Anodyne
Monday, November 01, 2004
 

At Larrabee Park

The winding southern road. Fern forests, thick in scribbled
damp ravines. The cliffside homes pinch out at last, replaced
by giant trees. Hard right hand turn in past the shuttered gatehouse, its
backlit Coke machine presiding over parking lot and bandshell like Kubrick’s
monolith. Across the lawn, disturbing ghosts of picnickers the rangers’ spycam
only grasps as watercolor, run smears of motion, rain against the glass. Rail
tunnel’s concrete floor and low-hung dripping ceiling evokes Guinness’
pale scheming Smiley. Bellingham or East Berlin?

Along the cliff edge, views are numbered, tour stops tied to the brochure
rack by the pay phone. The shoreline’s scattered logs and cobble
heaps. Sandstone cliff detailing everyone who ever waded through the thorns
along its base to chisel out their name. Tide high and ebbing, licking at the line
of wrack thrown up by larger waves. The tidepools Drew described all drowned.
Visible: just one brick-red star. The current stirs the glassy sea
like the air above a fire.

Fat ghosts stalk the gloomy forest trails armed with megapixel
cameras. Isn't the sea always this blue in memory, the San Juans green
like glass? Website thumbnails: cupped in sandstone hollows,
sculpins stars anemonies, little portholes to be peered through, the eyes
devouring whatever the lenses' optics seize.

Cats’ paws today on steel grey sea. Rain clouds across the sound,
slow blimps of drifting grey, the darker squall lines tangled like the offshore
chop. The root that tripped the climber on the trail. The static on her friend’s
head phones. The flints that nicked my hands. The understory’s
devouring microscopic roots. A landscape by Seurat, all pricks and dabs of color.
Less resemblance each year to pictures. Less resemblance, less and less.


- posted by cjb @ 10:09 PM


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