Category: Tanka/Haiku (Page 3 of 4)

On a mission to explore new terrain and faced with the daunting multitude of paths on the Alltrails app, my navigational tool of choice, I resorted to John Robinson’s classic “Trails of the Angeles, 100 hikes in the San Gabriels”, for this outing to the northwest corner of the range. As of its 1999 edition, you could drive all the way past Templin Highway, to Cienaga campground, and hike deep into the canyon, as described in Robinson’s hike #3. That is no longer true. The road through the lower reaches of Fish Canyon is eroded, washed out, or covered with large boulders, and you have to walk it. Not a problem. We like walking.

It’s actually comforting to witness nature reclaiming territory over human asphalt ribbons, and other abandoned concrete structures that lace and dot even our reserved wilderness landscapes–the Mueller tunnel, the bridge to nowhere, several ski lifts, the Echo ‘White City’ resort. To read the dusk of the anthropocene into these ruins would be tempting but pessimistic. I’d rather imagine that, whatever lies next in the history of the planet, may not include that much concrete or asphalt or glass or metal or even humans, since we are so hellbent on self-destruction, but Life will march on.

In the canyon, alive, well and merry swarms of mosquitos partied and drank around my warm-blooded ankles, knees and wrists. To escape them, I took an overgrown, largely abandoned trail leading up a slope thickly covered with chaparral. Again, not a problem; a little dose of bushwhacking adds a dose of excitement to any ramble in the woods. It also serves as a reminder that this habitat is not friendly to lonesome, untooled bipeds in shorts, t-shirts and trail runners.

The untrimmed yuccas
rhyme with prickly motherfuckas
spill blood on the trail
which rhymes with breathe climb exhale
beats the mozzie armies below

The northerly was blowing strong again this morning, climbing out of the Deukmejian Wilderness on the trail to Mt Lukens.

A two inch cricket
basking in the winter sun
chirps just once before
hopping away out of sight
due to unsafe conditions

The roar of a child
carried by a winter breeze
floats to the ocean
people smile as it passes
let the inner demons out

By the time I reached the summit it had calmed considerably though it still made a door slam repeatedly on one of the relay tower bases, while another tower whined incessantly. And then the breeze stopped. And I ventured onto a trail that was faint at first, then severely overgrown, and finally disappeared, just late enough in the game that I was committed to not turning back though I probably should have. The next mile or so was a sever bushwhack through some of the densest chaparral I have ever crossed. The effort of finding an acceptable path, without loosing footing, and scraping, pushing, crawling at times, shoving, tripping, through an endless field of branches, thorns, rocks bent on NOT letting me pass, prevented me from recording any of it–so much for my multi-tasking skills.

Lesson: when the Alltrails app fails to guide you to a passable trail, turn around, retrace your steps, or start filming and go ahead, bleed for your fun.

Observations in tanka form from a walk that started in famed Placerita Canyon, traveled through a recently burned landscape in full natural recovery, and ended at the “Oak of the Golden Dream”, where in 1842, Francisco Lopez dreamed of, and then found gold, six years before John Sutter in Northern California (the full story).

(I owe the discovery of the Japanese poetical format to Harryette Mullen’s “Urban Tumbleweed, Notes from a Tanka Diary” ).

Kept moving through
cold, sun, wind on winter day
across a charred landscape
old growth oaks black like charcoal
sycamores stripped white, naked

Historical trail
they found gold near the oak tree
by the creek, blind, fooled
by the winter sun glistening 
on the water like a dream

Historical trail
creekside, by the old oak tree
they planted cross, flag 
and deed to claim land 
they then ravaged with fool's greed

Along the Path
Along the path
Singed peeled white pine trunks erect in fields of ferns
eroded boulders cradling many fingers in bloom
spiked pinecones dripping sap kick'd to mark time.
Along the path
Feasts of scents sounds textures colors
thresholds into the imagination
Bear plays a scintillating saxophone to a swarming cloud of gnats
resting crosslegged on a bed of blue-eyed grass
hosting a drone choir of drunken bees
foot thumping the air on the downbeat
while oblivious workman-like ants zig and zag in double-time
he turns to camera 
"honey-infused ursine blues is sooo much sweeter"
a painted lady weaves in approval around the bell of the horn
Oh Yeah
suddenly lizard scurries off beat crow shrieks the alarm
An intruder like a tourist walks into the alpine scenery
along the path he hums a few bars of Giant Steps
he enters the landscape like a painting a jam session a cinemascope drama an eight-hundred page romantic novel
with some anticipation much curiosity and measured wonder
long then short then long shadows drift and define 
what he sees hears smells commits to memory

Singed peeled white pine trunks erect in fields of ferns
eroded boulders cradling many fingers in bloom
spiked pinecones dripping sap he kicks to mark time
along the path in the painting he enters like a landscape   

For architectural reasons, the structures of the Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, seen from the Bailey canyon trail, remind me of California missions, like the San Gabriel Mission, barely visible in the distance through a thin layer of morning fog.

Muted bells of Bailey
Cool dawn whisper
a moment of silence...
    (for the enslaved Chumash Indians who built the San Gabriel Mission with lumber pillaged from the southern canyons of the San Gabriels)

There’s no escaping the urban rumble, the honking of trucks backing up, the many chainsaws, lawn mowers and leaf blowers prettying suburban yards below, the sirens, but as soon as the trail ducks deeper into the canyon, the atmosphere goes quiet, though not silent. Any warm body moving through will be escorted by a cloud of swarming flies, mozzies, and bees pollinating late summer blooms. Only a breeze or extreme temperatures would keep them away, and it’s a perfectly still, warm summer morning. What did the Chumash do about bugs?

Traversing soft white
buzzing buckwheat fields
A bee lands, dies in my coffee

I remember reading that, in the summer, groups of Chumash would migrate to higher altitudes in the range, places like Chilao to hunt and forage. They would thus also avoid the high temperatures of the foothills (and the armies of flying insects?). My return from Mt Wilson, contrastingly, is a long toll road slog in and out of sun-drenched, breezeless, dry chaparral. Still, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Whiny flies hover
like bloodthirsty drones
Summer trail schadenfreude
   (for the drones)

It’s the time of year when the boughs of Jeffrey pines bend under the weight of green cones oozing resin that drips on the forest floor, on a boulder, or on the hat of the occasional passer-by, like the sweat from their brow drips on the trail, on their boots, or on the pages of a sketchbook. 

Gray summer stillness
through clouds of flies
buzzing, views of Mount Baldy

Three cups of tea, three views of Mount Baldy (also known as San Antonio), from each of the three T’s (Mounts Timber, Telegraph and Thunder), and three totally trite attempts at trail poetry.

Mozzies attacking
three bites a minute
August mountain peacefulness

It’s not often I’ve reached a rugged, exposed summit like Telegraph when the breeze was lesser than what the microphone on the smartphone picks up, which made for a warm day, sweetly punctuated by a canteen refill at the Columbine spring, and a hammering cold shower under the San Antonio falls. 

Silent summer heat
ice-cold spring water 
sun, shade, nature takes and gives

With an average two hundred ninety two sunny days per year (in downtown LA, according to this page), you have to be lucky NOT to find at least partial sunshine on a weekly excursion anywhere in the county. And since, you know, the grass is always greener etc…, I personally long for imperfect weather, and boy was I spoiled during this walk in the Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness, in the San Gabriels. It was all atmosphere, which reminds me of a scene in Hotel du Nord

Edmond (Louis Jouvet)…J’ai besoin de changer d’atmosphère, et mon atmosphère, c’est toi.

Raymonde (Arletty) : C’est la première fois qu’on me traite d’atmosphère ! Si je suis une atmosphère, t’es un drôle de bled! Les types qui sortent du milieu sans en être et qui crânent à cause de ce qu’ils ont été on devrait les vider ! Atmosphère?! Atmosphère?! Est-ce que j’ai une gueule d’atmosphère? Puisque c’est comme ça, vas-y tout seul à la Varenne. Bonne pêche et bonne atmosphère!

(my imperfect translation):

Edmond:…I need a change of atmosphere, and you’re my atmosphere.

Raymonde: Never been called atmosphere before. If I’m atmosphere, you’re some kind of town! Guys who act tough and brag about being from the hood but haven’t done shit should get kicked out. Atmosphere! Atmosphere! Do I look like atmosphere to you? If that’s how it is, go to La Varenne all by yourself. Happy fishing and happy atmosphere!

From Hotel du Nord (1938), by Marcel Carné

The only downside, I thought as I walked along the pleasant, and sometimes narrow ridge, not knowing where or how far I’d fall if I misstepped, is not cashing in on the views, which can be pretty spectacular from these parts. But I’d gotten my fill on last week’s trip to Will Thrall peak, same general area, just two or three miles west.

While foggy days are scarce in LA, film crews are not. In fact, I bet that, during any given year in the city of angels, days when you run into the latter outnumber the former. Luckily the outfit who were filming on the Angeles Crest Highway left a couple of parking spots at Islip saddle, next to the craft service table. And they were not interested in the forest at all; Gaston and I had that all to ourselves again.

Here’s a little mood setting:

Soft footsteps on a

bed of damp needles

caressed by a rolling autumn fog

And motivation,

I love to travel a forest trail

Through a fragrant tunnel of green,

Or the path that clings to a towering cliff

Hanging heaven and earth between.

Will Thrall, from his poem “To Travel a Forest Trail”

Walking Project 134_autumn fog – Mt Williamson and boxcar ridge from chris worland on Vimeo.

Brown sunburnt buckwheat

Once delicate white flowers

Crumble in my hand

 

Birds of prey, hawks I think

Circle lower Brown Mountain at sunset

Eye me amused

My previous attempt to connect the dots between the Dawn mine, Eaton Saddle, Brown Mountain and ultimately the junction between the Brown Mountain road and the Ken Burton trail, ended when the fog rolled in and the very faint user trail–a couple of fading footprints really–disappeared. I got lost, almost, and had to turn around. This time, in full Fall sunshine, psyched by a strumming ukelele and good conversation–thanks Adrian and Jose–I followed the ridge that I could clearly see, and somehow bushwhacked a path through all the prickly yuccas, whitethorn, sagebrush and other chaparral shrubs. Not like I discovered Kuhikugu, but to one who has been long city pent, it was a good day’s walk.

Walking Project 042_fall- brown – Brown mountain loop from chris worland on Vimeo.