UNFINISHED !
Man
y of the images I could not bring myself to erase were ones I had probably not felt so strongly about a month ago; but now each was as sharp as a dart, evoking a moment that was now miles and months away: bunches of freshly-
picked bananas in the bow of a narrow wooden boat crossing the Rio Madre de Dios; a boy kicking a soccer ball; two extraordinarily fat women on one small motorcycle in Puerto Maldonado; a sign for the loc
al shaman, inviting us to drink ayahuasca and see; and a wall with a ladder against it and a bunch of Peruvians sitting on top. (They are watching a soccer match, between Puno and the local team. I am walking alone, as now, and, on impulse, climb the ladder and join them on top of the wall. It’s a lousy place to watch the game from, but a wonderful place to be, until I start 
thinking about leaving and find that as more and more others have joined us, the ladder has worked its way about twenty meters toward the jungle from me -- and it's a very high wall.) Each photo brought back a piece of the feeling of that other day.
Eventually I started back toward the motorcycle. The sun was dropping. Although I love sunsets, I would miss this one, because I’d come out with just a T-shirt and slacks, no kind of jacket, and after sunset night usually follows, with lower temperatures. I know at least that much.
But now the low sun had brought alive the shallow area where a bunch of white birds, including some egrets, were hanging out. I could not resist walking down there in the muck to shoot. (So much for my grown-up decision to head home before it got cold!) I would shoot a few pictures, press the button again and get nothing, and erase a few more shots from the Amazon. Each time, I noticed, as the light was fading and the egrets likely to fly off at any moment, I was less selective in my erasures. Well, not those two hugely fat women on one tiny motorcycle. Nor the smiling face of the ferryman steering his boat. Nor the children playing in front of the huge and beautiful nude woman drawn on the wall of a store, with the setting sunlight brightening their faces. But others I couldn’t part with a few hours ago I destroyed in seconds now.
I will be up all night writing.
In the afternoon I went out to listen to the drumming at the Ashby BART flea market, and maybe take some pictures. I could have walked, but I took the motorcycle, thinking I might go on to somewhere.
The drumming I enjoyed. There were maybe three-dozen drummers, all kinds of drums, all kinds of people. I took some pictures. One man gestured not to take his picture, so I didn’t. I put away my camera and took out my notebook instead; but one of the drummers came to me and asked, did I give people the pictures I took of them, and I said, sure, but I don’t think I took any of you, and he nodded, disappointed, so I added that I could, and we did that, and he wrote his name left-handed in huge, neat letters in my notebook, and then I took a few more, but another man got annoyed with my doing that, and a woman lectured me about it, so I put away the camera again and just listened; but I wanted to shoot a picture of the man with the sunglasses and three small drums on a sort of portable table, and a shirtless sweaty black man, glistening in bright sunlight, drumming so fast that he looked like he might disappear, and even the woman who, after lecturing me, sat on the pavement near her drum with a wonderfully pensive expression, and I thought I could sure take a picture she would treasure, but there was no way to ask, so I stood around listening and watching awhile, even started drumming on the surface in front of me, and then left.
I thought I was going home to get back to work, but instead the motorcycle carried me past all the Berkeley neighborhoods and down to the water, and I parked it and started walking.
At the end I had a wide view of the Bay Bridge, the tall port cranes like huge creatures from another planet to the left of it, the ghostly city skyline to the right of it, and then a nearby slip of land with trees on it. All but the blindingly bright afternoon sun and the harsh yellow trail it laid across the water toward me, everything was a soft shade of grey or blue: water, sky, cranes, clouds, skyline, sails of the two sailboats in the foreground. It would not make for good photography, but I sat down to watch, and maybe write.
I had nothing much to say, but started writing anyway. I started:
i am always in some country, walking alone out to the end of something.
sometimes i can hear train whistles or the laughter of children, or even notes of someone’s music. often, as now, water laps at the mossy rocks beneath me, softly, as if not to alarm us with its power.
But my writing kept getting interrupted by the birds drifting across that blinding swath of sunlight on the water. I had to try to capture their silhouettes against the broken flakes of yellow light. I would follow a bird across rather fine shades of blue and grey into that swath of light, timing my shot just right, even though I could not actually see the bird once it reached the light.
But frequently when I pushed the button at the critical moment nothing happened, and I read "Full CF" on the monitor.
This had begun by the drumming: I had not used the card since my return from Peru, and it was nearly full, so that after shooting awhile I had to erase some shots from Peru. No problem. I did so, but skipped over a bunch of pictures I liked.
There were plenty of others to erase, and no hurry, and I found it difficult to destroy these, even though I knew I had copied them onto a hard-drive, and these were just back-up.
Now, watching the birds, time was a little more critical. I was tempted to erase some of the ones I had not been able to make myself erase before, just to get it done and get back to shooting. Mostly I resisted, feeling that these images I’d forgotten were reminding me of things I needed to know. If I didn’t catch this bird crossing the beam of light, I’d catch the next one.
In the afternoon I went out to listen to the drumming at the Ashby BART flea market, and maybe take some pictures. I could have walked, but I took the motorcycle, thinking I might go on to somewhere.
The drumming I enjoyed. There were maybe three-dozen drummers, all kinds of drums, all kinds of people. I took some pictures. One man gestured not to take his picture, so I didn’t. I put away my camera and took out my notebook instead; but one of the drummers came to me and asked, did I give people the pictures I took of them, and I said, sure, but I don’t think I took any of you, and he nodded, disappointed, so I added that I could, and we did that, and he wrote his name left-handed in huge, neat letters in my notebook, and then I took a few more, but another man got annoyed with my doing that, and a woman lectured me about it, so I put away the camera again and just listened; but I wanted to shoot a picture of the man with the sunglasses and three small drums on a sort of portable table, and a shirtless sweaty black man, glistening in bright sunlight, drumming so fast that he looked like he might disappear, and even the woman who, after lecturing me, sat on the pavement near her drum with a wonderfully pensive expression, and I thought I could sure take a picture she would treasure, but there was no way to ask, so I stood around listening and watching awhile, even started drumming on the surface in front of me, and then left.
I thought I was going home to get back to work, but instead the motorcycle carried me past all the Berkeley neighborhoods and down to the water, and I parked it and started walking.
At the end I had a wide view of the Bay Bridge, the tall port cranes like huge creatures from another planet to the left of it, the ghostly city skyline to the right of it, and then a nearby slip of land with trees on it. All but the blindingly bright afternoon sun and the harsh yellow trail it laid across the water toward me, everything was a soft shade of grey or blue: water, sky, cranes, clouds, skyline, sails of the two sailboats in the foreground. It would not make for good photography, but I sat down to watch, and maybe write.I had nothing much to say, but started writing anyway. I started:
i am always in some country, walking alone out to the end of something.
sometimes i can hear train whistles or the laughter of children, or even notes of someone’s music. often, as now, water laps at the mossy rocks beneath me, softly, as if not to alarm us with its power.
But my writing kept getting interrupted by the birds drifting across that blinding swath of sunlight on the water. I had to try to capture their silhouettes against the broken flakes of yellow light. I would follow a bird across rather fine shades of blue and grey into that swath of light, timing my shot just right, even though I could not actually see the bird once it reached the light.
But frequently when I pushed the button at the critical moment nothing happened, and I read "Full CF" on the monitor.This had begun by the drumming: I had not used the card since my return from Peru, and it was nearly full, so that after shooting awhile I had to erase some shots from Peru. No problem. I did so, but skipped over a bunch of pictures I liked.
There were plenty of others to erase, and no hurry, and I found it difficult to destroy these, even though I knew I had copied them onto a hard-drive, and these were just back-up.Now, watching the birds, time was a little more critical. I was tempted to erase some of the ones I had not been able to make myself erase before, just to get it done and get back to shooting. Mostly I resisted, feeling that these images I’d forgotten were reminding me of things I needed to know. If I didn’t catch this bird crossing the beam of light, I’d catch the next one.
Man
y of the images I could not bring myself to erase were ones I had probably not felt so strongly about a month ago; but now each was as sharp as a dart, evoking a moment that was now miles and months away: bunches of freshly-
picked bananas in the bow of a narrow wooden boat crossing the Rio Madre de Dios; a boy kicking a soccer ball; two extraordinarily fat women on one small motorcycle in Puerto Maldonado; a sign for the loc
al shaman, inviting us to drink ayahuasca and see; and a wall with a ladder against it and a bunch of Peruvians sitting on top. (They are watching a soccer match, between Puno and the local team. I am walking alone, as now, and, on impulse, climb the ladder and join them on top of the wall. It’s a lousy place to watch the game from, but a wonderful place to be, until I start 
thinking about leaving and find that as more and more others have joined us, the ladder has worked its way about twenty meters toward the jungle from me -- and it's a very high wall.) Each photo brought back a piece of the feeling of that other day.Eventually I started back toward the motorcycle. The sun was dropping. Although I love sunsets, I would miss this one, because I’d come out with just a T-shirt and slacks, no kind of jacket, and after sunset night usually follows, with lower temperatures. I know at least that much.
But now the low sun had brought alive the shallow area where a bunch of white birds, including some egrets, were hanging out. I could not resist walking down there in the muck to shoot. (So much for my grown-up decision to head home before it got cold!) I would shoot a few pictures, press the button again and get nothing, and erase a few more shots from the Amazon. Each time, I noticed, as the light was fading and the egrets likely to fly off at any moment, I was less selective in my erasures. Well, not those two hugely fat women on one tiny motorcycle. Nor the smiling face of the ferryman steering his boat. Nor the children playing in front of the huge and beautiful nude woman drawn on the wall of a store, with the setting sunlight brightening their faces. But others I couldn’t part with a few hours ago I destroyed in seconds now.
I can’t stop playing. How, I wonder, have I changed from the child who could not stop playing? Camera instead of cap-pistols, but still clambering around in the muck, not wanting to go in and sit at some table.
I climb out of the inlet. A woman walking with dogs watches her dogs react, and says, ‘The human that came from the sea,’ and laughs. I wish her a good evening and continue toward the motorcycle, but when I look back the sun and the clouds are making a beautiful abstract painting now, so I am shooting again, and then three more egrets, two large and one small, delicate in the setting sunlight, stand in the water, so I climb back down and photograph them, holding my breath at their beauty, even though I know the photographs won’t be so great.
Then once, when I look up from erasing more bits and pieces of Puerto Maldonado, they are gone, so I climb out again, and this time make it to the bike, turning once more to shoot the sunset. I am delighted with my day, now.
Between the effort to capture the sunset and the juxtaposition of Puerto Maldonado with San Francisco Bay sunset, I feel fully alive, on fire to write, to mix the photos and the writing to share somehow the way I feel, which is that everything is fractured in such an intriguing way that the thought comes to my mind, "Now I understand Jackson Pollock for the first time." (There is only one person I could say it to, and she is over there somewhere in that sunset, in San Francisco, but perhaps not wanting to hear from me today.)
I drive then along the water, from University Avenue toward Emeryville, and the bright orange sun is now just above the horizon, minutes from disappearing, and the trail across the water is a bright yellow-orange, and so there comes a moment when I can’t help stopping again – still shedding memories of Puerto Maldonado every few seconds, to accommodate the silhouette of a playing dog against the sun-trail, a long shot of sky-line and orange sun, the silhouette of two kids riding a bike just by the water’s edge, and the like.
I climb out of the inlet. A woman walking with dogs watches her dogs react, and says, ‘The human that came from the sea,’ and laughs. I wish her a good evening and continue toward the motorcycle, but when I look back the sun and the clouds are making a beautiful abstract painting now, so I am shooting again, and then three more egrets, two large and one small, delicate in the setting sunlight, stand in the water, so I climb back down and photograph them, holding my breath at their beauty, even though I know the photographs won’t be so great.
Then once, when I look up from erasing more bits and pieces of Puerto Maldonado, they are gone, so I climb out again, and this time make it to the bike, turning once more to shoot the sunset. I am delighted with my day, now.
Between the effort to capture the sunset and the juxtaposition of Puerto Maldonado with San Francisco Bay sunset, I feel fully alive, on fire to write, to mix the photos and the writing to share somehow the way I feel, which is that everything is fractured in such an intriguing way that the thought comes to my mind, "Now I understand Jackson Pollock for the first time." (There is only one person I could say it to, and she is over there somewhere in that sunset, in San Francisco, but perhaps not wanting to hear from me today.)I drive then along the water, from University Avenue toward Emeryville, and the bright orange sun is now just above the horizon, minutes from disappearing, and the trail across the water is a bright yellow-orange, and so there comes a moment when I can’t help stopping again – still shedding memories of Puerto Maldonado every few seconds, to accommodate the silhouette of a playing dog against the sun-trail, a long shot of sky-line and orange sun, the silhouette of two kids riding a bike just by the water’s edge, and the like.
The CF card is like my mind, as newer memories burn their way onto my memory, erasing others, or at least thinning them out, muting their colors and sharpness. Once I accidentally hit the wrong button, and the camera asks me whether I really want to DELETE ALL, and while I carefully reply "No" I realize that this too has its corollary in the real world, a motorcycle accident on the way home. Also to be carefully avoided. (But rarely preceded by anything asking if one really wants to delete all!)
I feel fully alive. I ride slowly back, wanting to rush to my computer but so hungry that I stop in Emeryville first for something to eat. As I eat and think, the clouds tease me with soft pink memories of the sunset, which was a very fine one.
I may not make a poem from the day, but I understand a little. I understand something about how we see pictures, and life, from the way those images that seemed banal failures when I sat looking at them in that jungle city seem so richly evocative now. I understand not merely the healing power of the sunset, which I learn and forget several times each year, but that when I walk in the world open and vulnerable, humbly ready to accept whatever found poems or odd images get thrown my way, they will be thrown my way. I am re-learning the richness of solitude, yet again. (But, yeah, when I get home and listen to two messages from the person whose voice I most like to hear, and she is expressing her delight in this sunset with the same excited rush of words that I would have used if I’d called her an hour ago, and I listen to her thoughts and her delight and recognize my own too, that is quite something too.)
I feel fully alive. I ride slowly back, wanting to rush to my computer but so hungry that I stop in Emeryville first for something to eat. As I eat and think, the clouds tease me with soft pink memories of the sunset, which was a very fine one.
I may not make a poem from the day, but I understand a little. I understand something about how we see pictures, and life, from the way those images that seemed banal failures when I sat looking at them in that jungle city seem so richly evocative now. I understand not merely the healing power of the sunset, which I learn and forget several times each year, but that when I walk in the world open and vulnerable, humbly ready to accept whatever found poems or odd images get thrown my way, they will be thrown my way. I am re-learning the richness of solitude, yet again. (But, yeah, when I get home and listen to two messages from the person whose voice I most like to hear, and she is expressing her delight in this sunset with the same excited rush of words that I would have used if I’d called her an hour ago, and I listen to her thoughts and her delight and recognize my own too, that is quite something too.)
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