Summertime and the Livin' is Lovely

by Jane Elsdon

We're missing those long Eastern Sierra hikes we used to take almost any summer month from the fifties through the turn of the century, when Gene fished for Rainbows, Browns, or Golden trout while I wandered along looking for natural wonders and poems along the way. Once a chuckle of a verse walked right up to us on legs above South Lake and we still laugh over the way it came. And the way it went, too.  'Twas a sign of the times, all right. Those long hikes are a thing of the past for us now. And video is almost a thing of the past, as well.  How quick it is to come and with what speed it goes. Now it would be on You-Tube quicker than you could get your car a lube.

Recently, Gene and I were putting together a book, PAUSE ON THE PATH, that will be available at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art during the month of September when he will have a one man show upstairs there in the McMeen Gallery.Since this book is first and foremost for family, friends, and art lovers there is no way the paintings he did of some of his favorite things and the poems I wrote about that hilarious incident and my own intentions to slow down could escape resting between its covers. We hope you enjoy them. The reception and book signing for Pause on the Path will begin at 6 p.m. The poetry reading at 7 p.m. on Friday, September 7, 2012 in the McMeen Gallery at the SLO Museum of Art and will last until 9 p.m. You may also click the link and buy a copy on Amazon.com.

Late Twentieth Century Fishing A father and son pass us on the rockslide at South Lake faces bulging with smiles fuller than trout-filled creels. "Catch anything," we ask, lamenting "We haven't had a strike." "Thirty-five," the father grins. "We let 'em all go." Noting our dubious faces, the son pats his backpack with triumph, adding, "But we got it all on video."

 
My Highest Aspiration

Today I have only one goal.      I'm aiming toward aimlessness.     I confess, it isn't easy for a   feet-on-the-ground Taurus like me    but I'd really like to be  still as an Indian Paintbrush    resting by the stream with scarlet bristles painting nothing   on its vast canvas of air.        I'd like to be motionless    as a felled tree guiltlessly accepting the stream's froth and foam massage.     I'd like to be peaceful as a pinecone   napping on its needle bed   content to leave the seeding to forces greater than itself.     I'd like to be unmotivated as an aspen leaving even its quivering  to the wind's whim.

I'd like to be tranquil as a cottonwood bowing to the subleties of the stream's surging symphony. I'd like to stand motionless as a shooting star suspended on a stem satisfied that its pink and yellow petals need dazzle only an interior sky. But why? How can I aim so low when there's so very far to go? It's unmotivated, addle pated. Surely it's un-American and downwardly mobile. Nevertheless, today I pray, Earth Mother, support me please as I clear my head and with dedication attempt to shed the delirious disease of doing. Help me to keep on aiming  toward aimlessness.

Paintings by Gene Elsdon
Monarch Butterfly Banner Image by Mike Baird