Trusting the Land: Lake Creek Elements: Part 1

What is Writing? It is transportation to a meteorite.

---Lynda Barry, in What It is

...and composition is transportation to the Metolius Preserve forest and wildflower-spangled meadow; it is a slow sweet walk to a bridge overlookiing Lake Creek, to water we will find is not simply blue; writing is transportation into the hearts and stories of human beings courageous enough to clean up their pens and write without plan.

Eleven women and men wrote from home on Saturday, September 4. We were in the inaugural Deschutes Land Trust Writing from Place workshop. We wrote of what we saw, what we heard, what we touched and felt. We took deep breaths of the green-scented air. We occupied the moments we were in - and we occupied memory. Later, when I came home to find poems in my email from the students, I knew the list of our circle would be Lake Creek Elements - I found silver, earth and silver. Here are Norma Funai, Vicki Johnson, Chris Hart, Julie Durkheimer and Kent Gill writing from the Metolius Preserve: Stay tuned for Part Two in a few days.

Water as color (Watercolor?)

A light of sun a whirl of thick green

purple whirlpools surround the rocks

whispers of aquamarine brushing the leaves of the wild roses

little burbles of silver blending into the deep maroon of holes

rhythmic rainbows sing songs of joy

my thoughts flow with the cause of color.

---Norma Funai

***

BROWN

I am searching for a range to sit and rest. Above is a canopy of green pine and gentle sky, fresh and light. A cold wind has just arrived to chill me. Below me is the brown ground and the dead and dying, the beginning signs of Fall. The world seems harsh and dirty.

Forced to sit and sleep on the ground, I see grasses turning brown and glimpses of furry animals scurry into black holes. Plant and animal finding refuge under the earth through the harshness of winter. The ground holds the idle and sometimes protects the roots of the living.

Chilled I go on, I recognize that if I linger roots will work and I will get caught up in the stuckness. Once planted, I may be stepped on, or worse, left to release brown and die.

---Vicki Johnson

SILVER

While sitting by a flowing stream, I welcome it`s giving of serenity. I feel the freshness, I find the white mist cleansing my face, I try and feeling the cool silvery liquid flowing down the back of my throat, and I see the pebbles rhythmically rolling under the current. I observe the silvery mercury like substance reflect the fall as it flows downstream. A silvery substance, who`s current can break the hardest of minerals and can control the course of a volcano.

How can man deliberately misrepresent and over use this powerful silvery substance that gives animation to all things living and believe we will survive?

---Vicki Johnson

***

Black ribbon topped with white lace meandering through the land

I heard the whiteness of ice caps melting,

rushing and swirling, carrying a storm of nature with vehement strength.

Particulates of white, gray and foam forshadowed the legacy they would leave.

Beware of the drive as it thrashes it's way in our midst.

Dances of purple swells came from the higher portion of the river's thrust. Tunes of something lighter in tone gave arise to other possibilities.

The flow settled into a consortium of black tar reflective of oil's density and color. In that sludge lay history and the completion of a long journey from a purity unknown.

Quickly, climb to the top. The top where the man opens up to wide open skies and crystalline horizons.

Life's mystery which encompasses both levity and density.

Color, texture, grit.
---Chris Hart
******

I was drawn like a bee to a flower. To my surprise the voice of the river awakened something inside. I felt my blood stream and all of my senses awaken. Life was percolating and so was I.

The recognition was that I wish to find myself awakened and that water moves my energy. My belief often expressed but long forgotten is that we are generally made up of urine and that by being around water- it's flow awakens our flow.

But why is that important?

Maybe because we are a section of life's flow and how comforting that our rhythms are finding peace in the sacredness of all that surrounds us.

Water has been my soul food. My years of work on the beaches on the Washington shore. I was free- free from parental "demands" and "shoulds". I found solice in the wind, the dunes, the sand flying in my face, and childhood play.

I ran the horses at the tides edge, steadying the horse's fears of the incoming tide. I knew the sea and the ease that the clear space provided. When having to forget the ocean's space to return to our city home meant routine and great expectations. My reality was ending in, I adjusted and became the compliant person that I was expected to be.

Water resonates with my psyche and generates those distant memories of the freedom I felt to be.

---Julie Durkheimer

***

THE Colouring OF LAKE CREEK

The brook flows darkly,

offering haven to kokanee,

obscuing its depths,

confounding its transparency,

hiding mysteries unknown.

The stream ripples with silver,

sparkling and shimmering,

hinting at riches of capital value,

dancing on its way to the Metolius,

to the Columbia,

to the large Pacific Ocean.

Lake Creek today is fireweed purple,

marking the passing of years and seasons,

copying the light of aurora on Mt. Jefferson glaciers,

of the clouds over Three-fingered Jack at the end of day,

reminding us of the fullness of nature`s bounty.

---Kent Gill

A reminder: Writing from Home for families will be at Camp Polk Meadow on Saturday, September, September 25 from 11 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Contact the Deschutes Land Trust at 541-330-0017 to register.