Wintercount Cairn

 

I. WINTERCOUNT

“A cairn is mute and elemental as empty awareness. It orients. It recognizes, but says nothing....for it is about everything other than itself.” David Hinton, Existence, A Story.

He left early in the morning. Early November and dark. He would drive over Santiam Pass and McKenzie pass. He left from Sisters, Oregon, and after circumnavigating the wilderness, he would follow the McKenzie River to the restoration site at Finn Rock near the home of the writer Barry Lopez. Barry Lopez was the trigger that got him here. He Had driven to Bend to hear Lopez read just before the Pandemic in 2019. There had been a fire. The Holiday Farm Fire. Lopez died a little more than a year later, Christmas Day, 2020, days before his 76^th birthday on 6 January 2021. During that time of disease and political crisis, the voice of Barry Lopez, along with his writings that had been his lodestar. The fire, too, had burned through here. They had both known the Blessingway. Hózhó. Snow had closed the scenic way through the wilderness the week before. He would have to drive around. This way he would see the McKenzie River at its greenest, those early morning mosses seemingly lit by stars among fallen leaves.

Dark and wet when he gets in the car.

The artist-wife quilting in the famous fabric store.

Questioning your own desire.

Alone with lonely practice, what could be better?

Wanting to be up to the water,

and in it, in waders, up to the waist,

the cleansing still to be done.

Echoes of Lopez? Gone too far?

Lopez in a tent in Antarctica,

40 below after the morning warms up,

What could be more perfect!

River work. Inside and outside of a body of water.

The ear at work in a dark morning.

Slow the river, slow the mind.

The boots aren’t too big, she said.

Because of the wader’s stocking,

your hiking boots won’t fit.

One size larger, and balance in the river.

Slow the mind so you can slow the river.

Put these on before I change my mind.

You’re taking notes on the Forest Service map.

McKenzie Pass, Santiam Pass Scenic Highway.

You drove this green wilderness from Sisters

leaving in the dark. Traveling

through Stafford country, asking of rivers,

towards, and onto, the McKenzie,

Barry Lopez’ river, rivers of the poets,

ask yourself, What do you hear?

What does the river say?

You’re not the first to ask these questions.

You’re taking notes on the Forest Service map.

McKenzie Pass, Santiam Pass Scenic Highway.

You drove this green wilderness from Sisters

leaving in the dark. Traveling

through Stafford country, asking of rivers,

towards, and onto, the McKenzie,

Barry Lopez’ river, rivers of the poets,

ask yourself, What do you hear?

This, Terry, catches me quite unaware this morning, mourning into the beauty of the heartbreak. Diving into it, I'm doing this only because I was caught off-damnit, guard! This is no link! This beauty-way of a wreck. This re-entry into communal territory, oh, yes, I read that book, a friend gave it to me, I know exactly where it is on the shelf, it was Terry who gave me the book, Terry Martin, Consolations the name of the book. This David Whyte, he loves etymologies--I have my etymologists, too, and they, too, wake and sustain me, oh, oh, oh, I see what you're doing now, you're escaping through the mind when you were on the right impulse track of heartbreak and friendship of forgiving, then you knew what's what, you weren't trying to save yourself, but look at softly yourself you better you know you could soften all expectation no should, you're right, no should in this forgiveness stuff, where sustenance and hunger accompany your every real desire.

What does the river say?

You’re not the first to ask these questions.