What does Lizard know?

“On the path ahead are sandpits, craters, and fields of sharp rocks…” —NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover, March 17, 2022

What does Lizard know?

Stone time?

The internal Sun; the eternal Dark…

Perhaps.

What do I know?

You? Us?

Stone time is your time, too. … You are alone, here in this narrow, secret place. You are not alone, here in this narrow, secret place. —T. H. Watkins

Photos: Petroglyphs, Oregon Northern Great Basin, Douglas Beauchamp

NOTES
—ROVER
—T. H. Watkins, from “Not by Human Measure” in Stone Time, 1994
BELOW

—Simon J. Ortiz, from Land and Stars, The Only Knowledge. in ISLE, 1998.

With offering, all around outside.

With offering, all around inside.

This is the knowledge we have.

This is the existence we have.

In thankfulness, we give and we know.

In thankfulness, we receive and we know.

—Simon J. Ortiz

Slow Fire

look at me
i am not a separate woman i am a continuance
of blue sky
i am the throat
of the mountains
a night wind
who burns
with every breath
she takes 

—Joy Harjo

One Village, Many Hearts mural (detail) by Kari Johnson, 2018, Eugene

Tracing path

kindled blaze

sunrise then set

leading into light.

Stealing fire red

pearling raven’s beak

kindred eye

black night eye.

How many languages

have a word for fire

following fear in translation

desire.

No two flames the same

every ember becoming…

…

Reverse the image: Racing past

Daring fire

Lavablack unseeing simmers

Every flame one flame

Prometheus, outdoor sculpture by Jan Zach (1958), UO. (Image-color-shifted)

Child

You are in a blind 

desert     child 

your "too-muchness" is written 

in the Torah 

child    it is written

in the pit 

written in black fire 

on white fire 

deer star 

black star 

third star 

who sees

— Jean Valentine

NOTES

—Photos public art/street art, poem Tracing path, Douglas Beauchamp

—Joy Harjo from the poem Fire in What Moon Drove Me to This? (1980)

—Jean Valentine, Child in The Cradle of the Real Life (2000) 

Below:

—Sandy Denny from Who Knows Where The Time Goes (1967)

Across the purple sky, all the birds are leaving

But how can they know it's time for them to go?

Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming

I have no thought of time

—Sandy Denny

Dark Edge of Awe

Things rock-solid change places with thoughts tenuous, then change back again. —Ellen Meloy

Absorb light emit dark

a turning edge

rhythmic notchings carved 

millennia before now

wind burnished

blackly varnished 

clay dust adhered

manganese 

a mirroring absent reflection

on gazing an inner space

opens 

outer time congeals

dark edge tilting swinging

toward stars

…

Across the flat desert

of Carson Sink

of a bright morning listening 

music across the expanse

several miles distant

from loudspeakers 

of the US Naval Air Station

Star-Spangled Banner

Images: Ancient carvings on boulders on shoreline terraces formed by waves of Lake Lahontan, known as Grimes Point, east of Carson Sink (central Nevada) and bordered by US Highway 50. Poem & Pictures Douglas Beauchamp. As always... Click to expand.

In the 20th century, the material reality for this place, these stones, has often been one of destructive impacts and disregard. Roads through the site, bulldozing, quarrying, boulders displaced, removed, damaged or destroyed, painted signs and graffiti.  Beginning in the 1950s, the area was used as a trash dump for Fallon, a few miles to the northwest. Only since the 1970s have protective measures by the BLM encouraged care and respect.

The stones abide; the petroglyphs resound. Though the rock art meanings may seem mute in this presence, the carvings induce listening and looking, as unfurling intimations - there and here, past and future.  A necessary and material sense of change turns, refolds, embraces this earth.

NOTES

— Ellen Meloy in The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on desert, sea, stone, and sky. (2002) 

—Grimes Point Archaeological Area (BLM).

https://www.blm.gov/visit/grimes-pointhidden-cave-archaeological-site

—Naval Air Station Fallon:  “Home to the Fighting Saints of VFC-13, the Desert Outlaws of Strike Fighter Wing Pacific, and the Naval Strike Air Warfare Center, NAS Fallon serves as the Navy’s premier tactical air warfare training center.” A scattered patchwork of five bombing ranges comprising 100,000 acres inscribe on the nearby terrain of Northern Nevada. http://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrsw/installations/nas_fallon.html

—Modern research on the region’s rock art began with Julian Steward (1929); enhanced by Martin Baumhoff and Robert Heizer (1958; 1962); followed by Karen Nissen’s detailed documentation in the 1970s (1982).  

—References/sources provided on request

CODA

Away from you 

Away from you, 

alone, I can come 

—a leaf flickers
on the river's light skin 

Together 

we are two stones like one stone rolling 

rolling down on the riverbed   two

light black stones 

we have always been here 

once we were one stone 

—the other thing holds us 

in its mouth 

—Jean Valentine in The Cradle of Real Life

In recognition of the courageous and resilient people of Ukraine in this time of darkness

The Shield

Of old was the age | when Ymir lived;
Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were;
Earth had not been, | nor heaven above,
But a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.

The sun, the sister | of the moon, from the south

Her right hand cast | over heaven's rim;
No knowledge she had | where her home should be,
The moon knew not | what might was his,
The stars knew not | where their stations were.

In front of the sun | does Svalin stand,
The shield for the shining god;
Mountains and sea | would be set in flames
If it fell from before the sun.

NOTES

ABOVE

Three stanzas from The Poetic Edda: Vǫluspá 3rd and 5th stanzas; Grímnismál stanza 38.  The Poetic Edda: Translated from the Icelandic with an Introduction and Notes by Henry Adams Bellows (1923). Bellows notes: 

-Vǫluspá 3: Ymir: the giant out of whose body the gods made the world; Yawning gap: this phrase, "Ginnunga-gap," is sometimes used as a proper name. 

-Grímnismál 38:  Shield: the shield Svalin ("Cooling") that stands in front of the sun. Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetic_Edda

Paintings: Ink on Rice paper / Douglas Beauchamp / From the deep archives (ciick on image to enlarge)

BELOW

—Brilliant Earth  https://www.brilliantearth.com/about-brilliant-earth/

—Poem by Jean Valentine, To the Black Madonna of Chartres, in Growing Darkness, Growing Light (1997)

Friend or no friend, 

darkness or light, 

vowels or consonants, 

water or dry land,

anything more from you now

is just gravy

—just send me down forgiveness, send me down

bearing myself a black cupful of light.

To behold the dawn of the universe

Webb will always face Earth’s night side to keep its infrared detectors as frigid as possible. … At 1 million miles away, the Webb Space Telescope is more than four times as distant as the moon.—APNews, January 24 2022

And if the Further Heaven— 

Be Beautiful as they prepare 

For Those who worship Them— 

It is too difficult a Grace— 

To justify the Dream—

—Emily Dickinson

                    And the Earth keeps up her
dancing and she is neither perfect nor exactly in time.
She is one of us.

And she loves the dance for what it is. So does the Sun who calls the Earth beloved. And praises her with light.

—Joy Harjo

Photos Malheur County, SE Oregon, Douglas Beauchamp

NOTES

The OTHER Side: Of Signalings and Metaphors

—The telescope was launched from French Guiana on Christmas.

—Besides making stellar observations, Webb will scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for possible signs of life.

—The primary mirror has 18 hexagonal segments, each the size of a coffee table

APNews: New space telescope reaches final stop million miles out. Marcia Dunn, Jan 24 2022. https://apnews.com/article/nasa-james-webb-telescope-arrives-space-9ea15e4bddaead131d4fcb6b07c53529

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/

—Joy Harjo from her poem In Praise of Earth in How We Became Human (2002)

—Emily Dickinson’s poem:

I reckon—when I count it all— 

First—Poets—Then the Sun— 

Then Summer—Then the Heaven of God— 

And then—the List is done— 

But, looking back—the First so seems 

To Comprehend the Whole— 

The Others look a needless Show— 

So I write—Poets—All— 

Their Summer—lasts a Solid Year— 

They can afford a Sun 

The East—would deem extravagant— 

And if the Further Heaven— 

Be Beautiful as they prepare 

For Those who worship Them— 

It is too difficult a Grace— 

To justify the Dream—