In honor of National Poetry Month, we’re featuring a different look and feel for our blog. Lance Garland has shared the following poems from two trips to North Cascades National Park.
About Lance: Lance Garland spends his days fighting fire in Seattle, climbing the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, and sailing the Salish Sea. In the moments between the action, he’s written for Outside, Backpacker, Hidden Compass, and Mountaineer. His essay ‘Brothers in Arms’ is featured in the 2020 anthology EARTHLY LOVE, and his poetry chapbook, SAILBOAT LIVING, was an honorable mention for the 2016 Homebound Poetry Prize.
Such places (where the Scripture is observed) however wretched they may be, will be loved as though they were famous memorial parks and monuments, to which countless pilgrims and sages will come (to Desolation Peak!) to offer homage and speeches and dedications. And over them the angels of the unborn and the angels of the dead will hover like a cloud.” – Jack Kerouac, Desolation Journal
Such places (where the Scripture is observed) however wretched they may be, will be loved as though they were famous memorial parks and monuments, to which countless pilgrims and sages will come (to Desolation Peak!) to offer homage and speeches and dedications. And over them the angels of the unborn and the angels of the dead will hover like a cloud.”
– Jack Kerouac, Desolation Journal
Crew:
Reading List:
12-mile canoe trip across Ross Lake. Past cliff-side waterfalls and Lion-faced mountains. Falls named Lion’s Roar by the adventurers two. Sooner than expected arrive at Cat Island dock. Strip down to skivvies, Photo-op jump off in meadows of minnows followed by cannonball fun. I set up the tent as Jen floats adrift on a pink blowup magic carpet. As the tent comes erect I now have a guest and I dance with a deer as she 360 pirouettes.
Mountaineering stove, sausages, red beans with rice, lavender chamomile tea, swigs of Jameson and sunset yoga at dock’s end under violet and red clouds blushing from ocher to sun-yellow.
This day unblooms, returns to peace as the white-capped waters lull themselves softly to a lilting sleep.
Head to head in sleeping bags on rocking dock we fall to dreams as stars alight like stories from ideas, Jen’s lullaby this night.
Awake to sky, cloudless, alive, a broad swath of Milky dust: our Galaxy’s might.
As all adventurous people do I compete with you, Jack.
You: a merchant marine. I: a Navy sailor.
You: a fire lookout. I: a firefighter.
You: put up with longsuffering Publishing. I: self-publish.
You have become a legend. I love you like a father, like my father.
You: see the “V” between Hozomeen’s Peaks as the Void. I: see the “V” as victory.
The fire lookout in your stead, Michael, is like you, but aged in Samsara and young from those lessons.
For some, Jack, life doesn’t decay you, but rebirths you.
Michael, like you, and Michael, like me, an Army Veteran, Montana wildland firefighter, writer, and adventurer of like.
It seems we all meet together here, linked by love at this mountaintop Buddhist hut, pagoda point.
Between void and victory.
Between decay and rebirth.
I commune with you, Jack, and you commune with me. Michael, the avatar between. Jen, the orator of your visions. Our fellow hikers orators, your children.
All on this pilgrimage even you toward a clearer vision of ourselves, of truth.
And in Epic Kerouacian drama, my poem is finished after I read aloud the first chapter of Angels, when I hear your whisper over my shoulder, turn to see a foot high dust devil rip toward us, touch us, and grasp the flotsam at our feet, Jen’s stuff sack, rip it out and off the cliff toward your void, high into the stratosphere, a kite hang gliding beyond to the darkness, and I feel your presence, your touch.
Jack, I swear.
On a cliff beside Jack mountain and Nohokomeen glacier we sit as cloud spectators watching Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” hands come alive in cumulous migrations across the American Alps. Michael’s buck appears curious, unflinchingly standing his ground, his antlers still fuzzy with season’s youth, a mountain spirit Buddha. A wilderness wind sets its fingerprints across the face of the lake, an elemental embrace reflected below like a second sky, a unique balance of equilibrium and the loss thereof. Above and above, with us suspended between on a floating island of blue and of green a poet on a hill refreshed and serene.
All night rain storm on Desolation Peak just like Michael said, “Makes for lack of sleep.”
Hiking down soaking wet
jump into canoe now’s a sunny day and blue
row past Cat and Ten Mile Island
swim with the sugar creek gang of boys at Devil’s Junction, a Lord of the Flies rehearsal an unsupervised aquatic function.
On to Devil’s Creek After a picnic on their dock
Below an Indiana Jones bridge through canyons of towering rock
As the walls close in tight And a cold wind starts Brewing We find a waterfall I rock climb up And jump in
Through the afternoon of Whitecaps A brisk northerly is blowing We make it to Rainbow Point Relax, sink our Feet in. Read Kerouac at the junction between Hozomeen and Sourdough Eat dinner amongst The deer Watch ducklings Follow where ‘ere Mother may go.
“Enlightenment via Abandonment” It’s the only truth we know.
Past purple mountains maimed by fire wild, dry to forests of marching pine through groves grown green from summer’s spring of rain no trail ever the same more than a day
flocks of mosquitoes two gringos reminisce of recent Patagonia jagged tooth of Fitz Roy toward the blue wild Paine steel blue Ross comes flickering into view past Roland Creek then on to May campsite lean-to two tents stake my boy Buoy’s first backpacking trip with May Creek’s humming waterfall strumming fishermen fisherwomen buzzing with rainbow trout hunting betwixt powder sugared peaks thankful wildfire reprieve remove the stress of the city you’ll find two beats and a bop on May Creek dock
clouds as dancers
clouds six shades of sunset
sunset clouds the shape of time
reflecting ephemeral life clouds life-like shape-shifting always changing never ever
the same clouds like the lightness the heaviness slowness of being clouds like freeing my mind from the meaning clouds like believing always coming always leaving
Cities need human power to function. No wonder we always feel depleted.
Mountains, Earth, Sea, don’t need me. No wonder that’s where I feel free.
Sunrise skies atop dock yoga stretching cloudy skies patch to blue as my meditation vacillates, my sitting body the buoy mind the fire-lookout to a Wednesday morning campfire Gary Snyder- ‘tip head down to shield face with hat brim from the heat”
pack up camp Forward!
Through day darkened canopies of Evergreens and Lodge-pole Pine sunlight shimmers to lakeside paths granite ridges bouldered walls over Devil’s Creek by way of suspension bridge a young girl leaps some thirty feet to frigid face-plant below, and yet unscathed is she further on, the trail gets hotter down dusty slopes we slide to dive pull Buoy in he’s out to climb backward with his butt uphill some water dog we’re swimming still deep through the forest more miles pass Lightening Creek’s suspension bridge the dust is thin baked sweet by sun the faintest must, inhaled powered-sugar earth another camp another dock take pictures jumping Jen’s climbing logs a few more dives into the sun anointed by this glacier run this sacred water this sacred space the sunset’s pink paints Jack Mountain’s face half luna rising that dear old friend a vision of Torres Del Paine across the lake in another sacred space in another sacred time I sat on Lago Azul an exact reflection of this page this location vantage point line of sight Patagonia is a cathedral North Cascades is but the same and this pilgrim sings their praises prayers of thanks I sing your names
Steep upward climb ride along Starvation /\ Spratt Mountain Ridge with Lightning Creek below onward to Deer Lick and an ancient miner’s camp break upon its doorstep before creek hopping as mossy carpeted trails lead us deeper into the magic groves of green spirits, vibrating verdant canopies on to dark ravines where shadows dance with swaying trees that creek us sing us on to Nightmare Camp no place to stay for folks like us continue on to waterfalls terraced through winding ascents to Willow ^/\\^ Castle Peak Lake where Buoy runs and frolics ^/\ Joker Mountain like a wild cub the bugs they bite on our skin they delight the last few miles a rugged trek, with cuts and scrapes upon our legs, bees and bugs and sharper plants we see at last that storied peak Hozomeen /\ /\ Hozomeen / \ \ Mount Hozomeen “The most beautiful mountain I’ve ever seen!” –Kerouac from Jack’s perspective a void within from our standpoint now a W a win I guess it changes from where you stand keep moving find a better land a better place a better time a better space in your own mind
Oh Hozomeen Oh what a gift
this pilgrimage this turn within
Best campfire of the trip warms my head-lamped face as the dark takes hold of the sky a pack of wolves howls across the cavernous lake turn to night of thunder of lightning torrents of rain Hozomeen’s glory your void is our wonderment our awe
At dawn, Skinny-dip Hozomeen, drizzle rain, voices echo across lake
light frozen embrace our skin floating below peaks Immersed in this
spiritual place anointed and baptized by this sacred water
naked in the heart of ancients, naked in the womb of our mother
The frothy lips of the lake from alpine morning fog the song of Loons around lake’s edge their high-pitch tonguey trill spirits of clouds rising from the tops of trees to enlightenment As Hozomeen’s peaks like teeth chew through the thick cloud covering to smile for us
Here at Hozomeen A vision across the lake in this sacred space in this sacred time
Hozomeen is a cathedral and this pilgrim sings Its praises prayers of thanks I sing your name
Thank you, Lance, for sharing your poetry and one-of-a-kind perspective with us!