Looking back from whence we came (toward Kuna Crest and Lyell Canyon) provided a spectacular view with the clouds cooperating to build a fantastic backdrop. Lyell Glacier is just behind us, as the John Muir Trail winds past it on the way to Donahue Pass at 11,000+ feet – our next destination.
For some time, I have wanted to create a category on this blog just for quick notes – those transient notions that explode or settle in the mind, are savored or simply masticated for a spell, then spat out of one’s consciousness in favor of the next new thought.
Often they are worthy of further consideration, though I seldom return to provide any. This has frustrated me for once the idea has dissolved, like a sand painting, its ilk will likely never pass this way again.
And so, on this Winter Solstice (occurring just an hour and a fraction ago) and having accomplished little else of import today, I begin this one new thing that, hopefully, will grow with the lengthening of the days (and then be smart enough not to whither and shrivel and die when the days once more recede).
C’mon you can only carry an analogy so far…
Easily visible along several of the trails that spread out around Yosemite Valley, Vogelsang Peak is easily identifiable with its pointy top. It oversees an unspoiled land, essentially unaltered from the natural course of its creation an evolution.
The Lyell Fork of the Merced River flows along the center of the miles-long meadow-like Lyell Canyon. Off to the side, one can find ponds and reflections of the peaks that lay ahead on the trail.
The John Muir Trail winds along the edge of the forest down Lyell Canyon which stretches some nine miles from Tuolumne Meadows (the direction we are looking) and then climbs up majestic craggy ridges to Donahue Pass at some 11,000+ feet (several miles distant behind this camera position).
Just before that steep rise begins, there is a tree graveyard (pictured here) where ancient gnarled branches and trunks are strewn across the end of the meadow as if they had fallen in some great battle.
The JMT runs about five feet behind this camera position, and I stepped off trail to shoot these trees over this particular branch which looked to me like the remnant antlers of some beast that had long since otherwise returned to the earth.
Near the far end of Lyell Canyon headed out from Tuolumne Meadows, thee is an open, treeless area where the John Muir Trail winds along below Kuna Crest. I’ve traveled this section many times on my way up and over Donahue Pass.
Looking back toward Tuolumne Meadows from whence we started. As I recall, this was our 2004 expedition. We first backpacked in Yosemite in 2003, just Teresa and me together. The next year we took a different route up and over Donahue Pass with our dear departed friend, Bob, though he was not yet departed at the time. Doesn’t that conjure up an image? We skipped a year, then recreated that route with two other friends in 2006. After a six year hiatus we hike the same route yet again with my daughter and son-in-law. Then, after 7 years we struck out on a new route with Teresa’s high-school friend, Cliff, and spent 10 days in the back country, schlepping up steep switchbacks with fifty pound packs – more than I’d ever carried on trail before and, at age 66, not something I recommend. Cliff’s pack was 65 pounds. Don’t know how he did it. But I had him beat – I was 50 pounds over my ideal body weight at the time, something else I’ve never done before. Planning on continuing these expeditions until I drop (which could be next week, who knows?)
This is the book we wrote to unveil our theory of narrative structure to the world. Pretty pretentious, if not downright arrogant. But, we put all our ideas out there for folks to poke and prod. Almost 30 years later, the theory has never been refuted, so it is either likely true, or just so complicated and insignificant no one has bothered to prove it wrong. Judge for yourself…
I seem to be on a poetry bender this week. Here’s today’s effort:
Why For Art Thou?
By Melanie Anne Phillips
I don’t create for fortune,
If I did I’ve surely failed,
I don’t create for fame,
If I have , I’ve been derailed
Not for recognition,
On the vast historic shelf.
Others have oft told me
I should art just for myself.
Yet that is not from whence
My Muse arises – no!
Not from what I want to draw:
But that which draws me so.
I see a scene, I hear a thought,
That beckons to be known.
It chooses me to tell its tale,
“Right now, do not postpone!”
I have no choice, I have no voice
But that which I’ve been given.
I cannot rest a moment,
When I have so been driven.
The scene will set, the concept fade,
If not protected now.
It’s singular existence,
Depends upon my brow.
Furled in concentration,
Twisted in despair,
I squeeze the vice upon my mind,
And flail about midair.
The hour-glass runs empty,
The spirit sputters out.
But in that tragic moment,
My psyche wheels about.
And just before the vision
And the spirit it contains
Have vanished from the earth,
They transform within my brains.
I become an avatar,
A spokesman for the dead.
A poor and tawdry medium
Dim eyes and tongue of lead.
Yet through my swollen faculties,
Bruised and battered all,
A dark, imperfect image,
As I quietly recall,
The thing that once revealed itself,
Though now it is no more,
It lives again in oil or sound,
A window or a door.
Its fleeting spark departed,
But captured in its prime,
It’s meaning not forgotten,
Shining bright in prose or rhyme.
I don’t create for fortune,
If I did, I’ve surely failed,
I don’t create for fame,
If I have, I’ve been derailed.
I don’t create for others,
And never for my heart,
I do it for the spirits,
So they live on in art.
I must be in a poetic mood. Here is another short (two-stanza) poem I penned yesterday:
Brother’s Keeper
My mouth bespeaks my silent voice,
Muffled in my mind:
An unrelinquished insight
Strangled, choked, and left behind.
So help not spoken was not heard,
Hidden by my fears:
You’ve done it now, you sinner.
Quoth the ringing in my ears.