Author: Gin Getz

A song for the autumn river

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Upon returning from a stunning day skiing (yes, skiing…) atop the frozen Methow River… I was inspired to rework this poem originally started back in October of 2010 inspired by my beloved Rio Grande.  Thank you to new friends and neighbors here in Washington for a feritle seed of inspiration, and to those who put up patiently with my longing for where I was.

 

The water lures me as she has so many times before
Now emerging discreet as a delicate muse in the woods
Her hollow voice tempting in a distant primordial chant
Of silver coins tossed from teasing fingers
Her sweet smell and silky sway and wave taunting down the mountainside

And if I stand here long enough will I see her freeze
Watch the surface relinquish to the stagnant state of frozen waters

Am I no more than a voyeur
Standing safely out of reach
Dry on her precarious banks
Enthralled
While she takes no heed of my presence
I am but a hunched form like a leaning tree casting shade across her face
As her struggle to keep fluid ebbs and flows in thickening waters below

Watching the last of her dazzling dance down the mountain
A spray of glittering waters splashing over rocks worn smooth by her impassive force
As the last of the lowering sunlight sheds long shadows across her ever changing shell
So soon to be concealed for the drunken duration of long winter

The surge of ice shall spread expand swell and cover
Suffocate the last of this seasons song
As she gives up gives in and can no longer hold her own
Succumbing to the weighty swathe of ice and snow
Cooling and calming her passions
Reducing restricting constricting her rage
Held back at bay by the season

The expanding cold takes charge of her course
Secrets and sounds still
The long static expanse being laid out above her
A white ribbon winding between two hills of black timber
Silent

The end of a white noise louder than the clatter rolling around in my mind

I lose myself in the last of this frigid rushing
The conclusion of open waters and her alluring voice
Soon to be suppressed
Numb and stifled with no words of her own
Tucked away behind her hijab

I lean over and dip in my hand
Calloused palm seared by cold waters
Fingers outstretched seeking searching
As if I might hold onto something solid
Perchance an understanding
But all she does is move around me
Unconcerned with the minor inconvenience of my flesh and blood and bone
Appearing a ghostly white beneath the slick surface

I pull back my hand now red and throbbing
Anger at the violent cold
And allow the water to continue without me
My futile interference leaves not a ripple
I am allowed to watch but nothing more
The river is stronger than I am

And to think of how many spend a lifetime
Struggling to subdue control alter and own
That which is mightier than you or I will ever be

She will have her time again
Singing loudly with fierce abandon
As the ice recedes and she releases her pent up rage
Wild with furious brown waters
Six months from now

Last night I dreamed of horses

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Last night I dreamed of horses, running towards me on an open field, wild things, tossing their manes in a rhythm of tempestuous waves on the open sea, tails whipping like tattered flags, louder and louder the pulse of primordial drums until I feel the earth trembling beneath my still feet as I wait for them to near. They close in, mob about me, as they’ll tend to do when they see me out on pasture. Coming not for treats as that’s not my thing, but as children vying for attention, of which I still never have enough to satisfy them or myself.

Long noses, round brown eyes and prickly hairs under the round balls of their chins. Their scent a pacifying perfume, a mix up of memories of leather, sweat, and sweet grass. I try to comfort them in turn, a gentle touch on the firm flat space on the side of their necks where my fingers hide beneath the shadow of their manes, or a soothing stroke starting just above their eyes and rubbing in a line down the front of their extended noses, feeling the weight and density of bones beneath, so close to the surface, the skull I am too familiar with after seeing the remains of plenty who have passed before me, with me, near me, in my arms.

I slide onto Crow’s back (clearly a dream, for little as the horse may be, the older I become, the harder mounting bareback becomes) easing my leg over his back and hoisting myself upright with my hands pressing against his withers. There, where I am comfortable, comforted, where I have spent so many hours before. My buttocks firmly planted in the center of his back, a perfect fit, my thighs wrapping around and down in the hollow between scapula and ribs, lower legs draping below his belly, my boots loose and relaxed, suspended as if weightless and barely attached. I reach forward and touch the poll framed between his pointy ears, a window through which I’ve seen so many mountains and trails. I lean further, run my hands down his neck and around in a knotted embrace, my chest to his neck, my nose deep into his mane. And we stand there, nothing more, me on he, my patient horse awaiting word of what I want, and yet I want no more than to be there with him. Soft and smooth and gentle on his warm back while the others mill about, contented simply to be there too.

Back to a world of white

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The obscurity of a mid-night with no moon
Silent stirring of a shadow hiding in shade
A flower unfolds in this darkness
Bright blossom petals
No one can see
A blind woman roused by the fragrance
Feels the colors
Emerging

Untitled

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Promises holding no more depth than a looking glass
I’m giving you what you want
And still you see right through to the view beyond
Envision me romping happily in the open field
Dry of snow and awash in sun
Not noticing my flesh and blood before you
Bleeding in the wind

Rainforest

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

Currently on a brief vacation to Squamish, BC, bringing Forrest back to University, and enjoying time with all three boys in the rainforest. Today I share only images, not words.

Here and now

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

The simple act of replacing the calendar, changing the number we write on our personal checks or type on our business memos from 11 to 12. That’s it, nothing more. Except what we make of it. A big deal. A time of reflection.

I’m never one for resolutions, but big on reflections. This year I attempt to reflect less on the past, more on choices, paths, futures. Directions. But I have no crystal ball. Unable to look ahead, uncertain of the here and now, I find myself reluctantly turning back. Reflecting on the past. It’s comfortable, safe, known.

And confusing, because memory distorts the past. I forget sometimes why I left.

The big move. It was going to bring me to a new wild world. Raw land, and an open canvas, a new life unfolding, unfurling, one grain of sand at a time.  I anticipated a deep relationship beginning, blossoming. The slow initiation. Two fresh lovers unsure of one another, eager, reaching, curious, tasting, touching.

We leaped; a net appeared.

The jump itself is exhilarating. Then the dust settles and we look around and try to make sense of where we are.

Here. Now.

I return from a snowshoe where I crossed over others tracks. In hopes of not disturbing the skier’s lines, I found myself post holing on the side hill. I don’t understand the etiquette yet. Every place has a different set of rules.

I’m used to being alone. My tracks. My rules. As selfish as it seems. It is what I was used to. I shared those little lines about the mountain set by my humble snowshoes quite happily with the coyote and bobcat and fox and martin, and grumbled under my breath when the moose chose my path, punching deep holes, long strides, just wide enough for my snowshoes to tip over and suck me in to some great white abyss.

Was it last year I went three months without leaving the mountains, and saw eight people all winter? And I was content.

Careful what you ask for. After years of spending isolated winters or summers with Mother-in-law-from-hell and her entourage, small but damaging as it was, I said I wanted neighbors, good neighbors. Now I have them. I have met more caring, interesting, involved, active neighbors in one month than I met in ten years in Colorado. Mind you, they are closer here. But I’m certain it’s more a matter of attitude, not distance.

And yet, already I see that wonderful as this is, it’s not the life for me. A social life. My hermit ways are only growing stronger, more defined. I hear them now clearly, growling, snarling, sneering and threatening to rebel.

When out of one’s element, by necessity perhaps, we learn to define who and what we are. What matters most. What parts of the past have formed us and do we allow to carry through into our futures?

I am missing my hermit ways. You can adjust, loved ones have assured me, to a social situation. Yes, I can adjust, but do I thrive? Like a wild cat in a zoo? Is captivity the best choice?

It’s no big deal, I tell myself. Then why do I feel distraught? My eyes are burning and wet but refuse to shed a tear. There is nothing wrong and yet nothing feels quite right.

Perhaps when my horses are here, though even then I shall find myself a hobby horsewoman having horses without horse work. Another part of the definition I had formed for myself that was left behind.

And the greatest part of me left behind? The deep wilds. And my part in them. My connection to them. I turned my back and walked away. Severed the cord. And find myself left like a babe learning to breathe.

Perhaps I can learn to breathe here. Deeper, richer, fuller than the thin air of the high mountains.

In the meanwhile, I feel somehow empty. Gasping for breath. That fish out of water.

And find my mind, without the connection with the wilds around me, resembles a blank canvas, an empty page. There is a hollow void.

The choice, then, is how I choose to fill it.

Or leave it sparse, and turn the page.

Confessions of a snowshoer

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(an excerpt from a longer piece that got too long…)

Here’s what my first impression looked like. Deep powder, back county, dark timber. A solitary woodsman with an armful of split wood, a little log cabin, smoke welcomingly wafting from the chimney. Snowshoes left by the simple stool on the front porch, while the wood is carried in, the fire stoked, and the smell of warm stew and drying mittens permeates the air.

Snowshoes. For me, they did then as they do now represent the real deal of living with snow in the back country. Pure and simple. Economical, practical, solid and safe.

OK, it is many years ago. There we are at Thanksgiving. The most beautiful Thanksgiving I believe I ever was a part of. The turkey and pies carefully lifted from the heavy old cook stove crackling in the kitchen corner, upon which a big tub of water was warming for washing the old antique dishes spread out for this bountiful feast, most with chips and nicks from years of use and secrets of stories from many a meal shared in this cozy little cabin. The old heavy wood hand hewed table was laden with home grown goodies, and the room washed in the soft golden glow from a half dozen kerosene lamps carefully tended and chimneys cleaned each day. No electric lights, no music, air so soft and voices kept as low as the lights but laughter still spilling over like wine, staining the tablecloth a jubilant, vibrant red.

The little rough cut wood cabin, casement windows trimmed with wisteria vines then barren of leaves and fragrant purple flowers, trellising up the side and softening the obstruction that the house was to the mountain further still. It somehow fit into the woods, discrete and modest, into the mountain, not stuck on its side or the mountain cut, carved and suited to fit the home.

I still choose to mix my cookie dough with a fork, mash my potatoes with an old hand masher, and wash my hair at night so it’s dry by morning rather than resort to an electric hair drier. In the morning, I fry our eggs on the old cast iron skillet and our coffee percolates in an old steel pot. I’ve survived over thirty years without a TV and I still don’t want a phone. A dishwasher here would be as seemingly as out of place as a microwave oven.

Downsizing, scaling down, simplify, creating the chosen simple life. The pure essence of life. Simple pleasures. An appreciation, commitment and passion for that which matters most. My family, both two and four leggeds. Nature. Wilds. Air and water.

A simple walk in the woods.

In winter, that means snowshoes. A quiet, solitary, snowy walk in the woods.

Solstice Wind

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And in the dark
The wind rises and twists and heaves
And circles me with a fierce embrace
Somehow lifting me body and soul

A black sky overcast
Void of sparkling depths
Air moist and heavy and balmy
The big trees that stand sentinel
I find finally moving dancing swaying
To a song I hear in the murmur of the wind

The forest comes alive
Here so trimmed and tamed and thinned
Now in the enigmatic depths of darkness
Whispering to be wild
In the deep ferocious bellow of the sky

Still somehow subtle soft contained
A secret promise remains held back
Unable to let down her hair
Throw back her head and howl
The hush of the mountain’s cry
A rumbling I finally feel
Low down and primal

Damn it, would you roar!
Let loose unsuppressed and unrestrained
Even the wind is sugar sweet soothing and polite
I want you to rip and tear
And burn and pulse
And let me sense your surging
Stirring
And I awoke
Looked around
And wondered what the hell I was doing here

Waiting for the darkest hour
As the wind teases
It doesn’t take much to arouse me
Set me off
And I am gone
Covertly covered by the wind

Remains of last season

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

The remains of last season
Visible as an odd curiosity
For I have not seen the leaves green here
Somewhat strange to arrive at the start of the dormant season
And wonder how life will transform and blossom

Now we approach darkness
Hesitant like stepping into frigid waters

The darkness does not concern me
I barely discern the difference
Here where day and night ooze and overlap
Lacking strong shadows and clean lines

Oh wild beast
Contained
By civilization
It does not become me
My eyes narrow and pulse quickens
I pace the cage uneasily

You pinned me to the wall
Did you think I would settle in softly
And not lash out?

It is uncomfortable
I shift awkwardly and cannot make eye contact

She stares back intently asking for recognition
Recognition I am unable to give
Only a blank stare in return
Shallow
Touching no more than the surface of the reflective glass before me

For a moment I become the Little Prince
Standing at the center of my little world
Silent and alone I can see forever and forever is not far
I call out and hear my echo
It is a small world
Too small
It is not that I feel large
Only confined

I see last season’s leaves still clinging to a dormant branch
And I see beauty in even that promise of what was
What will be
A certainty I am not yet comfortable with

Instead I curl up like a kitten in the windowsill
Basking in sunshine I only remember

Yesterday

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

Yesterday I looked back. I never like to do that. I’m one of those that believe we’re supposed to focus on the here and now. The Zen approach. And if you must let your gaze wander, allow yourself no more than a quick glance back to see from where you came, or a good gaze ahead to make sure you’re heading in the right direction.

But I did more than glance. I stared and studied. Looking at photos for a creative venture. Just work, you know? I had to.

So there I was. Taken back. At our ranch outside of Creede, high in the magnificence of the San Juan Mountains along the wild and free Rio Grande. Sounds so simple and straightforward. But life never is. There are always currents running deep if we allow ourselves to dive in. And only in the depths do we feel the strongest pull. And I felt it. A longing. A terrible burning for the past. A crazy overwhelming desire to be where I was not. There. Outside of Creede.

Sure, I know the temps “there” had already dropped down to twenty five degrees below zero and another two feet of snow just fell and the horses would have had icicles on their nostrils and my arms would be tired from shoveling snow and carrying firewood… and still I wanted to be there. I don’t like to admit that. I’d rather say it’s fun to be gone, to be away, to be free.

But it’s not. I’m lost. I am not home. I am not in the mountains that became me. That I became a part of.

I am here standing open and exposed on a snowy hillside staring at the view before me like trying to find recognition in the eyes of stranger. It is mild mannered, polite and pretty. I find myself longing for raging, ravaging and wild.

God I hate to admit that.

Looking back longingly. Remembering the beauty, the silence, the solitude, the serenity.

Where the only tracks for over a dozen miles besides mine and my boys on most days in winter would belong to the moose and coyote and snowshoe hare. Where the only noise was the squawking of the Stellar Jay, the comforting crackle of the woodstove or hiss of the tea pot, or the occasional airplane whose engine seems so out of place we would put down our forks, step away from the breakfast table, press our cheeks against cold glass and look up. Up, up into the most strikingly vivid blue sky I have ever seen.

Oh, and then there is spring with the untamed rush of brown waters, summer with the intense burst of wildflowers and blue birds, the brilliant bright gold splendor of fall…

Damn it! I thought leaving would be easy.

Instead I found it hurt in a way I did not expect. An aching. A longing. Have you ever turned your back on a lover, only to wish you never spurred him, and wanted him back when then it was too late? But still you remember the feel of his breath on your neck, the lips you know you will never touch again brushing against yours, fingers at the base of your spine? The embrace of the familiar lover. Lost.

I could go back.
But life isn’t about backwards

“…One either progresses or retrogrades…” (Mme. Du Deffand)

Says she as she clings to the past like a cat with claws stuck in the curtains unwilling to let go. But one can’t hold on forever. At some point, that cat will fall. Only to land on solid ground.

 

This post is taken from a longer article just completed and submitted to Creede Magazine.