» by flahute in: Word Play on August 15th, 2008 at 01:59:27 UTC |
For a dear and beloved friend in San Francisco, who was ordained into the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi on August 10 of this year.
WRITTEN ON THE WALL AT CHANG’S HERMITAGE
1.
It is spring in the mountains.
I come alone seeking you.
The sound of chopping wood echoes
Between the silent peaks.
The streams are still icy.
There is snow on the trail.
At sunset I reach your grove
In the stormy mountain pass.
You want nothing, although at night
You can see the aura of gold
And silver ore all around you.
You have learned to be gentle
As the mountain deer you have tamed.
The way back forgotten, hidden
Away, I become like you,
An empty boat, floating, adrift.
2.
In spring mountains, alone, I set out to find you.
Axe strokes crack—crack and quit. Silence doubles
I pass snow and ice lingering along cold streams,
then, at Stone-Gate in late light, enter these woods.
You harm nothing: deer roam here each morning;
want nothing: auras gold and silver grace nights.
Facing you on a whim in bottomless dark, the way
here lost—I feel it drifting, this whole empty boat.
— Tu Fu (712 - 770), Chinese Poet of the Tang Dynasty.
— Translations by Kenneth Rexroth (1) & David Hinton (2).
» by flahute in: Word Play on August 1st, 2008 at 02:49:28 UTC |
THE STORM
1
Against the stone breakwater,
Only an ominous lapping,
While the wind whines overhead,
Coming down from the mountain,
Whistling between the arbors, the winding terraces;
A thin whine of wires, a rattling and flapping of leaves,
And the small street-lamp swinging and slamming against
the lamp pole.
Where have the people gone?
There is one light on the mountain.
2
Along the sea-wall, a steady sloshing of the swell,
The waves not yet high, but even,
Coming closer and closer upon each other;
A fine fume of rain driving in from the sea,
Riddling the sand, like a wide spray of buckshot,
The wind from the sea and the wind from the mountain contending,
Flicking the foam from the whitecaps straight upward into the darkness.
A time to go home!—
And a child’s dirty shift billows upward out of an alley,
A cat runs from the wind as we do,
Between the whitening trees, up Santa Lucia,
Where the heavy door unlocks,
And our breath comes more easy,—
Then a crack of thunder, and the black rain runs over us, over
The flat-roofed houses, coming down in gusts, beating
The walls, the slatted windows, driving
The last watcher indoors, moving the cardplayers closer
To their cards, their anisette.
3
We creep to our bed, and its straw mattress.
We wait; we listen.
The storm lulls off, then redoubles,
Bending the trees half-way down to the ground,
Shaking loose the last wizened oranges in the orchard,
Flattening the limber carnations.
A spider eases himself down from a swaying light-bulb,
Running over the coverlet, down under the iron bedstead.
The bulb goes on and off, weakly.
Water roars into the cistern.
We lie closer on the gritty pillow,
Breathing heavily, hoping—
For the great last leap of the wave over the breakwater,
The flat boom on the beach of the towering sea-swell,
The sudden shudder as the jutting sea-cliff collapses,
And the hurricane drives the dead straw into the living pine-tree.
I cannot think of a more beautiful stage of any Tour de France than those that finish atop l’Alpe.
From Fausto Coppi’s win on the maiden stage in 1952, to Greg LeMond’s battle with Bernard Hinault in 1986, to Andy Hampsten’s solo excursion in 1992, to Pantani’s devastating attacks in 1995 and 1997, to “The Look” Lance Armstrong gave to Jan Ullrich in 2001, before attacking to win the stage and take the yellow jersey.
In all but 5 of the Tours de France during which a stage has concluded on l’Alpe d’Huez, the person who wore the maillot jaune at the end of the stage went on to take the final yellow jersey in Paris as the winner of that year’s race.
It’s no wonder that this mountain has the reputation as the most difficult climb in the Tour.
Sure, there are longer climbs and steeper climbs, but no mountaintop finish carries as much prestige as the Alpe … and there have been no unworthy winners of the stage.
In this year’s Tour, the only active rider to have won atop the Alpe d’Huez is Frank Schleck, who won the stage in 2006, during Floyd Landis’s ill-fated Tour de France win. Frank is wearing the yellow jersey today.
Will he still be wearing it at day’s end? Will he be able to get away, and win the stage again (and the Tour, for the first time)?
Oh, I wish I didn’t have to work today. I can’t wait to watch the DVR coverage this evening when I get home.
» by flahute in: Cycling on July 15th, 2008 at 12:33:57 UTC |
I don’t know what it is, but part of me really wants to see just about anyone besides Cadel Evans take the yellow jersey in Paris this year.
I’ve never been able to figure out what it is, but something about Evans rubs me the wrong way; and I just don’t want him to win.
Looking at the other riders currently in the top-10, however, I’m not sure who quite has the legs to take it away from him. Frank Schleck (currently just 1 second behind Evans) would be a great candidate, as would Christian Vandevelde.
Alejandro Valverde, who was my pre-race favourite, lost a good junk of time yesterday, but with more mountain stages, he might be able to pull back some time, especially if Evans has a bad day somewhere along the line.
Today is the rest day … time to get caught up on all the articles being written on all the various websites covering the Tour; and then the transitional stages (including a couple of pancake flat stages) until the Tour is back in the mountains in full force next Sunday.
I hope Jens Voigt can get into one of his patented long breaks.
From the mountain tops down to the sunny street,
A different drum is playing a different kind of beat.
It’s like a mystery that never ends.
I see you crying and I want to kill your friends.
I hear your footsteps in the street,
It won’t be long before we meet,
It’s obvious.
Just count me in and count me out and
I’ll be waiting for the shout,
Oblivious…
Met Mo and she’s okay, said no-one really changed,
Got different badges but they wear them just the same.
But down by the ballroom I recognized that flaming fountain
in those kindred caring eyes.
I hear your footsteps in the street,
It won’t be long before we meet,
It’s obvious.
Just count me in and count me out and
I’ll be waiting for the shout,
Oblivious…
I hope it haunts me ’til I’m hopeless,
I hope it hits you when you go,
And sometimes on the edge of sleeping
It rises up to let me know it’s not so deep,
I’m not so low.
I hear your footsteps in the street,
It won’t be long before we meet,
It’s obvious.
Just count me in and count me out and
I’ll be waiting for the shout,
Oblivious…
They’re calling all the shots, they’ll call and say they phoned,
They’ll call us lonely when we’re really just alone.
And like a funny film, it’s kinda cute
They’ve bought the bullets and there’s no-one left to shoot.
I hear your footsteps in the street,
It won’t be long before we meet,
It’s obvious.
Just count me in and count me out and
I’ll be waiting for the shout,
Oblivious…
» by flahute in: Word Play on March 12th, 2008 at 01:32:10 UTC |
RIVER SNOWby Liu Tsung-Yüan
(i)
A thousand mountains without a bird.
Ten thousand miles with no trace of man.
A boat. An old man in a straw raincoat.
Alone in the snow, fishing in the freezing river.
(ii)
These thousand peaks cut off the flight of birds
On all the trails, human tracks are gone.
A single boat—coat—hat—an old man!
Alone fishing chill river snow.
(iii)
A thousand peaks: no more birds in flight.
Ten thousand paths: all trace of people gone.
In a lone boat, rain cloak and hat of reeds,
an old man’s fishing the cold river snow.
(i) Translation by Kenneth Rexroth (1905 - 1982), American poet, translator, and critical essayist.
(ii) Translation by Gary Snyder (b. 1930), American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner, environmental activist.
(iii) Translation by David Hinton, American poet and translator.
After skiing this past Monday with Mama T. and one of the ferners at the ‘Tude on Monday … today I skied Snowbird (for the first time) with the short one, who was very, very patient with me, because the runs she took me on (with the exception of the first warm-up run) were definitely WAY above my ability.
Took the tram to the top of Hidden Peak, then dropped into Mineral Basin taking the Path to Paradise (blue) along to Junior’s Powder Paradise (blue/black); then taking the Mineral Basin Express back to the top of Hidden Peak, then along the Cirque Traverse to drop into the Upper Cirque (double black), then down Chip’s to Who-Dunnit (both blue) to drop some things back at the car.
My boots were killing me, and I was battling a grumbly tummy, so I hung out at the Plaza while the short one went back up for another attack on the Cirque. We then met up with Tom Boonen, and took the tram back up Hidden Peak, where they bagged the High Baldy Traverse before dropping into the chutes above Peruvian Gulch … I had a long argument with myself at the gate, and since my confidence levels were nigh upon nil, I backtracked, dropped Chip’s Run (blue) to Primrose Path (black) back to Chip’s Run (blue) to Chip’s Face (black) then back to Chip’s to the Plaza.
Lunch at the Forklift, then back up the tram for our last couple of runs (skipping the last run) … I let my compadres talk me into tackling Baldy this time around … hiked along the first part of High Baldy Traverse, then skied the rest of it towards one of the easier drop-offs into the double-black soft stuff. By this point, my legs were jelly, and while I’ve been having problems getting forward enough over my skis anyway, I was really having problems getting down this … rag-dolled once, fell a couple of other times, but ultimately made it down alive, well, and proud of the attempt, even if it wasn’t the prettiest descent in the world.
Jennie … thank you so much for introducing me to your mountain, and while I’m sure you would have had a better ski day without me holding you back, thank you (and thank you too, Todd) for your patience with my various struggles. It may not have always looked it, but all-in-all, I really did have an enjoyable day.
I will be back, albeit probably not until next season, with new, properly fitting boots and some more off-piste technique practice; and anytime you want to ski Solitude, let me know, and I’ll show you what I can do on MY mountain.
No photos today … every time I stopped, I was too busy trying to catch my breath (amazing how much more difficult it is to breathe at 11,000 feet than it is at 10,000 feet) to take the time to haul the D80 out of the bag and shoot some of the incredible views.
I don’t know what it is, but part of me really wants to see just about anyone besides Cadel Evans take the yellow jersey in Paris this year.
