GOLDEN FEET in 4 parts

Part I

Monarch The Grizzly 

===============

Stay tuned, there’s a new part of GOLDEN FEET in the making, about the bear grotto in SF's Golden Gate Park where Monarch lived after he was captured by a posse funded by William Randolph Hearst. This is a photo of him below.

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GOLDEN FEET part 2

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Return from the Bear Hunt, 1882

William Hahn (1829-87)

carcass of female California grizzly

GOLDEN FEET part 2

Her cubs are hiding there on the other side of that ridge. They heard her fight to the end, killed on that day when eleven horses and a dead buck came with nine men, five dogs, two boys, whips, ropes, and revolving rifles surrounded her. Golden Feet your cubs could live on without you. 

Extirpated fear for what, mother of honey? What did you do to her? The pain became too much for this Oakland girl, Filipina artist took her own life on Sunday. Seventeen and couldn't find a way out of the grief and despair. She'd taught us how to draw a cat, how to use color and how to put on a brave face for a while. Her shadow was not there then

Last Sunday nobody could save her. Honey paw, pride of the woodlands, what did we do?!

R.I.P. Alex Foronda 6/22/14

California grizzly (Ursus arctos californicus) extinct subspecies since August 1922 or 1924 or so they say...

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GOLDEN FEET part 3
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                 Bear effigy, ca. 1870, Haida 

          GOLDEN FEET part 3

   Lured to earth metamorphic-

 ly. Sticky and sweet, raw some-

  times sun sometimes shaman,

  strong grounding vibrant force.

  Golden Feet, you've got incre-

   dible teeth. Can I touch your

     body, groom out pests and 

     ugly things for another life-

   time? Will you return to the

     sea and docks, take after 

      cousins? Wood and bone

    inspired by your courage

    alone in light and shadows

   to observe quietly, resting.

    Inlaid and painted to last 

   another century and a half.

   I need your wild medicine,

   Golden Feet in my dreams

   with huckleberry, salmon

    from the ancient stories.

   Can I know your secrets,

  would you willingly, friend

 of fen and forest, honey paw,

  effigy shining in front of me?

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GOLDEN FEET part 4

E51 intention of bone 

E51 intention of bone 

Wide cheek bones    Breathe exhale
predatory teeth      empty the belly

brain cavity lower     find calm from

no sagittal crest        today's afflictions

significantly round     do sun salutations
nose hole larger      float in water

Could I request my body   Come near
burn in a seated position        nearer
sent to sea on a homemade    expansion
raft please not frozen then in    transfigure
glass as an example flesh     destruction
beetles work nor 3rd grade    discover
science experiment inflating      unknown
pieces of lung maybe it was      realms of
not a curable disease they      imagination
visit sinister or shy place    comprehend
the horrors of mass      skulls found
extinction human violence   E51 is what
flesh is gone eaten by    one man not
several animals   on the beach

ignore and deny    Frantz Fanon

not of core belief       dissonance

do not listen    bone intention
bone chewed    licked bone
action     of heady   

ash    feeds tomorrow

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Part 1: Monarch the grizzly who was the model for the California flag.
The photo of the grizzly is Monarch.

Part 2 photo of painting from natural sciences gallery of Oakland Museum of California http://www.museumca.org

Part 3 photo of skull from California Academy of Sciences


Part 4 photo of bear effigy from de Young Museum

He came dancing across the water

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Vivid Dancer, Argia vivida

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

illustration by Liam O'Brien, for Presidio NPS publication/poster below

Kingdom:  Animalia (Animals)

Phylum:  Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subphylum:  Hexapoda (Hexapods)

Class:  Insecta (Insects)

Order:  Odonata (Dragonflies and Damselflies)

Suborder:  Zygoptera (Damselflies)

Family:  Coenagrionidae (Narrow-winged Damselflies)

Genus:  Argia (Dancers)

Species:  vivida (Vivid Dancer)

He came dancing across the water

all the heavy things

elegy for Michelle Marriott

     singing voice ekphrastic

     Matilda's   Miss  Honey

     lovely   teacher   strong
     enough       to        carry 
     all   the    heavy   things
     sweet   feminine   flower
     tu      nous       manques*
     you     me     your    dog
     impromptu            cabin

     sugar       pine       forest 
     giant     cones      glisten

     fire      road     to      San

     Antonio                   Falls 

     the        highest      peak
     above     Los      Angeles
     near    San    Bernardino

     together       reminiscing
     how       you     charmed
     the   horse   stable   men 
     and   we   all   benefitted 

     La    Bamba    serenades
     under third floor windows

     fresh three am croissants

     Aix-en-Provence      now

     afternoon     of      granite

     quartz     igneous      rock

     San   Gabriel   Mountains

     runs    river    cool   water

     the  end  of  last  summer

     magic  in  found  feathers 

     columbine's   bitter  seed

     eagle   claw    valley  heat

     dead  opossum   at  shed

     mort          trop         jeune

     lime    tree    after   chemo

     doctors     foretell     death 

     scary     childhood     story

     (they  didn't  believe  you!!)

     singing   voice   ekphrastic

     Matilda's     Miss      Honey

     teacher      brave     enough

     to     fight     the    creatures 

     sweet      feminine     flower

     tu         nous        manques*

*we miss you

FYI a couple lines above are borrowed lyrics of Miss Honey's song from Matilda the Musical (based on book by Roald Dahl) - you can find the song here at end of remix (Tony Awards 2013) http://youtu.be/A06-8IWjFSE

photo: Aquilegia formosa at San Antonio Falls/Mt. Baldy CA 8/31/13

bioblitz haiku

Sunday over one

thousand taxa to upload 

then tomcat clover.  

photo: Trifolium willdenovii 

5/4/14 Rocky Outcrop SF

Green Hairstreak bioblitz

LANDSCAPE STUDY #3: Cuyama Valley

  

LANDSCAPE STUDY #3

Cuyama valley       around fire stories      rehydrate noodles    woodrat cottontail

of high desert          African snakes            corvids watch          prints in the wash

  a river basin     leopards snowy owls    rodents lizards leave    trailing's intuitive

coyote crosses      fungi and clever       old homestead bones   track gait scat

north of bobcat      ground squirrel is         Carrizo Plain’s          of juniper berry

both head east         not easy at all           herd of antelope         at shot-up tree

 too we depart     to get back to camp     circle tracks long        instant oatmeal

Chumash land      Los Padres Forest        ago pass bonus      good conversation

 after following     steep terrain boulder     under the bridge      Saturday morning

   coyote pair         flying yucca thorns     8 or 9 track studies

 remark space      startle second time     turtle feet and tail     arrive Nettle Springs

   scratch pee          a buck the group      note small species       manzanita yerba

snares are down     trails west of bad-      dozens of books       santa pinyon pines

  snow stays til 12      lands fresh leads        of mammals          Apache Canyon Rd

balls of snow ensue   several we follow      for much of night    off CA State Hwy 33

early goodbye of 2     to ridge overlook       the rain insists        and 166 of oil fields

wake up to snow            freezing cold            we get up         orchard bloom by I-5

Tuesday morning     Monday morning     Sunday morning        drive Friday evening

Meghan Walla-Murphy and all 12 of us on 3/28/14 to 4/1/14 together from 
Sonoma Co. & Marin, So. Africa, Santa Fe, San Francisco and East Bay

A Special Advertising Supplement

A California Bestiary

an erasure poem based on the Heyday book from 2012 by Rebecca Solnit (author) and Mona Caron (artist)

The California Condor, Gymnogyps californianus

Assata in Oakland, a cento

You can't go on like that Sweetback.1
Sleepy Giant,
You have been resting awhile.2

Read what somebody sprayed on the yard-wide 4
years earlier and more. That's how you tell real time. It is here, it is there. 3
On bright madonnas. And a scythe 10

I will dream you a wolf
and suckle you newborn. 5
for more. A promise is just like money. 8

with unforeseen debilities. Time is neither 6
being the most the unquestionable the outstanding.9
who disappeared into the volcanos of Mexico leaving behind 7

a discreet veil, a lubricating ointment and,7b
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd.11
ever you were when knotted steel.12

Steel bells, like the evil
unwashed Sphinx, towing in the twilight.13


Footnotes  
Poem, Poet

1. Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song, from the Marvin Van Peebles movie
2. Africa, Langston Hughes
3. Santa Fe, Joy Harjo
4. Alaska, Gary Snyder
5. City of Fire, Joy Harjo
6. VII, Wendell Barry
7. Howl, Allen Ginsberg
7b. On Modern Applied Sciences, Roque Dalton
8. The Business of Fancy Dancing, Sherman Alexie
9. A Poem about Intelligence for My Brothers and Sisters, June Jordan
10. The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock, Gwendolyn Brooks
11. This Compost/Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
12. Endpapers, Adrienne Rich
13. Way Out West, Amiri Baraka

Photo credit Wendy Snyder 3.14.14 of Assata Shakur's poem "Affirmation" as street art in Oakland on Webster near 14th

notes associated with wilderness, an erasure poem

from the introduction to Field Guide to Animal Tracks and Scat in California

by Mark Elbroch et al,  UC Press 2012

Above is the summary of the story that I (mostly) blacked out.

Lunar New Year Cheer!

THIS PACE

Why was it

    so silent

alone in the

    dark woods?

Not a sound

    in the scrub

near bluffs,

    eerily quiet.

I arrived to

    observe wild-

life but

              night came

and never

    there before,

the pace

    reflected

my deter-

    mination:

to get to

    bed 2 hours

      away on foot.

Now I feel

    a fool, rush-

ing to be some-

    place else strive

for my destin-

    ation, like a car

or mad dog of

   bad behavior.

The animals

                were fear-

ful of my

   wake of old

lessons. I

     woke may-

be even

   the birds,

because a fast

    pace is where

predators follow.

     Isolated by

my own do-

    ing, yearn-

ing to recip-

    rocate with

surroundings:

     atoms and the

universe, re-

    flections, pat-

         terns in nature,

                             vs. 
                    
                        this pace

                    of concrete

                and oil,

wondering

       how to

    express my

humanity?

This is an epilogue to the earlier poem Tuning in Point Reyes. 

photo above: SF 12.23.13, an unknown but beautiful fungi bloom

photo here below: SF 8.9.13, California oak moth larva: Phryganidia californica

the mourning dove

winter solstice 12/21/13

A male dove nearby calls 20x
in a row, rushed. He gets no 
response. Mate gone or rather
the signs of known scarcity, or
a last war song before battle?

The longest night and dry, a warm valley 
breeze and strong noon sun. Together on
the sandy shore, barefoot and needing
hats to block the Pacific's reflection: I pro-
mised to dance for rain and worship water.

To celebrate the winter solstice, we lit
candles and blew out as a wave after
the poet read her poem with audience 
participation: "Earth Fire Water Air"
and young children kept their flames.

How to survive as the most hunted 
bird in North America? Lay lots fer-
tile eggs and grow up at a young age.
Sing a sweet, sad melody in the eve-
ning and figure out how to flee quick-

ly like the pair of doves now flying,
far from the coyotes who have be-
gun the return to their part of the 
story, with porpoises and mountain 
lion (hidden from human and dog.)

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Here below is an addendum to get out, air any harboring anger and resentment...maybe I'll edit and add to it later, turn it into a slam poem to compete -since Oakland is hosting the 2014 National Poetry Slam on August 5-9, 2014! Or this could become a song with the first sentence also the refrain:

I am truth looking inside
you. The late night porn
throbbing like shopping
sprees, the Target vio-
lations of credit security
everywhere email compro-
mises, addresses, cell
phone, GPS coordinates.

All that and your inheritance,
your need for gun ammunition.
I am of the American dreams.
I am your denial, your fester 
swept under the rug silent,
your clean backyard with
tall fences, no leaf litter
and over-watered lawns.


photo: Rodeo Beach, Marin Headlands 12/28/13

southern Mesopotamia = modern Iraq

The 5-pointed star aka a star pentagon or pentagram originated in ancient Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) Sumerian is the language/native tongue which was spoken from at least the 4th millennium BC. Later on religions adopted the 5-pointed star, mostly western - Christianity and also neopaganism.