He walked dreaming rambling short stories (six-word stories, to be precise).
A hike and a poem met
along the less-traveled path
one blue sunny day
and almost missed one another
when the poet lost his way
while the hiker took a nap.
Words whispered in the cool breeze
that lifted and dissolved thin cloud patches
rolling in from the pacific ocean,
smelling like sage, pine, and dirt.
carefully pausing under an old cedar
chained to a dirty picnic table,
pretending to feed the poet's muse
with the crunchy beat of footsteps,
dangerously slow, like Billie Holiday
singing Good Morning Heartache
Pres smiles, shakes his porkpie hat
Listen to the groovy bass line
if you don't believe me
like these words in the wind,
wicked, gorgeous and betrayed
by meaning, reason, blink and
they vanish like the crooning
of crows circling over a carcass
in the azure sky, fading before
the low winter sun reaches
the end of the road.
Is this what you call a poem?
the hiker awakes and protests
the poet, silent, has found the trail
but is at a loss for words.
Raymond Queneau puts it very nicely, in a poem entitled “Un rhume qui n’en finit pas”(a never-ending cold)–somewhat timely, given the pandemic–which I read sitting at a picnic table leaning against a cedar tree, under an azure sky.
Quand on examine le vaste monde
ses beautés, ses tristesses et ses aléas
on se demande on se demande
à quoi rime tout celà
When you take a close look at the great wide world
its beauty, its sadness and its perils
you might ask you might ask
is there any reason or rhyme to it
(my translation. Note that it does rhyme in French, in a way I couldn't duplicate in English, but don't read anything into it)
Trails closed, Walk on
asphalt less giving than dirt, Walk on
rainy forecast, Walk on
Nature is getting a rest
While LA deals with the pest, Walk on
(After listening to Neil Young)
It took all my civic-mindedness not to cross the yellow tape restricting access to all the foothill trails. The lure of the wild was strong, but I didn’t want to be that guy. Except I came across one they’d omitted, and I may or may not have treaded past it, for about a quarter mile into the forest. The bears, cougars, bobcats, squirrels, rattlesnakes, even the crows asked as I passed, “Where’d everybody go?”
“There’s a bug goin’ around” I answered, “real nasty, kills people, super contagious. We’ve been told to stay home.”
“Someone’s not a very good listener.” The bear admonished me. A group of curious lookyloos was gathering around me, they all chuckled.
“Well…It’s okay, you know, if you practice social distancing.” I blurted out guiltily, “if we, like, if we stay far enough from each other.” I noticed the bear and the cougar narrowing in on me. “Like six to ten feet apart!” I said louder, with what authority I could muster, and spreading my arms apart to illustrate.
“I ain’t heard nothing of the sort, have you?” The cougar turned to the Bear, then to the others, who were now also closing in on me. They were not openly threatening, just a little hungry, I guessed. The bobcat, for instance, was licking its chops lustily. The rattler slithered to the front of the pack, whisssspering, “I’ll sssssting him first.” Or at least that’s what I heard. I was rooting for the squirrel however, who scampered nervously from one beast to the other, repeating”What are you doing guys? He could be sick.”
“He doesn’t look sick.”
“He could be asymptomatic.”
“A superpreader!”
“So, if the trails are closed,” the cougar persisted, brushing the squirrel to the side, “they won’t come looking for you, right? ’cause you ain’t even supposed to be here.”
That’s when the reliable crow swooped overhead, croaking vigorously, a good indication, if any was needed, that some kind of game was afoot. That’s also when a cool wind gust floated into the canyon, sending a chill down my spine, made all the more chilly by the sweat accumulating on my neck, back and forehead. I shivered and sneezed loudly–into my elbow.
“AAAA – TCHAH!”
Before the sternulation had echoed even once across the canyon, the pack of animals had dispersed, scattered, vanished.
I seized the opportunity and bolted for the nearest trailhead, not the one I had come from, and it was of course blocked by a large plywood board with “COVID19 HEALTH ORDER TRAIL CLOSED” painted on it in large red letters.
I climbed over the board, and emerged into a neighborhood. I walked on, feeling the silent stare of citizens sheltered in their home bubbles, thinking rightfully “Who does he think he is?”
Thick, desiccated fields of mustard pose as a Jackson Pollock canvas
Under Surveillance
For the sixth time since leaving the Solstice Canyon parking lot, the hiker stopped in his tracks. First, there were the two “SMILE, this area is being monitored” signs guarding the fenced-in ruins of the Keller cabin and the “Tropical Terrace”, the ill-fated mansion renowned architect Paul Williams built in 1952 for Fred and Florence Roberts, which burned down a short thirty years later. Then, higher up the canyon, the two consecutive creek crossings guarded by “STOP, Not a designated trail” postings, paired with “Federal Property, No person shall disturb, destroy, remove, gather, deface, or injure any property of the National Park System“. And then higher up still, on a hot, exposed section of trail climbing through dense and dry chaparral, the intersection with a use trail, blocked by the no nonsense “CLOSED, NOT A TRAIL” and “PRIVATE PROPERTY, No Trespassing” warnings. Keeping in mind the five thousand dollar fine and/or six month jail sentence advertised somewhere below, the hiker, at every sign, suppressed an instinct for exploration, and pressed on when finally, with the promised ocean views lying just beyond a ridge a mere two hundred yards away, with no sign posted, no warning, no threat, a large coiled rattlesnake sat in the middle of the trail, silently surveilling the hiker’s every move.
There was no room on either side to circumvent the reptile, nowhere to go but back and that wasn’t going to happen, the effort to get this far forbade the hiker from contemplating turning around this close to the goal. A sort of staring contest began in which neither party wished to be the aggressor, the bully; a stare down meant to reassure rather than intimidate. The snake’s tail, though erect hadn’t made a sound yet. The hiker, once the initial adrenaline rush subsided, heard only the cicadas’ mating calls and a whisper as the mild ocean breeze floated through an oak tree that shaded the trail. He thought about his luck, first for not stepping on the snake, and second for not being forced to wait under the grueling early afternoon sun. He was thirsty but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the diamond-shaped head from which a forked-tongue spurted out rhythmically. He did, however, feel for his smartphone, thinking he might as well record the moment, or at least snap a picture, a proof of his wilderness encounter with a dangerous killer, a cool dinner story. But the killer was camera shy apparently. By the time the hiker had tapped and swiped the camera into action the rattler had all but slithered away into the dense underbrush.
The trail dead-ended at a junction with a firebreak-slash-dirt service road with sweeping views of the Malibu coastline. There, the hiker saw the back of yet another sign, which he glanced at as he walked by, “TRAIL” it read, with an arrow pointing at the blue sky. He kept walking.
Fleeing the oppressive temperatures of a typical southland summer day, the hiker trudged through an old growth alpine forest dense with large white firs and jeffrey pines. A slim drizzle, released by dark clouds looming over the San Emigdio mountains, barely filtered through the canopy. With a little luck, he thought, they’ll burst and I’ll get a good soaking. For now, he could count the droplets hitting his cap visor at irregular intervals, and evaporating within minutes.
A mile in, he came across a man sporting a bright orange, long sleeve shirt like the ones road cleaning crews wear, a sun-bleached baseball cap and underneath the cap, a blue bandana that neatly kept his shoulder-length gray hair behind his ears. His stride was agile, he didn’t kick up dirt like most hikers, even though he was pulled vigorously by a leashed, slate gray medium-sized part pit bull, part boxer, part urban survivalist mutt. Another dog trotted freely at his side.
“Hey. How are you doing?” The man said with a smile, and an expression that demanded a reply, not the robotic, meaningless but customary greeting. Then he added, before the hiker could reply, “Have you seen a bear?”
“Good morn..? Hum…No. No I haven’t.”
“Ah. Good. I heard they spotted one earlier, at the campground”, the man pointed in the direction the hiker was heading.
“Really?” the hiker said, “a big one?”
“About your size.” The man grinned. “I was told. I didn’t see it.” The hiker smiled in return but asked no more about the bear sighting, not wanting to appear nervous. “I ask because I gotta be on my toes with these guys. Especially him, he’ll dart at the whiff of a fart in Gorman.”
On cue, the beast’s body tightened and leaped towards a clump of bushes. “Ho. Ho. Here he goes!” With both hands on the leash, and digging his heals into the dirt, the man fought to keep his balance. The dog let the resistance lift his torso and front legs in the air while maintaining his own equilibrium on his hind legs. “There’s so many smells out here.” The man exclaimed over his shoulder as he shortened the leash. “Stay!” He commanded. The dog responded, reluctantly, letting his tensed body rest on all fours, keeping his gaze fixed on the bushes. Meanwhile, the other dog had quietly laid down next to the hiker’s feet.
“You think he smelled that bear you were talking about?” the hiker asked.
“Nah! He would’ve barked. She’s the one tells me when there’s a real threat. He’s just a nervous pup.” The man went on to tell the tale of how he’d rescued the nervous pup from the forest where he’d been abandoned by an abusive owner, not far from where they were standing. It was a good story that included encounters with a hummingbird, second amendment people and a visit to the center of the world, but by the time he was done telling it the pup was pulling on the leash again like a child who’s got far better things to do than wait patiently for adults to finish a boring conversation. They parted ways and the hiker too was glad to be moving again.
The trail flattened as it emerged from the alpine forest onto a meadow that climbed gently to Mount Pinos, first destination of the day. Dark, moisture-laden clouds lingered high above softening the light over the landscape but not the visibility. From the summit, the trail guide said, you get three-hundred-sixty degree views of the Los Padres National Forest and beyond, including the Chumash wilderness to the West, where the hiker was ultimately headed. Shortly before reaching the peak, he noticed a hat on the ground, a few feet off the trail, under the shade of an ageless limber pine with a trunk it would take two or three humans to hug, and limbs like tentacles that reached out and threatened to coil themselves around you to feed you into the jagged mouth of a sea monster, the kind you only find in the perpetually dark depths of the deepest ocean. A brightly multicolored hummingbird was embroidered on the rim of the hat, which was clean, as if it had been dropped just moments ago. The hiker thought about picking it up at the same time as he tried to remember what part a hummingbird had played in the dog rescue story he’d just heard.
“I’ve been looking for four days already”, the old man’s recounted, “getting frustrated, and a little sad, because I couldn’t imagine how this young city pup could’ve survived out here. Plus, it’s getting cold, you know, it’s mid March, four thirty in the afternoon, and there’s still snow on the ground. When all of a sudden, I get knocked on the side of the head. I was so surprised I nearly fell over. Then I look up and right in front of my eyes, looking as stunned as me, is this silver blue hummingbird, the size of a tiny pine cone, hovering and staring back at me. It was like a slow motion movie, although for real it probably only lasted a second or so. Then it shook its little head and zipped away.” The man swiftly looked away, he was a lively storyteller, punctuating every action with gestures that recreated the scene. “And what do you know, as I follow the flight of the bird, I spot this fool.” He leans over the gray dog and pets him. The dog shakes his head and lets out a snort. “He’s hiding in the bushes, checking me out.”
After having not picked up the hat but simply nudged it closer to the trail so it would be visible to anyone passing by, the hiker forged on. He’d gone less than a hundred steps when he came across another dog walker.
“Have you seen a hat by any chance?” She shouted, still a fair distance away. She carried a fancy retractable hiking pole in one hand, holding the leash with the other. At the end of the leash, swerving back and forth, snout to the ground, was neon orange harness strapped to a fine and slim dog of a breed the hiker couldn’t identify.
“As a matter of fact I have.” The hiker replied.
“Ha. Great!” The woman smiled. She was middle-aged, short dark hair with a gray streak that was a bit too bright to be natural, and wore quality hiker gear from top to bottom. “Hate to lose a good hat.” She slowed down but didn’t stop. The hiker noted the bear spray canister holstered on the side of her backpack. “I figured I lost it around here. When she took off after a squirrel or something…” Or a bear, the hiker thought. “I had to run after her. Not like her at all. Normally, she’s too scared.”
“Did you see what it was?” The hiker asked. She hadn’t, she said as she passed by. “Your hat is over there, under that big pine tree. You can’t miss it.”
I’d hang out in the morning updraft above Rubio canyon. The creek is running again, after years of drought, and it attracts all sort of mammals perfectly sized for my consumption. Earlier, at dawn, this coyote pup came trotting up from the people neighborhood, all giddy from his own feasting on some pet, he stopped to have a slurp, his stomach so full he threw caution to the wind, forgot to look up and whoof! Benny and I shared a succulent breakfast. Benny’s my hunting partner. We’re stocking up energy, we’ve both got kids on the way, eggs in the nest, literally. Not that Benny needs to put on any more weight, he’s already hefty, which means he struggles in mild winds and over long distances, but when he dives on a prey, he’s got me beat every time. So he gets first dibs, but since his size allows him to pick out bigger targets it all evens out, there’s usually plenty to go around. We make a good team, he’s the muscle and I’m the brains.
Anyway, just because I’m a hawk doesn’t mean I’m hawkish; I only kill what I need to survive, nothing less, nothing more. It’s what I was built for, you know? The fun in it is just hanging out with Benny, who I have known since our first flying lessons, that and watching the bipeds walk up the mountain it takes us a mere two or three wing flaps to cross. I don’t get it. They’ve got machines, even ones that fly, and yet they flock to the mountains to climb them on foot, at considerable effort. They even bring their own food. I guess when you’re a biped that’s what you do: walk, but if I were in their shoes, I’d pick easier trails, flat ones. Watch me, no unnecessary movement, I let the elements do the work, follow the law of minimum effort. Hah! Look at them, trudging up the steepest ridge, like ants in their neurotic ceaseless dance to feed the colony.
Look at that guy in a bright yellow soccer jersey pointing a shiny device up at us? Grandpa used to tell us stories about humans pointing shiny objects at the sky, followed by sharp earsplitting noises, and friends of his falling to the ground, dead. Let me gain some altitude here, get within safe distance. Benny says we should skedaddle. He’s probably right. I wouldn’t want to end up dead, or worse, like Grandpa, in a cage.
Grandpa got caught because he was curious, and greedy, and a little blind in his older days. He was swooping around one day, on his daily morning constitutional, when he spotted this bleating lamb in the middle of a meadow in Griffith Park. He was a little hungry so he gained some altitude and went for it, only he hadn’t noticed the rope that extended from the lamb’s front right leg to a nearby sycamore, and the two uniformed parkies–park rangers–hidden under the tree. No sooner had Grandpa dug his talons into the lamb’s wooly skin that the parkies thrust a net over him. These days, when they catch you, most of the time they just tag and release you. You have to fly around with that stupid ankle bracelet, which is kind of embarrassing, but it doesn’t land you in a cage. Sadly, that’s where Grandpa finished his days, and those stories he told us, we had to listen to them through iron bars, when the rangers weren’t paying attention.
It wasn’t all bad though. One day, he said, this guy with a rumpled suit and a funny hat, carrying an odd size case, walked through the park early in the morning. He stopped and stared. Grandpa didn’t feel like being ogled, so he turned his back to the stranger. He heard him open the case and fought the itch to look back. A couple of minutes later a sweet sound filled the air. Instantly, the general cacophony of birds all around doing their morning routine ceased, even those pesky, and loud, green parakeets shut up. Grandpa couldn’t help it anymore, he glanced at the stranger over his shoulder. The man was holding a shiny, sinuous, horned object to his mouth, from which this tantalizing disturbance of the morning air emanated. At first the effect was plaintive, hurt. The player was still staring, only now Grandpa held his gaze. The space that separated hawk from Hawk–for I imagine it was the famous saxophonist Coleman Hawkins Grandpa was talking about–collapsed, reduced by the notes that flowed out of the instrument to an emotion, a flurry of emotions that was at once completely removed from the world and encompassing the whole universe. It spoke of pain, joy, betrayal, love, existence. Grandpa scanned the surroundings, looking for reactions from other caged birds but he couldn’t see any. He must have thought he’d died.Could this be what happens when your heart stops beating? But no, his pulse was strong, and not only that, it was magically in tune with the music. Hawk closed his eyes. A robin flew down from a nearby oak tree, to land on his shoulder. It started singing, as if in response to the horn, and Hawk in turn, responded, effortlessly moving through keys to join the robin in dialogue. Grandpa, the hawk, laughed; the kind of laugh that is infectious, indisputable and so profoundly real it echoes through time and the universe, maybe even into the far reaches of Rubio canyon, where a lone hiker, who’s just quenched his thirst from the raging creek, feels rather than hears a flutter and looks up at the misty morning sky. He recognizes the silhouette of a red-tail hawk, no, two hawks circling above him, rapidly gaining altitude.
Itinerary for a wander around northwest Washington DC
Brioche sprinkled with sugar like thick snowflakes wolfed down, before wandering westward to meet the Potomac, in a boulangerie that bears my namesake, if you drop the last letter, like my aunt and a chain-smoking high school administrator used to do. The brisk, damp March morning reminiscent of those same school days and walks along the shores of the Lac Léman, not too far from where Lord Byron composed his romantic tale of a martyr imprisoned in the medieval Chillon castle, whose walls, erected onto the rocky shore of the lake, have been battered for a thousand years by fresh water waves gorged with runoff from the snowy alpine peaks that surround it. Picture Byron’s prisoner dreaming, not only of a free Geneva Republic, but of adventures. He escapes by diving into the frigid waters on a winter day, then boards a small fishing sailboat he’s arranged, with hefty bribes to a sympathetic guard, to have moored nearby. He first sets a westward course, with the hope of returning to his native Geneva, but soldiers are already waiting for him. By cover of darkness he sneaks past them and steers his vessel into the Rhône river, carried by the strong current, bearing due south now. It’s a spectacular ride; a good mistral barelling down the Rhône valley fills his sails from the stern. He reaches the Camargue marshes and bursts into the Mediterranean in no time. He’s got a big decision to make; make a left to follow the established silk and spice trade routes to the Orient, or make a right to seek his fortune west, in the new world. He crosses paths with a speedy Portuguese caravel returning from Alexandria, whose captain convinces him to follow them to Lisbon where he will be able to gather the best, most experienced maritime information. “After all, we’ve been doing this exploring and colonizing longer than anyone else,” the captain says. The prisoner, unfortunately, buys the argument and finds himself robbed of all his belongings and supplies save the clothes on his back. Unceremoniously, his vessel is sunk, which is a good thing because, while it was lake and river worthy, the small fishing dinghy would never have withstood the far rougher seas of the Mediterranean. Some members of the crew demand the execution and disposal of the prisoner; he has to be fed and food and water supplies are running desperately low after their long voyage. The captain refuses to murder another christian–the prisoner is wise enough to conceal his true faith in the reformed protestant church, as he is well aware such a confession would have earned him a speedy catholic hanging from the main mast. Instead he is abandoned in the very busy port of Lisbon. Penniless, hungry, physically diminished by the journey and years of imprisonment, and free the prisoner laughs out loud, as he walks along the Restelo, and even louder when he sees the Belem Tower, a chilling visual reminder of the Chillon dungeon. In a flash, he sees himself back in his dark and danky cell. Understandably, he doesn’t linger in the neighborhood. With the incessant traffic of ships in the harbor, it is easy to find work on the docks, and so in a short time, the prisoner rebuilds his strength and composure. At night, he earns a few extra coins serving ale and rum in a tavern, a well-frequented watering hole for travel weary sailors full of tales from around the globe. The word is there’s trouble in the east. The dutch, the brits and the frogs are gaining control of the African coast, east, west and south, rendering the journey to the ‘land of spices’ perilous. Real opportunities for enrichment lie in the west, where mountains of gold await, guarded merely by bands of pagan savages. Such are the rumors that emanate from the tavern’s piss and vomit-soaked sawdust and smoky haze.
Almost five hundred years later, after brushing brioche crumbs off my beard and jacket, I set my own northbound pedestrian course through Georgetown and the greater northwest District of Columbia. Every other street named, in ascending order, after a letter in the alphabet. Dead presidents surveying the lazy Saturday morning foot traffic, young couples walking babies and dogs. The stately neighborhood library on top of Book Hill Park, open early with a very clean bathroom and large high-ceilinged reading rooms with tall windows giving readers southern views of the park, the elaborate homeless encampment sheltered by an evergreen tree and the national monuments in the far distance. Daniel Boone guards the southeast corner of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, half a block away from a brightly painted donkey hiding behind a manicured bush that I only later recognize as a political figure, a statement–didn’t see any elephants. What is the connection between Daniel Boone and Duke Ellington, a frontiersman folk hero and a musical genius? Could they have both treaded these grounds? Not likely. Yet today they cohabit this block on the north side of Reservoir street, the explorer who inhabited my youthful fantasies of the Wild West and the master composer so eloquently praised by my first favorite writer, Boris Vian. who wrote in L’Ecume des Jours, a love story so potently infused with a cocktail of emotions, satire, Ellingtonian tunes, and surrealistic botany that it could very well have reverberated back in time, turned back the clock as it were, to infuse the burgeoning love between our escaped Chillon prisoner and Felicidad, the mulatto cleaning girl in the boarding house where he’s taken residence while saving money for whatever the next stage of his journey is to be. Their journey, as it turns out, because Felicidad is ferociously homesick. She has been planning her escape since long before she met the dreamy prisoner, saving every escudo for her return to the land beyond the sunset she was abducted from, five years earlier. Besides sailors and bandits, the tavern hosts a nightly troop of buskers, traveling actors, troubadours, poets and a poet in particular who has ensnared Felicidad’s and the prisoner’s imagination with the virtues of what he names his drunken jalopy. “Needs no sails, no crew, no captain, no compass, but pour me a little more of that ale there lass, before I tell you how this enchanted vessel will take you wherever you wish to go.” At the end of a long and very wet night, Felicidad and the prisoner walk the poet home, carry him is more like it. “Where can we find such a jalopy?” They ask him. “Find it? You can’t find this heroic schooner, this transformative galleon, this precocious submarine, this…this…Ah, fuck it. I’m all out of images. You can’t find it. It finds you. It is you and you it.” Befuddled, the hopeful lovers drop the poet in the middle of the street. “Be the boat my friends. Be the boat.” The prisoner wanted to kick the sense out of the poet, but Felicidad talked him into emptying his pockets first, hoping to at least find some compensation for the many pints they’d sprung him in exchange for information. The verse scribbler’s pockets were predictably empty, except for a map, illustrating a navigation route to the Indies, the new Indies, the ones that lie west of LIsbon. It was a schematic job, with little sense of scale, or respect for proportions–Portugal, for instance, occupied more than half of the Iberian peninsula, and the African continent was represented by a triangle no larger than Europe–and an abundance of crosses, the kind that the King and his wandering subjects had planted all over the shores of the worlds they had ‘discovered’. There was also a name clearly written on the back of it, the name of a captain, Captain Arthur R. The drunken poet smiled and said “you two lovebirds dream of greener pastures? Find someone who can decipher that map.” This turned out to be easy, as if it had been written somewhere that because they’d found the map, Felicidad and the prisoner would find the adventurer that would recruit them, as a cook and a sailor, on his next expedition in search of Eldorado, leaving within a fortnight. And so their voyage began. For her, the hope of returning home, for him, the hope of finding a new home; for both the hope of freedom.
Although totally unintentional, there is a decidedly French bend to this narrative, so it came as no surprise when I passed the bucolic campus of the French embassy before reaching the “Hidden Entrance”. To what? Not sure. But beyond the sign lay a wide meadow, intersected by fallen trees, overlooked by a hospital, and a dedication to Rachel Carson who, I learned, wandered in these parts. Carson, who warned humanity of the danger of acting without perspective, and of being just plain dumb–and greedy–for refusing to assume responsibility for the catastrophe that’s staring you in the face and that you created. You spray enough DDT in an apple orchard, you’re not merely killing bugs, you’re poisoning the apples, the apple trees, the apple eaters. Duh! It’s not a unique chapter in our history, the pattern’s clear: industries with mouth-watering margins of profit–pesticides, tobacco, oil, guns, opioids–turn a blind eye to the monsters they create. Speaking of monsters, the Rock Creek trail was blocked by stretches of “Danger Do Not Cross” tape made all the more visible by the winter bareness of the forest surrounding it, which diverted me to the backside of a University campus, where there were ominous signs of night time activity involving a basketball hoop, and then onto another, less traveled trail, I shared with a couple of deer too busy to munch on budding greenery to pay any attention to me. I found out only the next day that they occasionally find bodies in Rock Creek Park, so there are monsters around, but that’s another story. An unlocked bike in seemingly good shape. A familiar construction with a blue tarp, tent and debris, no trash, all around. And a pedestrian tunnel whose first half is covered in tags and then magically, completely paint free. Then the river, the destination, gorged with the season’s record precipitation, its muddy, swampy shores unwalkable. Disregard the helicopters, the aerodynamic bikers, the neon-clad joggers attached to their earbuds and you might, given the right flight of fancy, suspension of disbelief, literary connection–the kind of connection where two surfaces don’t actually touch though they ignite a spark, like in a Michelangelo painting, or the neurons in your brain–you might see something. Something like a Portuguese carrack anchored downstream, where the river is wide enough, and a row boat tentatively sailing towards Fletcher’s Cove, before it was called Fletcher’s Cove, before we had presidents, before Duke Ellington moved to New York to play at the Cotton Club, before Rachel Carson saved the world, before anyone ate sweet brioche sprinkled with sugar–actually, I’m not sure about that one. The small vessel has only two occupants, a couple. Their eyes are filled with wonder and caution as they step onto the muddy shore, their balance is wobbly from the weeks they’ve spent at sea, and they are completely unaware that they are being watched, with equal caution and wonder, by a young boy who takes off running when he sees them embrace and kiss.
The storm moved in forcefully, blasting the seven hills of Amman with dust, floating plastic bags, and a winter chill that went straight to the bones.
“Nobody here but us fools,” one tourist said to another “it’s going to snow later on”. They were both peering over the large map of the L-shaped National Historic Site, the Amman Citadel, Jabal Al Qala’a, displayed on a freestanding wall across from the entrance, where an oversized faded color portrait of King Abdullah of Jordan welcomed visitors with a friendly face inspiring confidence.
“So I heard,” the second tourist said rather coldly–let’s call him the photographer on account of the elaborate camera and enormous lens that hung from his neck.
“We can always hide in the museum if it starts to come down.” The first tourist offered, pointing at a rectangle near the center of the map labeled Jordan Archeological Museum. The photographer remained silent, leaned closer to the display, ran a finger across the map as if following a carefully researched route. A powerful gust blew across the hilltop, the only thing not visibly shaken were the remaining columns of the temple of Hercules that dominated what was known as the upper terrace. “You must really love Roman ruins to be out here in this weather,” the first tourist said.
The photographer, clean-shaven, short cropped silver-hair, steel-gray eyes, cheeks blushing from exposure, wrapped in an aztec blue Gore-tex jacket looked up at his interlocutor for the first time, “I don”t mind the cold so much, I’m used to it.”
“Oh yeah?” The first tourist was younger, late thirties maybe, a black beanie tucked over his head revealing only brown eyes, neatly trimmed dark mustache and beard framing a smile in a chiseled face that matched a fit body, “where are you from?”
“Minneapolis.” The photographer replied, then he abruptly trotted away up the same stone-paved trail Nabateans, then Romans, then Byzantines would have tread starting some two thousand years ago on their way to the temple on the hill.
“Nice to meet you.” The first tourist said more to himself than to the photographer who soon rejoined a half-dozen other sightseers who immediately surrounded him with questions. The wind carried their hushed conversation to the first tourist’s ears. “What did he want?” asked a woman who grabbed the photographer by the arm, his wife maybe. “Is he with us? I don’t recognize him?” said another woman. “Did he ask you were you were from?” said a very tall man wrestling with a map. The photographer nodded. “I knew it. That’s how they get you. Next thing you know you’re buying a carpet.” “Where’s your bag?”The wife said. Someone else chimed in, “Let’s make sure to stay together.” Suddenly, their words were warbled by another violent gust that made the Jordanian flag flutter furiously over the first tourist’s head. He watched the group climb towards the temple, shook his head and turned away from the wind and started walking to the southern end of the site to soak in his favorite view of downtown Amman, the busy Al Hasham street, the roman amphitheater, the artsy graffitti peppered on the hillside retaining walls, and to the southwest the fashionable Rainbow street area where he liked to sit on the terrace of the WildJordan cafe. He followed the scantily fenced contour of the citadel, took a couple of panoramic photos of the city with his phone, but the wind was blowing so hard, he found it difficult to keep a steady hand. He then cut across the temple of Hercules, which reputedly would have been larger than any temple in Rome had it been completed, and the often photographed three fingers and elbow, the only remains of a marble statue of the mythological hero that looked like two boulders from a distance, and were estimated to have stood more than forty feet high–among the tallest marble statues ever erected–before it was toppled by an earthquake, and ultimately pillaged to furnish the homes of distinguished Ammanians.
He looked up at the sky, the clouds rolling in were getting darker, heavier, threatening to burst. He decided to continue along the perimeter of the citadel before the weather spoiled the views. He was now walking into the wind, fighting it at every step, yet completely invigorated by the effort and the static energy overcharge. Palm trees and cypresses bent like inverted commas. On the opposite hill, the expanse of western Amman, with its modern glass buildings rising over even the green neon-lit minarets, and the lower profile urban sprawl of sand-colored limestone habitations that gave the city its unique, quasi-monochrome tint. Directly below, a fruit salesman hauled a cart of oranges along the citadel’s retaining wall, peddling his fruit as he passed houses and apartment buildings. A group of children kicked a soccer ball around in an abandoned lot. From above, they moved like a frantic swarm of sheep, or better, like the flocks of birds swaying over the city, swooping down, up and around in large circles. Having reached the northwest corner of the site, he stepped down into the maze of the ruins of the old Roman city, eventually emerging onto a large plaza facing the Byzantine church topped with its new wooden dome, built, as was the custom, right on top of a Roman place of worship. The victors get to write history and, more often than not, erase the ideology of the vanquished.
Finally succumbing to the cold, he followed his own advice and sought shelter in the museum, where he found the photographer and his cohort, huddled by the entrance where the guards had placed a sizable electric heater. The photographer and his wife were rubbing their hands together facing the glowing orange resistance coils. “Hey, we meet again. I hope you are enjoying your visit,” the tourist said without malice, “despite the weather”, he added, with maybe a little innocent jest. The photographer looked and immediately straightened up. He also grabbed his camera, as a defensive maneuver presumably. He mumbled something. Then his wife stepped between them.
“We don’t need a guide thank you”, she said curtly, “come on Archie,” She whisked the photographer away, whispering not so quietly derogative complaints about the locals to which the photographer contributed “it’s a different world honey, at least they’re not dangerous.” The group followed them into the exhibit halls, chattering away. “Yeah, well, Martha did get her purse stolen.” “That was in Paris.” “Maybe, but the thief was an Arab.” The other woman, trailing, cast a forced sideways smile.
The first tourist didn’t say anything this time. He clenched his jaws, shook his head to his left just once, as if to suppress a larger reaction. Gradually, his expression relaxed. He laughed quietly to himself the kind of laugh that makes people ask why are you laughing? He watched them disappear behind display cases featuring, among pots, pans, vases and jewelry, some of the earliest found statues of a human figure. He was struck, and almost distracted, by an armless, earless, heavily cracked two-headed bust, a mere foot high, whose four bulging eyes stared at him across the centuries. The small figures reminded him of something he’d sculpted out of Playdo with his daughter Julia last time he was on leave Stateside. They had named their statue La Llorona, after the ghostly Mexican weeping mother, and added blue teardrops running down her face. When he suggested they smooth out the bumps and cracks between the different clumps in all colors they’d molded together, Julia had refused, saying, “she’s perfect like this, broken, but still together.” He smiled at the clay figure and thought of a remark his friend Lee had made. They’d flown from their base in Bahrain to Amman for a weekend of sightseeing and other debaucheries. That was when he’d seen the Citadel for the first time, and, at the end of their visit, while they waited for their Uber in the small snack bar by the entrance, Lee had proclaimed “You know what Martinez? People at home need to stop watching television and open their minds. This place is fucking awesome.”
The loud clanging of heavy machinery woke me up, followed, as if that wasn’t disturbance enough, by gunshots echoing through the upper reaches of San Antonio canyon, where I nest. I was just a hatchling when the humans started reconstructing the lodge at Manker Flats, seems like half a lifetime ago, so you’d think I would be used to the noise, but not so. Relaxing is not exactly a sparrow’s strong suit, and a good thing too because being nervous and twitchy is tantamount to survival in these parts; what with all the prowling, slithering, soaring predators out there, you have to stay alert, always on the move. Anyhow, I flew off before the first report faded into the alpine forest. I drifted past the parking area, straight up the eastern slope of the canyon, riding the gentle and warm morning breeze rising from the valley. I crossed the ski lift service road, vaguely following the path of the ski hut trail that snakes up the canyon towards the Baldy bowl. That’s where I nearly bumped into the hiker.
He was standing in the shade of a giant incense cedar, wiping the sweat off his brow, breathing heavily. Good thing his crimson shirt and ultramarine hat were hard to miss or I might have literally landed on him. Another reason why you can’t and shouldn’t relax out here; you never know what kind of obstacle is going to suddenly obstruct your flight path. After a swift bank and dodge maneuver, I hid on a branch above his head. Nothing like a bird’s eye view, in case you need to make a speedy escape, to stay ahead of the game or, as in this case, to spy on feeding opportunities. He unshouldered his backpack, which sent me scurrying further up the tree. I’d witnessed this kind of behavior before and it held great promise, so I decided to hang around, at least for a second. Sure enough, a moment later, the hiker extracted a bag full of trail mix and started munching. He was sloppy, dropping all kinds of crumbs around him. Even though I hadn’t had breakfast yet, I perched and watched patiently. When he finally proceeded up the trail, I dove down to where he was standing and I had myself a feast. It was the kind of homemade mixed bag full of nuts, a bit hard, dried fruit, yuk!, chocolate nibs, oh yeah!, and seeds, jackpot! Man, I liked this guy, he didn’t go for fruit, or worse, those protein bars that caused havoc in my digestive tract. Now, if only he’d included millet. My kingdom for some millet!
If you predicted that I followed the hiker with the scarlet shirt, you predicted right. Wouldn’t you? I mean, talk about a meal ticket. I knew that, by scavenging off of human sloppiness, I was upsetting the ecosystem. I should be breaking my wings and scratching my beak pecking for seeds in my natural habitat instead, but here’s my theory on the subject: they ain’t going nowhere. They, meaning the humans, the carnivorous bipeds. In fact, from what my folks told me, whose folks had told them, and so on for generations, they are slowly but surely multiplying. Like it or not, they are becoming part of the natural habitat, at least for the time being, and as long as they’re being naturally wasteful, why shouldn’t I reap the benefits? I suppose you could make the argument that if they keep coming, they’ll eventually chop down so many trees, we’ll be fighting for a safe place to nest, like my sister and her flock whose home was felled when the park rangers crew built their new outhouse. She never misses a chance to excrete a load of uric acid on those shiny cars in revenge. She’s quite militant, understandably, and likes to warn anyone who will listen about a future of concrete, electric cables, air thick with lung-corroding particles, and fat, domesticated cats who’ll swipe at you just for fun. I have to admit that, judging by the stories our city cousin Tweetie tells, making a living in close proximity to throngs of men sounds like a nightmare. It shows too. I mean Tweetie looks sickly. Must be the diet. But I digress.
The only downside to this whole uphill journey with the hiker was that it took forever. He stopped three more times, but only to drink, and admire the views. I felt like telling him to hurry up, the real payola was the three-hundred-sixty degree panorama at the Baldy summit. On a good day, you could see as far as the jagged contours of the Sierras to the north, Catalina island to the south, and the imposing figures of San Jacinto and San Gorgonio to the southeast. You should see what it looks like from up here!
He did finally manage to drag himself to the plaque that marks the summit. There, he snapped a picture and collapsed behind one of the stone walls that protect hikers from the often windy conditions. I found a thorny scrub a few feet away to hide under, and waited for scraps, playing it safe. From the many sounds he was making, I gathered he enjoyed his lunch. He took a sip of a steaming liquid and burped loudly. I darted deeper into the bush. I wasn’t alone.
There was a fellow sparrow a few hops away. He was bulkier than me, but I wasn’t about to let that intimidate me out of a gourmet meal. I sprang towards him, tweeting as ferociously as I could, channeling my interpretation of feline aggression. He took flight. I turned my attention back to the hiker.
The man had put away his lunch and was scribbling in a sketchbook. He was sprawled on the dirt, and both his arms were totally absorbed in the activity. I decided to test the waters and hopped cautiously into the open ground that separated us. He glanced over, but paid me no mind. What could he be so absorbed in? After all, the Mount Baldy summit earned its name from being just that, a bald, rocky hump, not exactly a fit subject for great art, but what do I know? I spotted some bread crumbs that had conveniently rolled over to where I could reach them without being within the hiker’s reach. This was way out of my comfort zone, but I was thinking about the big guy I’d just scared off who was bound to return, and the tedious flight up the mountain. and the chocolate nibs. I had to go for it.
The hiker turned his head towards me. I froze. He froze.
“Hey buddy.” He said.
I could tell by the pitch of his voice he meant no harm. I scanned the dirt and pecked rapidly, like there was no tomorrow. He turned his sketchbook slightly towards me. That made me skip back a few hops. Skittish and nervous, that’s how you survive out here. He started scribbling again, looking up and down from his book to me in quick glances. That threw me off for a second, but I couldn’t see the harm in it. I pecked some more but then I got curious. I lifted off and was immediately swept away by the wind.
“No, don’t go!” I heard his voice receding.
Quick as a dart, I caught my balance, spread out my wings to brake and redirect, and soon escaped the wind gust.
A moment later I flew over the hiker and caught a glimpse of his work. As I suspected, there wasn’t much to it; the spot is not a subject for great art, and this guy was no great artist. However, something stood out in the middle of the pencil landscape, which at first I didn’t recognize because it wasn’t in the view I had of the same landscape. The familiar shape consisted of a half a dozen pencil marks at best; two roundish balls, one smaller on top of the other, a thick stick, a flat leaf maybe, protruding from the side of the larger ball, while a short ‘v’ extended out of the opposite side of the smaller ball. The whole thing was greyed in except for a spot on the smaller ball, near the middle, where you could see the white of the paper, except for a dot, right in the center, like a bull’s eye, or what I should have recognized as a bird’s eye, staring straight at me.
I landed back under the safety of the thorny scrub, scanned the surroundings for other threats and, finding none, resumed my feasting. I was soon joined by the hefty opportunist I’d scared off earlier. I didn’t say anything; there was plenty to go around. Unperturbed, we filled our bellies accompanied by the comforting, rhythmic, relaxing rumble of human snoring.
One day, in the shadow of Mount Parnathos, on the tortuous trail to the natural amphitheater at Moula, where the community theatre ensemble was performing Prometheus Bound”, the Hiker was making fun of the Tortoise for being so slow.
“Are you going to Moula, slowpoke?”
“What’s it to you furball?” The Tortoise replied.
“Whoa! Easy there speedmonster. You going to the show?”
“No. I’m running the marathon.” The Tortoise said sarcastically. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I’ll save you a seat?” The Hiker offered. “For tomorrow’s show!”
He burst out laughing, slapping his leg so hard it caught the attention of the Fox rambling nearby.
“I’ll bet you I get there before you do. In fact, I’ll race you.” The Tortoise said, continuing on its way.
“Wow! Check out the skid marks! You’re on Babe!” The Hiker retorted as the silhouette of the Tortoise’s shell hobbled away from him.
The Fox came up and volunteered to referee the race.
“First in his seat at Moula wins. Ready, set, GO!”
The Hiker darted off in a cloud of dust, which covered the Tortoise as it settled, though it didn’t slow him down.
In no time, the Hiker passed the Agios Petros church, only two hundred yards away from the amphitheater. He stopped abruptly and sat down in the stone alcove facing the entrance to the church. He suddenly realized how foolish he looked for having accepted to race the Tortoise, how dishonorable. He decided to wait for his opponent to catch up. As the sun set over the looming mass of Mt Parnathos, the Hiker, having spent much energy during the day, fell asleep. Meanwhile the Tortoise ambled by, not breaking a stride. Onstage, the Wolf, playing the part of the Daemon Kratos bellowed out the opening speech.
“Here at the furthest verge of earth we stand, The Scythian pale, a lone and ghastly land…”
But it wasn’t until Prometheus, played by the Bear, emoted to the heavens in a raucous baritone, many verses later that the Hiker awoke
“Thou holy Sky, ye swift and wingèd Winds, And River Founts, and laughter of the seas Innumerable: Thou, Mother of all these, Earth, and thou Sun that seest all things, see What things, being god, the Gods have wrought on me!”
Swiftly, the Hiker made his way into the theater to take his seat, convinced he’d still won the race, when he heard a steady, low rumbling to his right. He looked over. The Tortoise was napping soundly and noisily in the seat next to him.
The angel sat cross-legged on what remains of the ‘love seat’ when, after much sweating, I reached the ruins of the Echo Mountain Resort. He sat on the very spot where Thaddeus Lowe, father of the ill-fated Mt Lowe Railway that used to take visitors on an hair-raising ride from the resort to the Mt Lowe summit, twenty-four hundred feet higher, used to sit with his wife Leontine admiring sunsets over the Los Angeles basin. The ageless face turned slowly when I approached. He smiled with his deeply set dark eyes, shadowed by thick, abundant eyebrows that matched his bushy black hair. If I had to guess I would say he was from Toulouse, but who knows. Regardless, I was surprised; in twenty years of hiking to this spot regularly I’d never encountered anyone. The crowds that reach the resort tend not to drift this far over to the eastern edge of the ruins.
What do you see? Asked the angel.
What do you mean? I replied, and aware, for the first times that I’d identified this dark-haired buddha-like apparition as an angel.
When you walk…he explained.
When I walk? I see–things? I threw out. Why an angel?
What?
I see things when I walk. Why not an old man with an angel face?
Do you see what I see?
What?
What I see.
I see what I see. Why not an old man with an angel face twirling an angel feather over his head? I see things buzzing, blooming, flying, crawling, floating, shining, shimmering, I pointed at him, sitting, rotting, pollinating, scampering, scattering, cawing, chirping…
WAIT. The angel interrupted.
What?
Do you see this feather? He leaned forward and said, in an enthusiastic, overjoyed, almost ecstatic whisper, because if you do the world is saved! SAVED, You hear me? Love will prevail! Beauty and goodness will rule the earth!
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