The Homing Turtle

I'm still trying to figure this one out. Another mystery to unravel. Last summer while Dad was passing through Missouri he picked up a turtle that was, as the time trying to cross the freeway. He'd already seen a few that had been hit and didn't want this one to suffer the same fate. So he put it in the little mini fridge in the hatch of the truck and brought it home to Utah with him. The grandkids in particular were thrilled. We weren't sure how well the turtle would do in Utah's climate or if he'd find food but we trusted it to its own instincts and let it go in our back yard.

The turtle was gone within a day and for a couple weeks we forgot about it. Then, one day one of our neighbors came knocking. "I just saw this trying to cross the road and just about hit it. Is this your turtle by chance?" Mom said it was and asked how our neighbor knew. She said she just 'figured'. We were happy to have the turtle back but still had no place to contain him. Dad at one point suggested that we drill a small hole in the shell and keep him on a leash--something he'd seen a family do down south. But we all agreed we should just let it go again in the back yard. The little guy still looked healthy and thats all we could really hope for him. Twiced discovered in the road, once returned.

We wouldn't have thought a thing about this slightly peculiar return except that the very same thing happen five more times within the next six weeks. Each time someone in our neighborhood brought the turtle back saying, 'we found it trying to cross the road and thought it might be yours.' Yeah, it started to creep us out just a bit. I had noticed the first time I saw the turtle that it had quite outstanding red eyes. After six weeks of this lost and found process the poor little buggers eyes just seemed to be screeming 'let me go!' The last guy to return the turtle was not even a local. He was just passing through on a visit and saw the turtle crossing the road. Ours wasn't even the closest house but that's where he came. We I asked him why he said, "I just thought this might be the place."

After several failed attempts to think up a sensible conspiracy theory I've concluded that sometimes weird things just happen. Its been four months since anyone has seen the turtle and we are hoping he's faring well in Utah's winter. Maybe we'll see him again next summer.

Semester in Hawaii

I've finished the first semester of what has been a very difficult Korean studies program so for. The final presentation was yesterday. I spoke for 35 minutes about Koreas most esteemed and most controversial President--a guy named Pak Jung Hee. I never would have guessed two years ago when I was pouring over Shakespeare and Browning that I could take such an interest in a person that is so obscure to the western world and all that I know and am familiar with. But it has been good. I feel good about the fruits of the semester and have few days now before returning to the land of ice and snow to soak in the sun on the beaches. My roomate and I took a beating today in the 10 ft waves at Maka Pu'u on the east shore. It's thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

For the first time in the season I'm actually thinking about Christmas. Funny, yet understandable, I'm really looking forward to the snow and cold weather. It's not Christmas without it. I hear Bing Crosby singing on the radio here and look out and see only blue skys and palm trees and have to laugh.

The Spiral Jetty

Some friends and I took, what for me, was a second trip to the sprial jetty the sunday before last. It occured to me that Robert Smithson's idea is working, so far as the jetty goes. I guess he has some eight or nine of what he called, 'earthworks' spread out in different places from Rome to Manhattan to Texas. The idea of getting people to come to unusual places in nature, i think, is a good one. Because, I would normally probably stop at the golden spike monument if I even got that far. The jetty is not an easy visit. From Korin it takes about 30 minutes to get to golden spike and from there it is 23 miles of dirt road to the north rim of the salk lake where the jetty is located.

Both times I've been there, I haven't been alone. by that I mean our group hasn't been exclusive. Other people were there to check it out. The jetty itself is impressive but not nearly so as the north rim of the lake. Out their where the saltwater meets the basalt rock from the ridges behind, you feel like you're on the moon or better than the moon. I don't know that ethereal or extraterrestrial describes it either. It's almost--holy. Gazing across the lake it's difficult to tell where earth ends and heaven begins. It's liminal space at its best.

ps. All those in favor of straitening the jetty please leave your comments in the affirmative here.

Buddha's Joy

My sister, brother and I were returning from a 4th of July trip to Afton Wyoming this weekend when we encountered some rather rude Californians. We were moving along nicely in our 81' beater truck when they started flashing their lights and waving a cell phone at us hysterically. We pulled over to find out what the issue was and the lady in the passenger seat sprung out and threatened to call the **#*$$*% police if we didn't put the **#*$(#( dog in the cab. Her husband was echoing her every word from the driver's seat of their white SUV.

Buddha, our pet dog of six years was up on top of all the camping stuff with his nose to the wind. From inside the cab we were taking pictures of him because he looked pretty comical with his ears flapping in the wind. In some ways, it was Buddha at his best. He was taking in the sights, sounds and smells with a lively curiosity. He was happy surfing the rain clean air of Star Valley. Enter crazy animal rights activists.

We were incredulous at first. We couldn't understand why they were so upset. We assured them that the dog would be fine and kept driving. Much to their chagrin. I can only imagine what conversation they had with the local police but at some point they must have realized that they weren't getting any help. So they decided to follow us and for the next 150 miles they repeatedly passed us and then fell behind as the woman in the passenger seat took pictures. We smiled and waved--being both amused and annoyed by such eccentric behavior. I can only imagine how useless those pictures will be to her when she files her complaint with the ESPCA.

So, Mr. and Mrs. Supersensitive to Dog Rights, if you ever read this, please remember that in most cases people should get at least as much respect as animals. And rest assured that Buddha is safely and happily home.

Life Escalated

I have found my new favorite place in Utah. Zions aside, the vistas of the small piece of the Grand Starcase of Escalante that I saw more than reminded me of why Utah will always be home. I loved the duluges, rich earth, and acacia of the rift valley in Ethiopia. Between Seoul and DC I learned to appreciate the city scape. And the high rugged mountains of the Uintah's and the Wind River range are grand beyond measure. But I've never seen a landscape that seemed so teeming with life as I saw in Escalante.

It had its share of annoyances. Nat bites heal slower than meskitoes and the nats were everywhere. I also had a few scary encounters with rattlesnakes and changed my mind about sleeping out under that stars. But even the annoyances were part of what made the land so entriguing. During the three mile hike towards Neon, every step off the trail was like a miniture pit-fall that reveled a network of burrows where the desert wild-life found refuge from the sun. In the canyons we encountered frogs and crows, catterpillers and stinkbugs, and dancing daddy-long-leg spiders without number. There in the damp cool shadows the spiders gather by the hundreds and bounce on the rock rythmically, as though they are gathering life force from the rock.

The green moss the hugs the canyon walls in selective places is apparently where the canyon 'Neon' gets its name. The colors are electric like the spiders. It's as though they are plugged in to something. The pictures won't show as much as the living landscape but I've posted a few anyway.

It was a first rate trip. Hope to return again soon.

More muse

June 17, 2007
I Am

I am bright and dangerous
As an open hearth
I am the flower the smiles
At day dawns blaze
I am flaming crimson dot
Rooted in a pot
I am a local craze
With no sense of miles
I am, inside, the earth
Yet, I can’t remember birth

Am I

Am I the rippling wave
In the eternal sea?
Am I the drop
That fills the cup?
Am I the feather
That weathers all weather?
Am I the space
In every up?
Am I eternal Me
In the liquid sea?

June 17, 2007
Will I

Will I fall in love some day
With some damsel far away?
Will I set a nation free
Receive a staff and split the sea?
Will I walk all continents
Find in those climes new sentiments?
Will I take some clay in hand
Center it and make a man?
Will I frown and make a storm
When those clouds are mine to form?
Will I know what is to be
In stretching eternity?

I Will

I will accost the dark unknown
Till life snaps back and time is blown
I will build a shelter here
To weather every chaffing tear
I will learn some human art
And with it build in human hearts
I will come and love the land
That offers up itself to man
I will receive my given star
And loose some band, untie some bar
I will fall for love someday
That love forever in me stay.

Some recent creations

The Word (2007, 06, 08)

When the word
Springs from its ink on the page
And lights my mind with its cadence
I bend to it
And like the low hanging branches
Of a willow
I weep to be so free from stillness
And silence
And thank the Wind and Word
That made me move


Willard Landscape
May, 2007

Life lives in the lemmings of the shoreline.
They kick up the wind
Letting it lick their feathers
Getting nothing but kicks in its rush

Me too
I am made anew
In the breath of this saline air
Care slides as my soul rides
In green, in wet, in sunburst flare.


On the Art of Jesting
June 8, 2007

If the jesting makes the jester
And the jester makes the jest
What without the fester
Of the jesting jester
Who then would make the rest?

And what of a resting jester
Who never makes a jest
Then without jesting
The resting jester
Is nothing but a pest.

The Ghosts of Sand Hollow

When the wind starts licking up the loose red sand in the Hollow, more than ancient relics start to speak. The Ghosts of the Piiute show their auburn visage before the sun and behind the sand. I worked for just 12 days on the dig with BYU's OPA (office of public archeology). Just long enough to know that I wouldn't make a very good archeologist. I was good with the shovel and the sand screen and I enjoyed learning the technical names of ancient indian tools like mataties and bi-faces. We found hundreds of fragments of Anasazi pottery and made pedestools of the stones that some how, tell the story of where these people lived and how. I even came home with some of the expendible lithics and pieces of pottery for my personal collection.

The OPA is taking a 5% sample of the land before it is permanently burried under green turf. Sand Hollow will be one of St. George's largest and ritziest golf courses by the end of the summer. Developer's don't like the idea of having to fund projects like the one OPA is doing now but I can appreciate the law that requires them to fund it. Archeologists have it kind of tough. Not very many people are too interested in funding a dig. It's bad business. There is no monetary return on lithics. Ebay? Maybe. But most serious scientists would say that's a bad joke.

Every few days, the forman of the development project would pay us a visit on his fancy hummer made dune-buggy. He always had a perplexed look on his face--like what in the h are these idots hoping to find. We showed him some of the more impressive stuff and his look was smirky at best. I wonder at his reaction if we had told him that we stummbled upon a find of finds--a large chest full of ancient golden Piiute golf balls. But, I could understand his frustration too. Based on my salary, the number of co-workers, and the six months time estimated to finish the project I figured it would cost the developers $250,000 out of pocket. Then again that's a pitance to what they'll make in the next five years even. The setting is grand and will attract golfers for years.

Du the Du

My sister, a couple of brothers and myself all crossed the finish line at the annual Buffalo Duathlon on April 15. We did the "sprint" which was a 5k run and a 20k bike ride. It was more challenging than I expected. The event was held at Antelope Island. It was my first visit. I saw no antelopes and no evidence of the famed buffalo heards that make a home on the island. And it definitely was not because I was moving too fast. One of the quasi good things they did was right the age of every participant on the back side of their calf. So you could see the age of all the penta, hexa, and septi -geriatricts passing you on the way. I knew I should have drunk more Red Bull. We hope to make it an annual family affair.

Death of a Dinsdale

Grandma's brother's funeral was Monday of this week. It was only the second I have ever attended. Pat was the second of grandm's two brother's to die. She and her baby sister 'Babe' are the surviving members of the original family. Grandma passed the funeral with marked courage though she was obviously troubled by concern for Pat's 'eternal reward'. Pat was a smoker, drinker, and spoke with the harshness characteristic of a Montana farmer. In Grandma's book, that's grounds for eternal punishment.

Cleer Creek Cemetary is the resting place of most of our Dinsdale relatives and their family. There are maybe 50 head-stones total in the plot that is about a two acre square. It sits on a bluff outside of Red-Lodge about 10 miles. To the south and the west the Bear-Tooth mountains rise abruptly and magestically out of a plain of golden rolling hills. The setting is ideal as a resting place for the dead.

February Climb

I met up with Dave Clawson, an old climbing buddy today for some climbing at Ogden's schoolroom. School--room is right. After months of winter lethargy I got burned out on the 5.8 approach. The views of Ogden City and Antelope island, as always, were marvelous.

About two years ago this time we were at roughly the same place with another friend. A party of three. But the temperature was in the mid-30's and the rock super cold. It was cold enough to inspire this poem, which I wrote that night when we were done. Happily it was in the mid 50's today.

Climbing in December

A distant billow of white
Hugs tight the rim of a distant shallow shore
A mass of condensation condecending
In the gathering cold of night.

The rock sucks up a deep orange glow
The last blow from that too far southern sun
All day, the light is cold, the shadows colder
Making our blood to slow

The rock is too deep to give
Any give except gravity's weight upon it's shoulder
A fist sized chunk, latent then falling
Into a boulder-field siv.

Blood runs easy in the open air
Bright-red flair oosing from a purple knuckle
A numbing prick and a gathering prickling
Pleading the heart its warmth to share

The December ascent--an erksome delight
At the onslought of night, I cannot but question
The worth of the climb and the climbing
And then...the distant billow of white.

Day One

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday which means today is 'fat Tuesday.' I celebrated by running three miles. I made it throught the whole day without seeing a single string of beads. Then again, I'm living in Tremonton. My politically correct calender doesn't even acknowledge the holiday and I had to double check on wikipedia to ensure that it is indeed the day we 'fill our canteens' before the fast.

My first entry on this blog. "Robas Decent" is no longer available on eponym.com so I thought resurrecting the blog with a new name--one accurate to the intent--would be good.