cicada moon

         A lone cicada flew across the face of the moon. Rising gibbous above the forest, this moon looked like chisled custard to Artie Hoffman as he sat on the front steps of their newly completed saltbox house deep in the Oregon wilderness.
          Cherry Blossom had brought a favorite record for them to hear. On the album cover was a group that resembled themselves. The Joy of Cooking. Artie listened with one ear, his mind on something singularly loathesome. There was a killer lurking in the woods just beyond the split-rail fence. Artie had found fresh prints tracking through the victory garden. He covered them up, saying nothing to anyone. It was essential to come up with a plan.
          Without a doubt, it was the Mormon man in black, who had sworn death to Leah and himself. Who had barbarously pummeled Fatso Sid into a neurotic fear of boots-on-the-floor. The Potlatch general store was no more.
          "Hey, man," Mister Zig-Zag asked. "Why the dark face?"
          "Thoughts, Ziggy. Just thoughts."
          Tonight the Boone's Farm was strawberry and the weed was from British Columbia.
          I feel like Frankenstein, Artie was thinking. Stalked by a monster thrashing just beyond vision.
          Leah strolled barefoot from the Listening Room and sat beside Artie. Her armpits smelled of a vanilla soap. Her eyes danced with summer sex.
          She kissed him and retired to the bedroom. Artie watched her go, and then he heard the cicada up in the eaves.
           "G'night, Ziggy. You guys stay long as you want. Lock the door."
    

between worlds

          Thickafog!
          That was Ling's word for the billowing fog drifting through cedar, alder and fir. Mists gentle as fairies breath alighted on head-tall ferns, wild blackberry and elderberry, good for making jam and wine for the sideboard. She wore Hank's CPO jacket and was blazing a trail in search of an abandoned strawberry field. Go there, he had said, if ever you feel the need to visit Bernice.
          Forest murmers.
          There! A whitetail deer!
          Hers was a careful tread, one moccasin in front of the other, as if walking a highwire. Ahead on the wispy path, beside a Douglas fir, its bark covered with a pelt of lichen and moss, stood Bernice. A wraith draped in black from head to foot. The hood of her cloak was slightly pushed back, revealing a most  lucent face. Ling greeted her: "Are you the good witch of the woods?"
          "Among other things. Hello, dear friend."
          "Where have you been?"
          "Between worlds."
          "What have you learned?"
          "That I am not immortal. In the corporeal sense."
          Ling frowned. "What about mind-over-matter? It appeared for a while that you had self-evolved into being, um, beyond human."
          Bernice arched an eyebrow. "Indeed?"
          Ling waited for an aswer.
          Bernice smiled, a nano-nod. "Many things that once mattered do not now. Having a full-time body is one of them."
          "What does matter then?"
          "I feel a need to help people in their transitions."
          "Are you an angel?"
          "Heavens No!"
          They laughed together, silver sisters of light.
          Bernice smiled that certain smile and said, "I can be with you always, if you desire. Let's walk a while."
          Her smile reminded Ling of the mural at the Cannabis Cafe.
     


          Once more Dawn touched her world with Rosy Fingers.
          Looking out the great window, Maxine marveled. Saying to herself, "I don't think Old Homer was blind at all."
          Hank was outside already, lashing the canoe to the roof of the Rover. Above the potico the cabin's exterior was alive with ivy and honeysuckle. Spring blossums drank dew. In the scarlet azalea Ling had planted.
          "Let's go, Max!"
          "Coming!"
        

         
     

the wee dram hours

        At three in the morning a catmagic moon ascended from the forest and shone through the window. Hank was snoring in his legless rocking chair, his own legs stretched straight out. Maxine and Ling sat on the sofa, sipping single-malt from Hank's bottomless well. His wife had spread a blanket over him, a handfasting gift from all those lovely Wiccans so long ago.
         Snore on, dear Hank. I'm here now and I'll be here when you wake. It's time for another Handfasting. Just a year. One year at a time.
         "Oh, you should have seen him," she said to Ling. "A brave warrior. He stood for me in the street, blocked a police baton. Look to his shoulder, could you?"
          Ling uncovered a seriously bruised shoulder. "Not serious. He'll mend. I have medicine."
          Maxine cooed, "He told me he was Don Quixote."
          "I don't understand."
          "Just before the police swarmed all over us, he took me in his arms and said he loved me, even on a fool's errand. It was all for me."
           Ling smiled. "That's lovely. Your man is like a father to me."
          "Where is your father?"
          "With my ancestors."
          "Oh."
          "He was a poet. A good poet, I think. But unknown by most people in China. We have had many kinds of poets. Classical allusionists. Modern realists. Those that believed poetry was a tool of revolution and those that believed poetry was written for its own sake. My father was crazy. No one understood him. So he went unclassified. Which was all for the best, I think."
          "Sounds wonderful."
          "My mother escaped China and I was born in Vancouver."
          "Your father."
          "He was shot. Not for writing crazy poetry. But for drinking on sentry duty."
          "That's awful."
          Ling's face fell vacant. Then she said, "His poetry has never been translated. That's OK. I can read it whenever I wish. I have several of his pamphlets."
          "Hank tells me you are a theatre person, like Bern."
          "Not as a writer. I'm an actor."
          "What have you done?"
          "Can you imagine me as a man with a long, long ponytail? Braided like a bullwhip?"
          "I suppose."
          Ling giggled. "I played the John Lone part in an early play by Henry David Hwang. A railroad cooly who battles for the rights of Chinese immigrants in the American West."
          "I bet you kicked ass!"
          "Yup."
          Bonded, the women sipped Hank's whiskey.

maxine

          One day Hank said to Ling when they were alone in the breakfast nook, "My wife will be in Seattle for a protest against the World Trade Organization."
           "I've heard of this thing. You told me she has been a Red for a long time."
           "Oh yes. A long time."
           "It will be a big media event."
           "The bigger the media, the bigger the event."
           "There will be violence."
           With a look of worry, Hank asked, "You think so?"
           "It's very possible. Why don't you go down there?"
           "Yes. I think I will."
           Hank took up Ling's hand and kissed it. "Thank you very, very much."
           "And I thank you. On that note I must tell you that I plan to go back to the employment agency. You no longer need me to look after Bernice. Let me visit you on weekends. See how you're getting along. And I have a feeling that you and Maxine will reunite soon."
           "A feeling."
           "A feeling."


                                                                                  *


           Jouncing along the two-rut woodland road in her muddy Volvo, Ling pondered the Robert Frost poem that said the woods were lovely, dark and deep. Dim cones from her headlamps lanced into the moonless shroud. She looked sharply for deer. Dials on her instrument panel glowed in a friendly comforting row. No idiot lights flickered. She sighed. Ignorance is bliss.
           Up ahead burned cabin lamps. Amber fireflies in the wilderness.
           Soon the portico loomed and she saw the Rover. Evidently Hank had returned OK from Seattle. She parked behind it and opened her creaky cardoor. She burbled with glee Hank's clarion: "Hello to camp!"
           Silence.
           There was a gong that Bernice had hung by the door. A gentle hark.
           Ling took a little mallet and rang the little gong.
           A pleasant perfume wafted from inside the cabin. Someone was burning herbal candles. Fragrant, aromatic, they could fill a room with love enticement. Ling could hear someone colliding with furniture. It sounded like the spotted bamboo chest she had given to Bernice. Losing some of its feng shui balance.
           "It's me. Ling."
           Hank's voice, husky: "Jussa minute."
           The door was unlatched. She was tempted to enter, but chose to wait.
           "Are you decent, sir?"
           "Yes, m'lady."
           She loved this cabin. It was always a delight to enter it.
           In the dim warm candlelight she could see that Hank was decent. But the woman with him was still disrobed. And still straightening herself to receive company. Ling caught a glimpse of some full, middle-aged boobs before they were covered in a sweatshirt. Ling was reminded of the actress Adrienne Barbeau. Modesty compelled her to look away.
           "Sorry."
           "It's Ok, love." A calming voice, rich as honey. Pinewood, Truckee River.
           Hank's flannel nightshirt almost touched the floor. He was stepping into slippers. The woman hoisted her jeans, tied her belt, and smiled. "There!"
           Ling noted that the woman had dyed her hair jet black in a small crime of vanity.
           Hank motioned to Ling. "I wantchu t'meet someone."
           An empty bottle of single-malt and two tumblers lay by the sofa.
           Again the woman smiled beautifully. A tan and wrinkled face, gaunt and hawklike. Jewish nose, Ling thought. "Hello, I'm Max. You must be Bern's friend."
           "Yes, ma'am. Uh, is Bernice here?"
           "No."
           Hank added, "As you all know, Bernice comes and goes like the breeze. Sometimes we only feel her presence."








        

wok magic

          Ling assumed command of kitchen and cuisine. Wok magic, peanut oil and inscrutable spices. Old Hank lost ten pounds within a month. He grew to love fruits. Bernice would appear now and then and cook wonderful meatless dishes from the Caribbean, from the Mediterranean, from India and China. She moved through the air.
          "I could live on tea and oranges," he said one day.
          "That come all the way from China," she replied in song.


                                                                                    *


           He sat with Bernice in the breakfast nook where a Toshiba laptop shared counterspace with a Grundig radio. She asked him, "Have you hit on Mom yet?"
           Gleaming: "Yes, I have."
           "And?"
           "And she responded."
           "Told you."


                                                                                  *


          The sky over Granville Island danced during a celebration of Aurora Borealis. After a few tokes on a slim doobie Ling was able to watch the celestial circus with mirth and delight. The spectra of color reminded her of the DNA helix. She found herself walking along a vantage from which she could see the marina. Electric light pas a deaux upon black water. Vancouver lay hushed. No police sirens. Ling grew contemplative. The city looked clean. No grime at night. Just damp reflections of gay shimmering neon. She felt the urge to visit Oz.
        

                                                                                   *


          Ling strolled into a music shop crammed with rockers of all stripes. First she noticed three white girls with beads braided into their hair. Wearing brownleather bomberjackets. And ankle-lengthed granny dresses that swished about their Doc Marten boots.
          Oz owned the Vinyl Jones. His becoming an entrepreneur was something she never envisioned.
          "Cherie!" He had spotted her first.
          Wearing a black Calvin Klein ensemble, coat and slacks, mitigated by a black teeshirt emblazoned with Korn, he descended green carpeted stairs from an open office in the center of the floor. From his desk upon a dais fenced by etched glass and carved wood he was able to view everything that went on in the shop. Almost. He lacked security cameras.
           "Nice throne," Ling smirked.
           "Gimmee a hug."
           They hugged like coldnosed panda cubs.
           "So howzit working out?" he asked.
           "They're family."
           "Glad for you. Really. No shit."

ling

        Hank found Ling in the kitchen, brewing green tea. He could see through the porous yellow blouse from Abercrombie & Fitch. Her hair was losing its magenta. Black and Asian, it lay like silk upon her shoulders. No more the buzzcut edges.
        "How's it going?" he asked.
        "Just fine, sir. I see you got into my bindi kit."
        "It was YOURS?"
        "I'm no shrink. But I know a way to help someone out of a mild depression. Let he or she paint on a new face. A new mask. A new persona emerges."
        Hank laughed merrily. "You're quite the witchdoctor."
        Ling made a sweeping theatrical bow. "I try."
        "Your method works. Admirably."
        "When I arrived I discovered your daughter in no need of henna."


                                                                             
        At dusk the bloody yolk of the sun whirled within Phaeton's cloudtrails. Sage-colored shadows reached across the quiet lawn toward the gazebo. Ling was engaged in Tai Chi. She wore gray leg-warmers and a black leotard. Waterfowl face, blank in deep non-thought.
        From the gazebo Bernice watched her, remembering what Ling had said. Such movements took her down the river of mind to the placid repose of her ancestors. She loved Ling. They were united as sisters, dedicated to healing body, mind and spirit. Ling's way was a way of wisdom. Bernice's way was a way of power. Together they led  people into sacred places.
        Ling's first patient was an elderly Chinese woman living alone above a fishmarket in Vancouver. She had outlived all of her brothers and sisters, her husband and, sadly so, her children too. She was blind, and all she wished for was someone to read to her.
        When Ling returned from the first session Bernice asked: "How did it go?"
        "Oh my gosh!"
        "Eh?"
        "She had me read a story by Lu Xun, a great and very revered modern writer."
        "Splendid."
        "In Chinese."
        "Oh my gosh!"
        "I meditated for a moment and it all came back. Miraculously. What a fine story. Remembrances Of The Past. Beautiful language. Marvelous dialogue. It taught me some structures of Chinese poetry and gave me a few insights, I think, on Confucious."
        "Charity has its own rewards."
        "Ahem. The only trouble I had was the old woman scolding me. She said my command of Bejing dialect was atrocious."
       
    

nathan

        In his waning years Nathan Silver retired from teaching in California and took up rural homesteading along the upper Hudson, where he could sit beneath an ancient elm. His activism, dating back to the early days with Howard Fast, Arthur Koestler, Walter Lippmann and Max Lerner, had abated to merely sending money to good causes. His latest donation was to Magen David Adom.
        A copse of northern pine flanked the dirt road and the split-rail fence. Nathan walked the road each day, no more than a mile each way. He meditated upon chapters of his long life. He felt wise with hindsight.
In this wisdom he did not regret decisions made in haste and error. That would be folly.
        His knowledge of birds was nil, so he called them all "meadowlarks."
        They sang and played across the fields and soared up into trees. It was wonderful now to take time and love the birds.
        On one of his walks, in the purple gloaming, his heart kicked up a fuss. The pain caused him to clutch his chest and lean for a moment upon the fence. He refused to cry out when he fell to his knees.
        Nathan felt his spirit enter his beloved elm.


        As he had suspected, no one left the planet.  Earth consisted of many  planes of reality. There were those to be seen and touched, known and felt. There were those that were not. The elm permitted Nathan to look about with abundant tranquility. A meadowlark perched upon one of his boughs.


        "Grandfather."
        "Bernice?"
        "Yes. I am here."
        She stood beneath the elm. Black robe, black hooded cloak. Her skin glowed with transfiguration. She touched the elm. A bond between her fingertip and Nathan's spirit existed.
        "We must make a brief journey," she said. "I promise you will return here shortly."
       


                                                                                        *


         Ruth Silver was coming home in her Jeep after shopping at the crossroads general store, a gray slat and shingle relic with a rusted Pepsi sign and a defunct glass-head gaspump. Inside the store a cracker barrel checkers game had been in progress. Pipesmoke. Sweetsmell. Knickerbockers. She could swear there was a Dutch broadhat old as the Bronk family hanging upon the wallrack.
        She found Nathan sprawled in the dirt.
        He was breathing shallowly. On her cellphone she called the EMTs and then held his hand. And wished she knew First Aid.
        She felt the presence of someone else.
        But saw no one.


                                                                                       *


        Nathan was taken to the county hospital. The ER resident doctor treated him until vital signs showed a thin margin of recovery. By then Nathan's own physician had arrived.
        When Nathan woke, Ruth and Maxine were bedside. The room had no color. He could see no color anywhere.
         Words fluttered from his parchment mouth like confetti. He remembered the individual paper letters he once inserted into the sleeves of his cardboard spelling board to compose words, and thoughts.Way, way back in grammar school.
        Maxine turned to Ruth. "What's he saying?"
        Nathan was asking, "Bernice? Are you here, Bernice?"
        Bernice stood in the doorway. She replied, "I am here, Grandfather. I am here."
        Maxine embraced her daughter, sobbing, "He's gone."
       
       

       
       
 
 

transformation 2

        A mantle of fog covered the entire eastern expanse of water. Only the gentle wavelets flowing, curling, and ebbing along the pebbled shore could be seen. The noon sun was an orb of palest yellow. Hank observed how its diffused light shone in the twinkling sprinkles of mist. At play above the Douglas firs nearest the cabin were rainbow colors. This simple majesty lifted his heart.
        The gazebo was visible as he drew within twenty yards of it. He heard two women laughing gaily and talking exuberantly. He crept within earshot.
        Bernice: "Am I from around here? I was born in yon cabin!"
        Ling: "Ah so."
        Bernice: "It was quite a show."
        Ling: "Who's that?"
        Bernce: "Excuse me?"
        Ling: "Over there. Watching us."
        Bernice: "Not sure. A Kwakiutle savage perhaps."
        Ling hollered, "HEY!"
        Knowing he had been spotted, Hank bellowed, "Hello to camp!"
        Bernice: "My Da. You'll love him."
        Ling: "Evidently stagecraft runs in the family."
        Hank strode forth. His bare chest and firm belly awash with henna tattoos. His illustrated face full of artistic expression.
        "Howdy, young ladies."
        In mock distress, Ling asked: "Are you going to eat us?"
        "Won't know until it starts."


                                                                                     

transformation 1

        Burnished autumn sunlight. Its angle of entry from the apex of the eastern window attested to the lateness of the hour. Hank knew he had overslept. He lay there in his bunk and savored the moment. Fully rested and clear-headed, he remembered dreaming a lot. The nonlinear plots of his nocturnal mind-dramas had all been forgotten. Whatever they had been did not concern him now. He knew one thing for certain: a therapeutic cleansing had occurred.
        On the dream level something had challenged him and he had defeated it, ending a crisis within his subconscious. The phantoms and all their ambiguities had been banished. He felt rejuvinated, upbeat. Snug and warm beneath a tattered old quilt of Maxine's, he lazily stretched his legs, feet and toes, concentrating upon each in its order and addressing each with thanksgiving.
        "Good morning, Da."
        She stood beside him like a golden specter, not of this earth. Her cheeks were aglow.
        "How are you, Bern?"
        "Just fine."
        "I am happy to hear that."
        She had brought him a bedtray. She set it upon him and removed the embroidered cloth that covered a bowl of biscuits. "Sourdough. With blackberry jam."
        Her black robe fell open and he saw she was naked within it. Her flesh teemed and swarmed with an intricacy of tattoos. Symbols and glyphs alien to him. They seemed as alive as brightly colored beetles and butterflies. Overnight she had experienced a quickening, surreal as Salvador Dali.
        Until now she had kept her body hidden from him with the modesty of a nun. Clothed in robes and hooded cloaks.
        He had expected her to be ravaged by Karposi's Sarcoma. Purple lesions. Not animated tattoos!
        Taxol could work wonders, but not miracles.
        Nor did he believe in this new drug able to produce the Lazarus Syndrome.
        Media buncombe.
        Evidently his eyes were deceiving him. This was a hallucination. She was an apparition. Perhaps his dream state had yet to expire. For instead of being frail and emaciated, Bernice was supple and energized. Not to mention being cosmetically decorated. Her pendulous breasts (circumnavigated by bands of coupled cinquefoils and octagons) were like swinging  globes of firm custard, and her fullmoon belly reminded him of Maxine. The inklike totems upon her skin brought to mind the Maori of New Zealand. He thought of Melville's Queequeg.
        Then, as the tattoos possessed a life of their own, he wigged out.
        Bernice withdrew immediately, clasping together folds of her robe. Shutting him off from that phantasmagorical panorama. He noticed a white ash, fine as talc, streaking her robe. She saw him looking, and apologized demurely. "Excuse me. I didn't mean to flash you."
        "Where did the ash come from?"
        "It happens. You see, I bilocate."
        Aghast: "Seriously?"
        "Last evening I visited Grandfather Nathan before he died."


                                                                                  *


        Dressed, Hank found she had gone out. Probably to the screened gazebo he had built for her. Confusion spun supremely in his mind.
        In the kitchen was a mess on the formica. Somebody had been busy with a bindi henna body-art kit.  Ink, stylus and design templates were there,  ready for use. That, however, did not solve the riddle of Bernice's transformation. He sat down dreamily and before he knew it, he was tattooing his face.
        The phone chirrupted. It was Maxine calling from New York.
        "Hank, Dear."
        "Hello, Max."
        "Thought I should call you and tell you that Bern arrived here OK."
        "What?"
        "Last evening. God, she looked healthy."
        "I don't understand."
        "We all said goodbye to Dad."
        "Good-bye?"
        Maxine shuddered with a sob. "Dad passed away."
   

lotus land 5

        Taking a late lunch at the Cannabus Cafe, Magenta removed her wire-rim amber shades so that she could study the menu. On the wall behind her was a painting of the Virgin Mary standing in a field of tall marijuana plants. Mary looked stoned.
        Items on the menu: hemp pasta, hemp tortillas, hemp salad dressing.
        "What'll ya have?"
        "I'll try the quesadillas, eh."
        "Sure thing."
        She saw people openly smoking spliffs. White people with Jamaican dreadlocks and ganja. Cool.
        Her dub had been rolled with grass grown locally in a hydroponic basement. Its THC content was at least twenty-five percent. Oobie-doobie.
        A few tokes later, Magenta began seeing things in the mural. Crazy things. New variations. She told herself this was Vancouver 1994, not Guadalupe 1551.
         Mary had appeared to Juan Diego, an Indian peasant. She ordered him to fill his cloak with flowers and take them to Juan de Zumarraga, Mexico's first bishop. The humble patron of Mary gained the bishop's audience, but when his cloak fell open the flowers were gone, vanished. In their place was an image of the Mother of Jesus. A miracle.
        The mural was a miracle. Alive. With a new story to tell.
        Magenta put the dope away.
        When the meal came she was ravenous. She ate like a lobo wolf. Then she opened her bag from Duthie Books. She had just bought "Death On The Installment Plan" by Celine.
        "You dig Celine?"
        "Don't know yet." Replying to a young man with a shaved head and a goatee. "The title grabbed me."
        "Celine is popular with you Goths."
        "I am not a Goth."
        "You wear black. Have a ring in your nose. And a tattoo on your wazoo."
        "Hush!"
        Oz sat down with his drumsticks and began tapping out an annoying rhythm on the tabletop. "So, Ling, whassup?"
        Ling could barely tolerate Oz. Ever since she had met him in an anthropology class at the University of British Columbia a year ago (his "designated" seat seemed to be next to hers) rarely a day could go by without him alighting near her like a fly. He was such a pest! Often she told him to shoo, but lacked the nerve to swat him.
        She blamed herself for his infatuation and persistance.
        Early on, they went on a date to the Museum of Anthropology. And over coffee at the B&O Expresso
they discovered they both had read Ruth Benedict's classic study of the Kwakiutles of Vancouver Island. They chatted with manic enthusiasm amid a sullen crowd of intellectual poseurs (the ennui was palpable) and more than once received the hairy eyeball.



                                                                                       *


        People in the Cannabis Cafe noticed Oz's tickety-tickety tapping. Ling hissed: "Quit that!"
        Oz leaned close. "Come up to my loft. We can do potlatch."
        "No thanks. Been there, done that."
        "You wanna chase a film crew?  Outer Limits. X-Files."
        Ling poked his hand with a fork. "Get this, eh. A man came into the office today and said he was looking for a person to watch after his daughter. Domestic job. No medical experience necessary. When the inevitable happens, someone calls the doctor, or coroner. I can do this. The pay is OK. But that is beside the point. I'm going to act on this before it gets posted."
        "You'd leave the employment office?"
        "In a heartbeat." Then she added in a low voice, "There is something you should know."
        "What?"
        "She has AIDS."
        "Oh, Christ, you don't want that job."
        "Yes, I do. I have strong feelings for these people. I was about to do volunteer work at the Caring Center. Maybe work the hotline."
        Oz shook his head in disbelief. "I never would have guessed you were one."
        "One what?"
        Oz rolled his eyes.
        Ling tugged her magenta hair and began to rhapsodize. "The place is way out on the big island. Dirt road through the woods. Real remote. Cabin down by the water. Real scenic. The man wants his daughter to enjoy life up to the final moment. Beautiful."
        "You're a sap."
    

homeward bound 2

        "Seems like yesterday." The retired major inhaled the channel air as if it were fine Dutch tobacco.
        "What does?" Hank tried to decifer the man.
        "The day we first stood together against the bloody bastards. You may not recall me. But I was there too. What a magnificent day!"
         After a fresh study Hank recalled a similar man, younger then, and rugged as rail timber, with a wilderness of auburn hair tamed only by razor and clippers. A Royal Canadian, his cunt cap rakishly shelved beneath an epaulet. He stood resolutely, daring any piss-eyed logger or hired goon to confront him. Army sleeves rolled up, corded forearms and stone knuckles, ready to brawl.
        "Yes," Hank replied. "You stood beside me by that damned bulldozer. Tell me, were you disciplined for being in uniform?"
        "I was. Everything has its price."
        Hank kicked himself. Obviously the man never was to rise above major in the ranks.
        "Spot of java?" Hank asked, piloting Naismith Bowdoin toward the salon.


                                                                                   *


        Bowdoin suggested they vacation together for a week. Camping in the old-growth forest at Port Clements in the Queen Charlotte Islands. To Naismith's surprise Hank confessed he had never visited the famous golden spruce. The K'lid K'iyass. Old Tree.
        "We'll pitch a tidy camp on the bank of the Yakoun River and visit the tree," Naismith grinned, toothy as a beaver. "This Sitka spruce lacks eighty percent of a normal allotment of chlorophyll. Instead of green, it's golden yellow. I guarantee it will take your breath away."


                                                                                     *


        A couple of hours after Hank left for Vancouver, Bernice began feeling as golden as the Old Tree. And as if the here-to-fore quiet part of her soul suddenly had something to say, it said: "Be at peace. I will be with you always."
        How odd, she thought. This inner voice doesn't come from my intelligence. It is purely cognitive and new. Is the end of Me nigh?
        Mentally she began to sob.
        i don't want to die.
        i don't want to die.
        I DON'T WANT TO DIE.


                                                                                     *


         Hank arrived home late. He drove the Rover into the portico where leaves had blown upon the oil slick. With the engine off, he could hear music playingi inside the cabin. Something Gorecki by the Kronos Quartet. He found Bernice asleep in his sawed-off stumplegged rocking-chair. An aura of peace radiated from her face, and it almost seemed she wore a halo.

     

homeward bound 1

         Standing at the rail of the Tsawwassen-Swartz ferry, Hank gazed at  islands of emerald and jade shrouded in sentient mist. Dense forests of cedar climbed into inscrutibility. He imangined himself a wandering Taoist monk, travelling alone with no need of shrines nor little Buddhas along the path, cloud hidden, his where-abouts unknown. It occured to him that the scenic fare resembled a Chinese watercolor.
         He envisioned spontaneous brush strokes. His mind's eye watched as line after line appeared. Swit swit swit. A gob, then a smear. Whisk! Once begun each stroke hastened to its conclusion without interruption.
         He did not contemplate a Creator.  If there was one somewhere, a Supreme Artist, a Supreme Consciousness, then He-She-It would not pause amid brushstroke.
         He saw asymmetry in Nature, and he marvelled.


                                                                             *

         Suddenly a rugged hand grasped Hank's shoulder.
         A Victorian accent: "Aren't you the chap I met at Carmanah Valley? Trying to save the Sitka spruce?"
         Hank measured the tall elderly man with white sideburns and handlebar moustache. High of brow and hollow of cheek. Pink skin and watery blue eyes. Bald crown covered with a motorman's cap, the kind Hank associated with Sluggo. And gray herringbone topcoat. A true gentleman from old Victoria.
        "Name's Hank." Gregariously offering a handshake.
        "Naismith Bowdoin. Retired major. I believe I know you as Greendozer."
        Hank closed his eyes, slipping into an unexpected state of grace.
        Then he smiled his most beatific smile in ages.
        "A long time ago, my friend."

agrippa's daughter

          Birch Moon's brown Chinook face blushed, eyes beaming. "Ah! Baby girl!"
          Bernice reared her red fuzzy head and bawled like a bagpipe. Spanked on the bottom.
          Hank whooped with relief and delight. Like Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. Hollering too. He yanked the cork from a reserved bottle of single malt and swigged. Next time, he swore, if there was to be a next time, he was going to do the traditional manly thing. Find a hospital maternity ward for Max, and a waiting room for him. If she insisted again on one of those hippie-dippy happenings, then he would haul his ashes to a sweatlodge and commune with Chief Seattle's ghost.
         Maxine cooed. "Her hair is so beautiful."
         "Aye, a bonnie lass, my Pa would say."
         "She will break many hearts. Including her own."


                                                                                     *


         Maxine had been a constant reader of Howard Fast for a long time. Her father knew him and had hosted a book party once, inviting all the old friends. "Agrippa's Daughter" was about this sensual redhaired greeneyed Jewish woman forced to marry her uncle during the Roman occupation of Judea. This uncle was her third husband. The grandson of the reverered Rabbi Hillel, whose moral teachings were resoundingly echoed by Jeshue of Nazareth.
         She found Mister Fast to be the sharpest and most pedantic of that grim gaggle of Reds her father invited over for the holidays. Maxine felt inspired to name a daughter after Berenice Bat Agrippa.
         A typographical error in the court's record of birth gave the newborn the name Bernice.
         Bernice.
         Hank loved it. Already he was making plans.
     

embryonic journey 3

         He was a roughneck who could live outdoors for weeks. Chaining himself to trees. Camping on logging roads. His musette bags crammed with canned pineapple and pear and corned beef and roast beef hash. For protection (against the occasional bear): a Ruger Blackhawk. His book of comfort was Gary Snyder's "Regarding Wave." Beatnik Zen poems.
         They were trying to eat Maxine's homemade jerky. Hank opened the book and said, "Somewhere in here he writes that Nature is Green Shit."
         "This jerky is shit," she replied. "Sorry, Dozer."
         "Possum food, I'm afraid."
         Her eyes twinkled. Her kiss zinged.
         Rain caught them in the woods. They made love inside the hollow of a Douglas fir. Their little campsite  looked like oatmeal. They laughed like naked Buddhas.



                                                                                 *


        They lived together for years. Never married. Wiccans convinced them to bind spiritually one year at a time in a Handfasting. Garlands, robes, cakes and ale.
        Bernice was born at home, chaotically.
        With a naturopathic midwife named Birch Moon.
        A winter storm had churned the sea all the way from Japan and was assaulting the Pacific Northwest. Icy rain and driven snow pelted the stately Douglas firs standing outside the cabin like mute sentries. Birch Moon calmed herself with massive brews of Kava Kava. Hank was worried. A couple he knew down on Puget Sound had tried a home delivery. They suffered a bloody ball of disaster.
        He began to doubt the wisdom of this whole holistic enterprise.
        Like most things, it had been decided by Maxine. It was her body.
        As things developed over the years, she had become more Back To The Land than he. More political than he.


                                                                               *


        Wiccans and Flower Children brought healing crystals, gemstones and blessings. Fellow activists gave quilts, sheets and pillows. A Reiki master assisted Birch Moon in the final hour by channeling healing energy from the cosmos.
        The storm had upset him by now. Maxine was bleeding and howling like a gutshot shewolf. She beseeched Hank to sit closer and comfort her during this trial of trials. So he entered the veiled chamber of the birthing tent. Desperately he wanted to flee, to cop out, to get drunk and to gaze into Jack London's fire.
        At last the infant was crowning.
        On the radio Jefferson Airplane was playing "Embryonic Journey."