That shadow, I remember it.
Flew over the hills like — what was that horse?
Secretariat.
That’s the one.
All of us filled with oohs, aahs.
Yawns, too.
It was early, wasn’t it.
Even for a school night.
Tuesday. I think it was a Tuesday.
English teacher made us write poetry.
Mine sucked.
Mine too. I rhymed “penumbra” with “slumbah.”
Got a picture. Don’t quite know how; thrusting that camera in the sky, not looking.
Eh, if you can’t see the sky, you can look at the picture.
Still do, from time to time.

(Eclipse, Goldendale Washington, 1979.)

Kaiser Wilhelm stood at the base of the stairs. “This fuss. It was about this, yes?”

His clerk nodded. He brushed a bit of rabbit fur off his sleeve and made for the first step. The Kaiser held him back.

“No, no,” he whispered. “I want to gaze at it a while. Out of astonishment, you see.”

“Astonishment?”

“Well, the stairs. They go nowhere. Where is the end? Why does one fight for such things?”

The clerk was silent. In the distance, another pig rooted for potatoes in the fresh snow.

(Stairway at American Camp, San Juan Island, WA)

There is a Santa troll.

What he’s doing out and about in July is anyone’s guess.

(I have a hunch he’s here to help me with a few housekeeping duties. Do you think trolls know how to make coffee? Tinker with WordPress templates? Cook eggs? Stop time? I’ve heard rumors…)

When you first see the harbingers of the candidate, you have trouble counting how many eyes they have. Maybe it’s the rain, slick, too shimmery, or maybe it’s how tightly they move in formation, or how they blink in unison at every corner.

Seven, you think it is. Red, blue, two orange, two a sort of silvery brown, and one white hot, dead center. Don’t look at that one. Look down. Just listen to the soothing buzz of their approach. The harbinger’s buzz. I hear it tells you things you ought not know.

(Presidential candidate’s arrival, 1988)

I had to look twice. Photo so beat up, so grainy, you’d think it was from Krakatoa, not St. Helens.

We missed the big one. Our whole class was down in desert country, Malheur, bird watching. I remember the teachers filing into the cavern where we’d gathered for lunch. I remember the tall ceilings, metal beams, caged light fixtures.

She blew, they told us. Helen blew.

And we, panicky school kids, spent the next twenty-four hours convinced Portland was completely buried under mountains of ash.

They’re all trying to make deals with the devil. Sometimes the light hits just right, and those chords ring out, and you have to wonder: successful, yes? Oh, hell yes. And you say, thank you, Mr. Devil, for being such a damn good dealmaker, and then you kick back and enjoy the show.

(The Confidentials, 1984)

I’m feeling it — weathered, that is — already.

The project: sort, scan, blog old photos.

But, sadly, far far too many of my photos from this early era are failed experiments in the darkroom, photos damaged by the ravages of a leaky basement, and photos discovered only in contact sheet form. I have many of the latter, and though they don’t scan well — they’re too small and the texture of the photo paper too apparent as I enlarge them — I will post a few anyway. Think of it as peek behind a weathered old door, but a door that only opens just a little because the hinges are so rusty.

A block away from the theater building at Portland State, in a space we all shared. Stop. Talk. Listen. Oh, the stories.

A flower blooms for each one she’s left behind. She’s lost track now. The centuries shamble by. The garden riots. Foxglove and nightshade cry for attention, but always, always the bleeding heart wins.

When the words don’t flow, imagine only that the words can’t flow, that restraints contain you from all sides, that you’ve been denied expression. Jaws held shut. And one little thing screams to get out. A simple idea, as simple as reaching up to a clothesline and hanging a blouse in the summer breeze.