself. As soon as the sun lowers, the temperature begins to sink. The houses remain badly over-heated, especially those with Western or Southwestern exposures. Some wear supplementary blinds outside their windows. At eleven, the temperature is till in the 70s outside, worse within, and moths are battering at the porchlights and windows with undrawn shades. By morning the interiors will have cooled slightly and the heating-up process begins again

August first, and we can now carefully pick our way a third of the distance across the river from gravel beach to gravel shoal. Downstream, salmon are splashing in the heads of the few pools that are left, and most fishers have gone over to the dryfly—in wild hopes of getting a steelhead to take, when nothing else works

I think it was children who got the goldfish. Norma believes it was a rat, ugh. Garth continues to hold to the raccoon theory. Our usual consensus

Neil Young, "I waited for you/All winter long./It's all illusion, anyway."

". . . On the lake/The deep forbidden lake/The old folks go gliding by." What is the significance of the lake? Students?

some of the bunchberry at Cicero is already showing its scarlet accent. In the city, another kind of dogwood shrub is flowering for the second time this year. Along the bough are large clusters of white berries. To me, they look very much like waxberries. Can bunchberry do so much, all at one time? Apparently so

my wife, the librarian, found me volume one of Blotner's Faulkner, so I can read about his early years, those up through the mid-1930s

a beautiful day, up at the river, the temperature in the low 70s. Spent more than an hour pleasantly dryfly fishing with Jack Whitesel, age 71, and Ken McLeod, soon to be 81. Me, the kid of the lot—not yet 50. No rises, except for a salmon or two, plus one humpy splash a yard or so below my floating fly.

Ken reports seeing an albino swallow. It was pure white and not a dove. In the evening, he says, it flits around the Flats, picking up insects. I must keep my eye peeled for it

there are two types of men—liars and dreamers

mosquitoes—up at the river and in town, too. The trick in catching one is to wait for it to sink its proboscis into your skin and, at the precise moment it becomes impaled, helpless, its barbels engaged, the creature cannot easily resume flight and you can crush it with a slap. But you are bitten. That is the bloody tradeoff.

And in town we have so many now because of the missing goldfish children, who used to gorge on the larvae. Now we become part of the foodchain, where it used to end below us

my father has simplified life to the point where it barely exists to any degree of richness or complexity

a fly swung at and missed becomes more feisty. It circles once, tightly, then rushes in anew, ever ready, however, to take evasive flight again. Similarly, a gray squirrel, when you stamp your foot at it, feigns a charge and sometimes executes it, rather than runs away. This behavior, in both instances, must be lodged in the genes

a high light mackerel sky, like stretch marks on a woman's abdomen

steelhead fry flee from the approach of a shadow. They sense it, or else see it with acute rearward vision, and dart out to new, safer locations. This means swifter, more broken, more streamy water, with a greater number of small stones scattered beneath

poetry revision is the mastery of applied suggestion, serendipity, accident, "openness." Grateful to Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town for these ideas

Faulkner's "It takes you 200 rejections before you get up to zero." c.1921, or so

does it take a sharp pencil to draw a fine distinction?

merganser flying upriver with a voice like that of a rusty hinge

on why women like R remain with the men who on occasion "push them around" or else irregularly beat them—it is a highly personalized form of attention. This is preferred to no attention at all. Thus, what she and the others can't stand is the form of neglect that comes from being ignored

terrific thunderstorm yesterday morning at 8, with bowling reverberations up and down the river valley, which awoke my wife and me. We couldn't go back to sleep, so we lay abed, listening to the crashes. We could see the flashes through our clenched eyelids. She counted them and said they were four to five miles away. They seemed much closer

leaving the Island Crossing yesterday, a quick rain shower hit the hot, dry fields, leaving in the air the smell of an elephant pen

a calico sky

a books of photos on hands, all their dramatic possibilities. Use of backgrounds—trees, breasts, jewelry, etc., highlight sources

am reading a new novel by V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in The River, in which he says, drily, on page 18, "Rich people never forget they are rich."

And from page 27: "You felt like a ghost, not from the past, but from the future. You felt that your life and ambition had already been lived out for you and you were looking at the relics of that life. You were in a place where the future had come and gone." Page 29: "the solitude of my evening was like an ache"

he was in a mood of animated dread

am reading WF's The Wild Palms, 1939, but in an old pocketbook edition, without the Old Man in alternating sections. He is superb, and time does not diminish him

up at the river, rain falling, listening to Mozart on FM, with good reception because of the heavy cloud cover. I should fish, but . . . what the hell

last night there was a terrible headon accident on Highway 530, just opposite us, where the powerlines cross the road, with one fatality, perhaps more. The little foreign car was totally crumpled, beyond recognition (as to manufacture and style)

the salmon-clotted pools

one of those guys who tucks his necktie into the front of his pants

title, "The Man Who Knew What's What"

watched out my river window as a spider trapped a crane fly in its web, then killed and ate it, settling in comfortably to the task and starting with the head. It was all I could do to continue reading my Dickens

I awake in the red dawn knowing precisely where I am and hating it. The main thing wrong with L.A. is that people are compelled to live here for money. It would make a fine wasteland, a site for nuclear waste disposal. . . ."

God isn't dead, he's comatose

I would have sold out long ago, but there weren't any buyers

Pome

"In the morning, you bring me water,

"At noon, a cup of beer.

"Nighttime, pale dry sherry,

"When the twilight thunder's near.

"In turn I give up my organs.

"My liver's first to go.

"Kidneys, spleen, bitter bladder,

"The heart is last, you know.

"I gave you my winter rose.

"You brought me sweet violets,

"Then hammered me with tulips.

"Sighing, I accepted those.

"The heart thuds into silence,

"The soul leaps out of bounds.

"Mind lives in small places,

"Hearing the sound of no-sound.

"All is ether, heaviness,

"No flowers brave the air.

"Birds are baked on branches

"Where flames have left them there.

"God's thrown into prison,

"If he's not lynched tonight,

"He's on the gallows at dawn.

"His face's a terrible sight.

"Yes, it's a terrible thing,

"To see a face so sad.

"God, Joseph, and Mary

"Trying not to be bad.

"The owl moans at midnight,

"The mouse is warm in loam,

"Because of the Magic Fingers,

"The traveler dreams of home.

"Where's the pleasure, where the pain?

"Life begins at morning,

"Over and over.

"It's all done by evening.

"Water, beer, wine

"Organs given, borrowed sleep.

"My love for you is deep.

"Sleep, and all will be fine."

I rather like some of the above

he was so fat, even his shoes felt tight

women must really be dumb to pay any attention to what men tell them

visiting one's enemies (or some unliked relatives) in the hospital—triumphing over their adversity, one's comparative good health, which produces a kind of easy victory over them, undeserved, unworthy

the caddis. One sees them beginning in spring, like bits of twig on the stones, living under water. They grow fast, throughout the summer, and soon become large. Then, all at once, they are gone. I never see the live adults. Where do they go? [I've since found their shucks on rocks and, after having gotten a bug light, I've spotted large orangish adults in large numbers the same month. These are the famed October Caddis that steelhead flytyers imitate and that are so deadly on some rivers, but not here, where there is no abundance

about so many things, I have no answers, only more questions

each year at about this time we have atmospheric inversions, which bring in fog and trap warm air near the ground, producing a soft, diffused, warm twilight, and the famous bloody sunsets of October

our three birches out in front, in town, are copiously dropping their golden leaves

days shortening down noticeably now, with sunset around 6:30, and full dark shortly afterwards, if the skies are cloudy and the light does not linger. But the present inversion continues making flaming sunsets, which make it appear that the end of the world is here

the first rain in 36 days, but not much, just enough to make the roads slippery

we cut firewood all yesterday afternoon, and have filled two large covered woodpiles with alder, one up at the river, the other in our sideyard in the city. We have an additional large alder downed by my son, trimmed and stacked, too green for this winter, but usable for the year to come. It is covered with plastic and waiting by the new road and to be lugged back to town and burned, when the first is gone. Alder that has lain on the ground for even a short length of time—less than a year—will be found to have rotted and be next to useless for burning in the fireplace

an alder will grow from sapling to useable size in about ten years. I've heard that a tree may live for one-hundred years. But around here they get cut down much faster than this. I have the idea that I could manage my land for sustainable production of firewood for my family, even though my land comprises only a half-acre. Yet we must kill a tree in order to have a fire to warm ourselves.

The cutting down of a tree is a holy act, and should not be done wantonly, without good purpose. The bark of the alder is paper-like, resembling that of birches, and this tree must be a distant relative—figuratively, if not biologically. I think of it as the Western Birch. Its leaves say it is not related, however. The shape is different. The bark of the alder is often covered with club moss and lichens. A lichen is an alga and a fungus living together—everybody is doing it, these days—in symbiotic relationship. It is probably the moss and lichen that, when dried and burned, cause my allergy problem. And even handling the green wood will bring on an attack. Funny that I am allergic to one of my favorite trees. The dead leaves produce an excellent mulch. And the wood burns reasonably hot, if it is not too dry. Alder is straight-grained and splits like a dream, usually not too knotty. Here, it grows like a weed, and is considered to be just that, by many of the locals. Yet it is what they burn in their stoves and fireplaces. They should be respectful and grateful to the alder

Americans love to make lists and perform inventories, do they not? Such is the prevalent notion, anyway. The Book of Lists is high on the best-seller "list" and has been for many months. And there have been imitators—some satiric—and spinoffs.

American novels have compulsively included lists, some very long, and often comprise uninteresting assemblages of what in the art world is called "found objects." Writers who do this and come quickly to mind include Faulkner, especially in The Bear; Melville; Fitzgerald, most notably in Jay Gatsby's famous boyhood list of ways to improve himself, and—if I remember correctly—there are lists in Styron, Roth, and Shelby Foote, who was first of all a novelist, before he became entirely a historian

down by the river is a pile of what appears to be apple peelings and pulpy cores, not quite digested, and apparently quickly voided. My first guess was bears

first snow in the mountains, which will doubtlessly melt away and flood the rivers, as it does each year

V.S. Naipaul has two first names generally not known, and, if known, are never pronounced. They are Vidiadhar Surajprasad. Isn't that nice to know?

heavy snow in the mountains about 4k feet. Family and I are snug in the city, a fire in my study this morning and, tonight, another one in the new Preway stove in the livingroom. A knotty piece of five-year old cedar is crackling and exploding as we read. We are coming down with colds. Storms here contain only rain

watching Olivier's production of Chekhov's "Three Sisters" on TV last night and seeing a winter birch forest, with its carpet of leaves much like my alders, I felt right at home, even though in Russia. How alike are my trunks to those faraway birches, which slanting slightly away, their bark smooth and silvery, graceful as dancers. . . .

pnly last summer or spring, I sat outdoors reading Henry James in front of our river place, when a car came down the hill and turned in the direction of the Crabtrees, who were not at home. It then backed up, proceeded slowly down the road, and stopped at my drive. The engine shut off and the occupants remained inside, conferring. All this I noted from over my book.

Two women emerged and slowly bore down on me. I watched them approach, from over my reading glasses. "What's this?" I wondered. Wary, but not hostile, I knew myself able to reach a hostile state in an instant.

A middle-aged woman introduced herself and her daughter. I kept my name to myself, but pretended to rise politely—a lean forward, followed by a settling back in my original position, as though remembering something, then deciding not to do it. The older woman asked if I lived "In this pretty place, year round?" She snuck a sideways glance at my 16-foot Aristocrat travel trailer. I should have said, "Yes," but replied that I lived "year round" in Seattle. I just came up here for a day or two at a time. She asked if they might talk to me for a minute.

I asked if the subject was religion?

They said it was.

I said I would decline.

The middle-aged woman asked if she might ask why.

I replied, "No."

She held out a pamphlet, saying, "I have a booklet here entitled, "Whatever happened to love?"

I said, "No, thank you." I guess I don't care about what happened to the love they are referring to.

They walked away. The car started up. It drove off slowly, in the wont of all cars on this rough road, up the long steep hill, dodging chuckholes, the only way the hill can be driven except by the criminally insane.

I began to wonder, what really did happen to love? The pamphlet was The Watchtower, the publication of The Jehovah's Witnesses. I should have known. They pass it out on streetcorners in the city and wherever else the law didn't forbid, such as out here in the country, where for practical purposes there is no law, and a mile or more often stretches between neighbors. This country is fair hunting for the Godly

title, "Silence and Shadow," from Swann's Way, page 97

odd lines, reproduced in free-association: an uncertain sky/ a sky flecked with crows/ charred crows, wildly sailing/storm-tossed sky, ever changing/ the sky tossing and scrambling its crows/ crows hurling down curses/ a cursed sky, or curse-ed sky/ unreflecting crows mirrored below

aliens in hard hats are tearing down the Whitman bridge. This is to make way for a new open cement bridge, with a wide approach to accommodate logging trucks, prior to the biggest local clearcutting effort in history. Gave them my country-friendly wave; they returned it with hard eyes

the alders do nothing special in the fall. Their leaves, I mean. they just release and fall, with no great colors

ah, the coyote has a hard life. Nobody likes him, and he must range far to find food. He eats a lot of mice, moles, rabbits, but when he finds some chickens, out come the shotguns, poor guy. He is a clever and dexterous animal, a real survivor. Farmers soon give up on guns and resort to poison baits

This is often a harsh and cruel world. My old fishing friend, Bill Tolle, had a small tractor tip over on him, November 28, a year ago. His hip was shattered, his knee badly injured. Today, nearly a year later and nine operations afterwards, he walks slowly, with a metal crutch. He is 39 years old. His hip and leg are fifty percent recovered, he figures.

He is scheduled for another operation, December 3. And yet another in February. More stretch out into the future. Even so, his disability will remain at about fifty percent, he says, but he will some day be able to give up the crutch, perhaps using a cane or, with great good luck, nothing at all.

An independent cuss, and a businessman, he has drawn social security for much of the past year. This is a considerable indignity and an insult to his pride. He is in constant pain. This is hard for the rest of us to imagine. He has developed the personality of the invalid, complete with the injured's paranoia. He says people have changed their attitude towards him, and reminds me of the concept of the survival of the fittest, which he thinks may lie behind their attitude. Animals, he adds, will turn against an injured member of their species and kill it. He believes people may want to do the same thing to him. I cannot sensibly argue against this, but doubt it.

He was a graphic artist, a landscape gardener, a lot of things, for he got easily bored with his different occupations and was constantly seeking new ones, moving on. He is from Oregon—his car still bears an Oregon license plate. I saw it parked at Fortson, when his wife came from Everett to pick him up at dark. Earlier, she had dropped him off for some fishing. His driver's license was suspended after his injury, and he is dependent upon her and others for what he easily and thoughtless did for himself, not long ago. He talks about going back to Oregon and starting up a Chevrolet franchise. Among the myriad things he did in the past was operate a new car business.

Tonight I left him leaning on his crutch, in the dark, in the rain, way off in the woods. His wife would soon arrive, he assured me. I felt guilty, driving away and leaving him alone in the dark and the rain. I wish Bill well. Right now he is walking a fine line between self-pity and being the old independent cuss I enjoyed. I respect his ambition and his pride. Also, his love of fishing, which parallels my own. I hope time will heal his mind, along with his body, but I fear it won't. [He recovered remarkably, and I know a lot of hard, painful work was involved. His limp is scarcely noticeable, twelve years later]

what a joy, being alone up at the river, last night, and again this morning, a splendid day, with a strong sun and sparkling blue skies. The only trouble was, last night the Crabtrees left their two dogs at home and went away, and the black Lab barked at the wind and moving shadows cast by the trees. He is quite a stupid dog, unlike his mother, the shepherd, and it is impossible to see her genes or influence in him. I think maybe Crabtree was putting me on

The bitch shepherd I am slowly seducing. She has promise. She holds back. The first time I approached her, it was with some leftover beef stew on a paper plate. After she ate it, she tried to carry the plate away, and I had to chase after her until she dropped it. [I'm not quite sure why I did this, unless it was to keep Crabtree from discovering that I was feeding his dog for nefarious purposes.]

This morning I gave the dog the egg smear from my breakfast plate. I held the plate in my hand, all the while, and when she closed her small front teeth over it, after most the yoke was gone, and tried to make off with it, I hung on, whispering firmly, "No, no."

Afterwards, out in the no-mans-land of the community road, where I brought my aluminum lawnchair to read in the sun, she cosied over and sat down, while I read Proust and drank the last of my coffee. From time to time I scratched her ears and finally totally corrupted her by tickling her stomach, and causing her to roll over on her back.

Now she is mine.

spotted a grasshopper in the road, this late in the year, perhaps brought back to life by the strong rays, and tried to "show" it to the shepherd, whose name is Sheba. Either the dog (1) couldn't see the grasshopper, motionless in the dust, or else, (2) saw it and wasn't interested. I think the former.

The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I can train her. But, no, she is middle-aged, and has lived with the Crabtrees's personal notions of unbridled conduct for so long her case is hopeless. Can you imagine a German shepherd who, for instance, doesn't know how to shake hands? Or come when she's called? And she doesn't seem to want to learn. But by my having corrupted her by a few degrees through the use of food (in the future, dog yummies?) perhaps I can proceed a step farther. [I soon gave up trying. A lost cause]

while river watching saw three of this year's crop of common mergansers sporting round in the shallow water. Then a gust caused many curled dry alder leaves to drop into the river. They began to sail around at odd intervals like tiny boats trapped in the eddy, turning tight circles until caught by the current and whisked downstream. There they fanned out and disappeared around the bend. No more wind, no more leaves, and the river cleared. Some time the mergansers left

what single characteristic describes the Irish, and how they are always so glad to see you? Insincerity?

anybody out there in Musicland see a similarity between Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and Brahms? Connections are often made between Schubert's quartets and Beethoven's, I know. If it wasn't for that overly-familiar melodic line that identifies it, I might guess the Schubert was a Brahms's symphony

on David Wagoner and Richard Hugo reading poetry together at Kane Hall and complimenting each other—two fat cats toasting each other with chocolate-covered mice

it froze last night up at the river, and there was ice still on the mud puddles this morning in Arlington, and heavy frost on the traditional shadowed hillside at Cicero. Skim ice lingering on the bogs and beaver ponds. We hauled in the last of the alder logs Tancretti gave us. Each was too big for me to handle alone, but not at all bad for two. Work is often like this, I've noticed. I am much stronger than my wife, I learned, after years of believing otherwise. But she is such an indefatigable worker. And my son has what might be called "quick strength," but I think I can outlast him in most endeavors, though I am much older and heavier by forty pounds

I am not quite the lazy slob I conceived of myself as being, most of the time. And I learn, I learn. For instance, as the temperature dips, I become younger—amazingly so. It is 5:30 P.M., and already freezing. My energy level has gone up greatly, and my accumulation of years has decreased. At 32 degrees F., I am about 35 years of age, instead of nearly 50; at 22 degrees, I am probably 25 years old; at 12 degrees, 18 years perhaps. Any colder than that, I stay at the same energized level—18 years old, which is my son's age. Were he here today (he's in his student's room, down with a bad cold), I would match him, foot-pound for foot-pound

today I learned something that I suspected for years, but did not know for a fact, namely, that I have no depth vision. From a practical standpoint, it is zero. This goes back to my high-forceps delivery at birth, which produced badly crossed eyes and necessitated two eye operations. They did not totally correct the problem. This is necessary to understand what it is like not to have any depth vision, an unusual condition, and the problems that have issued from it.

Now bi-focals further complicate my problems at gauging visual distances. I am always hitting my head on low boughs, when walking through the woods. Have I mentioned how I once broke a hickory sledge handle, after about ten minutes of use? I was probably too ashamed of my bad aim to write it down. I broke it off, and Garth had the devil of a time boring out the remaining hardwood from the iron head so a new handle could be bought and fitted on. Finally we found one in a hardware store for $6.50—expensive now and then. It was a good fit, however, and ought to last for years, if I don't use it.

This week I taught myself how to split stovewood and never—well, nearly ever—miss. In the past, the stovewood was a bit too close a distance for my poor swing, and I couldn't see it well enough to hit it cleanly. But I learned how to measure the distance to the chopping block with a smooth, sighting stroke that doesn't land in order to measure the distance more accurately, since I can't see the log, like normal people do. Then, repeating the sighting stroke with a cutting one, I repeat the swing with force, faster, harder, and strike the wood in the same place every time. About one time in twenty I'm off, but only by a little.

How satisfying it is to be so efficient, and how proud I am of myself, for once. On Thursday night I carried into the house a load of perfectly split millends and alder sticks. Today, up at the river, I applied the same technique with the sledge and splitting wedge, and it worked perfectly

you have to pierce the circle, break in, to enter any place in a cycle in order to begin. This could happen at a solstice point, or at an equinox. Each place is a puncture of the holy circle and a forcible point-of-entry.

Cycles are inviolate. No more can summer succeed winter than fall can follow spring. The rhythm is fixed and constant. And from year to year, the same things happen in the same sequence, but there are minor variations, and they are worth noting. [If not, all life is a waste.] The small variations in the cycles, within the circle of the year, within the linked, continuous circles (which are like Palmer exercises in handwriting), minutely change from year to year, and when enough of them accumulate in a person's lifetime, he is old and he dies. The long-ago "broken circle entry" of our birth is completed by the circle-exit of our death. And so the world goes on without us, till its end

I am continuing my seduction of the bitch shepherd down the road, and bought some dog biscuits for this purpose. They are doing the job

am reading Edwin Way Teal's The American Seasons, which may have given rise to the long section preceding. This book is gleaned from four earlier "seasonal" books of his, which is a publishing gimmick. It starts out badly—dull and pedestrian—but soon improves, or so I think, for I have only dipped ahead. Annie Dillard considers Teale a great nature writer, and a favorite, so I must give him a fair shake

each night the trailer freezes. When I enter it, after an absence, it seems antiseptic, barren, but shortly afterwards it starts to warm up from my electric heater, and comes back to life. The stray insects inside become active, thinking it is summer again. Soon they begin to flutter around me. They crash into the overhead light and batter themselves against it until they are stunned stupid, or are killed. When I leave, all turns cold and dark again. The bugs grow dormant.

When I return I start the process all over. Today I awakened a housefly, a crane fly, a fruit fly, and a couple of slumbering mosquitoes