Monday, July 16, 2007

Vacation Correspondence:

You know that little "automatic E-mail response thing" you get, when someone goes away, and you are still working, because you're not on vacation too?

!!!

I hate that, ...don't you?

Well, to all of you who did that to me, guess what....

I'M ON VACATION AND I'M SENDING YOU THIS INSTEAD!

("...he-he-he, yuk-yuk, snicker, snicker...")

~~~

...Poets correspond. The Weaver Poets of County Atrium and Down did it. If they weren't alive when a Poet they were influenced by lived, they eulogized them instead.

In America, in 1957, a year before I was born, Jack Spicer wrote letters to Lorca long after Lorca was moldy.

Alan, or perhaps it was Art, told me that Frost and Christman at least knew of each other, perhaps wrote to each other, and if I remember correctly, visited each other.

Poets gather in groups of like minded individuals to read and grow in their craft. We do that in the EOTNP Group. Some of our most memorable and inspiring times are in the Pub "after-words", and even then, we are corresponding with each other.

Poets need each other.

Poets correspond.

~ ~ ~

Today I went to the W.W. Christman Sanctuary with my kids for my our Summer Vacation. Now that they are older, and have "semi" lives of their own, we take our vacations where we can get them.


Devo signs us in at Christman Sanctuary 09:40 hours.


Last night, when I was having some trouble getting directions via the internet, which I eventually found through www.localhikes.com, Alan corresponded with me with a follow-up E-mail and sent me a link that said simply:



Which I promptly did. If you can't make this link for some reason paste it into your browser and check it out. It's kinda cool! This is a link to Letterboxing North America .org, and their Homepage states:

LETTERBOXING: is an intriguing pastime combining navigational skills and rubber stamp artistry in a charming "treasure hunt" style outdoor quest. A wide variety of adventures can be found to suit all ages and experience levels.

Basically, you treasure hunt, and collect impressions from rubber stamps, hidden in tupperware and plastic ziplock baggies somewhere along the hiking trail.

This is Devo and saraH, at a passway
in the field wall along the Orange trail loop.




These are the Stamps we collected today.


So, this is what my adult "kids" and I did for our Summer Vacation.

With my own special twist...

I wanted to correspond with Christman too....


Me mailing a letter to Christman...

~ ~ ~

My mom, famous for taking me and my brother Rich, about the countryside, to interesting places, once took me to do a grave-rubbing of Robert Frosts Grave. Gravestone rubbing was a burgeoning hobbie in those days... one of those "Time-Life" "fun things to do with your kids" type hobbies.

Little did I know, the corollary correspondences, that this would make in my life.

Last night I wrote this poem. Today I mailed it by stamping it and adding it to the Letterbox at Christman's.


Correspon' dances:


Mae Muther taen mae tae

Rabbie Frost's grave yin day


quhan A wus boot a ween

sae scho cud doo a rubbin


o hiz ain auld hiedstane

wi' charcoal ona paiper blacken


ana runnybabbits quher oot tae play


~


A taen mae bairns tae

Christman's Sanctuarie


Frae som clymin aroon

hiz hardscrabble muntin


ana jist hadda sae, Christman,

ye're ae goon naw, bot nae forgottin


ana runnybabbits quher oot tae play.



© obeedude16/july/07


Yeah, thats right!

Even the RunnieBabbits corresponded. They were the first thing we saw when we arrived at the trailhead. They were waiting for us! And somehow last night I knew they would be.

~ ~ ~

...We just got back. My feet are tired. I'm gonna take a nap like my adult "kids" are doing right now as I write this.

I can do this. I'm on Vacation.

...And we take our Vacations where we find them...


obeedude/16/July/07