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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Ethnology (Mk2)

I don't write much poetry anymore, but it's that time of the year again, and this is a re-working anyway.



Circles within circles
(read it any direction you want)
Eagle and serpent
(circles in the air, circles in the earth)
Quetzalcoatl consuming his tail
(feathers on Jormungandr)

What day is it and
What hour
What month of the year and what season
All turns – all lives and dies and lives again
But are we dead or alive
Do we walk in spring or autumn
And is it dawn or dusk
Where do we stand in the ancient celestial calendar
(at the edge of the earth the seas cascade down and we stand at the brink and seem to fall forever, for the water is rising up)

Dante saw a sepulcher and Sturluson a wolf
(heretics and Fenrir)
In his father’s death each fashioned the turning of the epoch
(every evening is a microcosm of the end of the world)
But the child of the lion saw mountains beyond mountains
(and there’s no end in sight)

What are we saying and
Are we screaming or do we stand mute
Who has the voice and the power and the glory
Envy it or spit upon it
If it cannot be cast into the consuming flames
I or you – the man or the woman
Have I bound a rag across your face and
Are these words of dominion I speak
(there is an inborn tyranny here that I did not ask for and I do not want, yet if I loose my grip will I take flight)

The camel eats itself and lives forever
(the lion will bite his heel and he will crush its head)
And the child grows ever to the man
(look at your hand and watch it wither)
The call of the ram’s horn echoing again and again and again
(circles within circles)

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

More Poetic Than Arbitrary

For the past month or so I've been writing a treatise on destination, return, and achievement in mountaineering, the first part, of two, can be read here.

Monday, October 8, 2012

How I Spent My Summer Vacation



Arrows of Light - Bruce Cockburn (Circles in the Stream [live])

The quality is not what I would like, but most of the photos have been posted individually anyways.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Mount Rainier - The Kautz

Last weekend, the 28th-30th of September,  Ryan Hoover and myself climbed the Kautz route on Mt Rainier. A full trip report should be on summitpost within a week.

The following are a few photos from the first two days of our Rainier climb and the third day until about 7 am, when my camera lens froze up. Because of this mishap Ryan has allowed me to use a few of his to fill the gap, they are marked accordingly.
















Ryan's Photos











Tomyhoi

September 22nd
7451 ft.
Beckey's Class 3 (at least one stretch of Class 4 by normal standards)
Smoke obscured most of the better views.