we just had our first real storm of the season. the wind woke me up twice last night. the alder and young redwoods creaked a bit and rain lashed the window in sheets. the weather is a bit more intense up here; the bottoms didn't get much wind. i miss that cowfield, though.

so the weather put me in a slightly manic pensive mood:

a few months back i bought a dog-eared copy of leonard cohen's "selected poems 1956-65" at a book store in old town eureka. i don't remember which book store, though.

i started parsing it for lines i like. here's the cut/paste:

to all the animals drugged with anarchy and happiness
wandering from meadowlands to feasts
i'm making a lampshade out of your kiss

history is a needle
for putting men asleep:

opium and hitler
between the mountains of spices

***

i keep seeing logging trucks on the 101 loaded with old growth redwoods and doug firs. 800+ year old trees dropping bark at every stoplight. it comes from places like these.

***

dream 10.30

i am alone in a barren mountain range: granite, ice, lichen, me. i am heading to a mountain far away. i slip into a tunnel and find myself in a dusty labyrinth: it is a mall. the mall is the el conquistador in tucson, circa 1980. it is miles long, and filled with bookstores and maternity boutiques. there is a dry fountain. it smells like mold. side passages fill me with dread and i avoid them. at some point, i am naked and running down the last passage. i come into a courtyard filled with people who don't see me. some of them are naked as well...no one seems to notice. i head back into the abandoned mall. there is muzak. i smell decay, and feel a nightmare coming on. i wake up.

***

to be interested in the changing seasons is, in this middling zone, a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
: george santayana