Dufur

Views from Dufur Hill

I've just returned from a relaxing and productive writing retreat at a poet friend's home in Dufur Oregon. When I arrived, after two hours in the car, I was eager for some exercise. It was a cold, clear day so we climbed Dufur hill for the spectacular views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. Miles and miles of undulating hills—wheat fields in the summer months, but now dry stalks shorn to the ground. I collected tumbleweeds and a wizened sunflower from someone's yard to make a desert ikebana.

Dufur, incorporated in 1893, is a farming community of about 588 people. All of them were either inside the school building (Grades 1-12), working in The Dalles, or keeping warm inside their homes when we strolled through town walking the dog. I saw the entire town in two dog walks—crumbling Victorian houses in all shades of pastels, fire hydrants painted blue, Kramer's Store with its oak wood floors and vegetables displayed in bins, and the famous grandfather clock. This late 1800's clock adorned the clock maker's jewelry store, then the Johnson Brothers Bank. When the bank was bought out and moved to The Dalles, people in Dufur assumed that the clock would stay in town. After they heard it was to be moved, they threatened to close their accounts at the bank. So now it welcomes the townspeople as they come to pay their house taxes and water bills at City Hall. It was nearly 9:30 when my friend and I stopped by. I asked the woman behind the desk if it gonged on the half hour because I wanted to stay and hear it—imagining how beautiful the sound from that huge clock would be. "No, it doesn't gong anymore," she said sadly.

Red glass ashtrays and figurines caught the sunlight in the windows of the former bank. We pressed our faces to the window and there we saw piles and piles of deer and elk antlers. Beyond the antlers, the bank cages with their brass bars and signs saying "Teller" stood empty, the carvings on the wood panels collecting dust.

Johnson Brothers Bank Window

Margaret Chula: Mesto

Margaret Chula: Mesto

Mesto

In September 2010, I was appointed Poet Laureate of Friends of Chamber Music for their 2010-11 season. For the past four months, I have been writing original poems during each of the concerts in the Classic Series, as well as the Not So Classic and Vocal Arts Series concerts. These poems have been posted on the Friends of Chamber Music website (http://www.focm.org) and their Facebook page, as well as in print in the concert programs. For each concert, I have attempted to capture the essence of the music—envisioning scenes, characters, and drama invoked by the musicians. To my knowledge, I am the only chamber music Poet Laureate in the nation. It has been a unique challenge to put into poetry the music of composers, played by internationally renown chamber ensembles. 

Here's a recent poem I wrote to Bela Bartok's Quartet No 6 performed on December 7, 2010 by the amazing Takacs Quartet. Mesto is Italian for 'sad' or 'sorrowful'. 

MESTO 

          Written while listening to Bela Bartók’s Quartet No. 6 

          composed in Budapest, 1939 

Damp cave in a foreign land. A woman sits 

surrounded by a circle of stones to protect her 

from the night creatures that crawl and fly. 

Day and night, night and day measured  

by the stitches she unravels from a sweater 

left by her beloved—taken away  

how many months ago? 

Every day she knits it back together.  

The smell of her beloved is fading—fading  

too the colors. Demon bats sweep down— 

seize skeins of yarn in their greedy claws.  

Her hair, greasy and thin, no longer attractive 

to man or beast. 

Nazis strut by— 

their staccato words  

barbs of fear  

crackling through 

the cavity 

of her hideaway. 

A deep cello sound resounds in her ears, 

then nails scratching on ancient walls. 

A turmoil of desire. A disturbing dissonance. 

Her last day, an intermezzo. She stumbles 

out into the spring sunshine, blinded  

with joy. The grass is cool and fragrant. 

Wildflowers begin their bloom. 

Today she will rest from her task, draping  

the yarn over her famine-swollen belly. 

How sweet the lark’s song. How slowly 

the heart beats at the end. 

Vultures carry away strands of yarn  

in their beaks. Lifting off, they flap 

their heavy black wings, bound  

for their aeries in the sky. 

                        Copyright by Margaret Chula

The Last Cougar

Last spring I went on a trip to eastern Oregon with my hiking group WWW, the Wild Women of the Woods. We stayed at the Lodge at Service Creek, better known as Tilly's Boardinghouse. Tilly's has been catering to travelers since the 1920's. Our group occupied the entire house—17 of us bunking up together in rooms with names like the Painted Hills room, the Rimrock room, the Fish room, the Cool room. Nancy and I shared the Cowboy room. I immediately took down the painting of a scarred and depressed looking cowboy that hung over the bed, a harbinger of bad dreams. I also ran the faucet until the sulphur odor diminished. The bed was comfortable, however, and the windows offered spectacular views of basalt cliffs. Nancy and I were relaxing while the others were downstairs having hors d'oeuvres and wine before dinner. Gazing out the window, I had this unexpected visitation.

The Last Cougar

                  A local told me that ranchers had shot 

                        thirty cougars for killing their livestock.

There I stood by the window in the Cowboy Room

of Tilly’s Boarding House at Service Creek, turned

toward the hunger of the moment, longing for

the scent of lilacs on this cold day of desert spring.

Sunset lit the basalt cliffs.

Below, the John Day River was foaming,

recovering its ice-freeze voice.

I did not need to climb those volcanic cliffs to see

its tawny shape—dog, bobcat—no, a mountain lion

on the switchback between petroglyph and peril.

I waited, breathless, then threw open the window

and wailed the sorrow

          in my throat—the mating call

of cougars, pumas, lions—as that magnificent head

turned toward me with gold in his eyes.

©Margaret Chula, Published in Windfall, Autumn 2010

Faces From Campo Verano

Photograph by Torben Eskerod

Last Saturday afternoon, John and I visited several galleries in downtown Portland. One of the most intriguing exhibitions was at the Blue Sky Gallery, a gallery devoted exclusively to showing works by new and established photographers. One entire room was filled with large-format 'portraits' taken by Danish photographer Torben Eskerod. The series, called Campo Verano after the largest cemetery in Rome, shows his photographs of the portraits affixed to grave markers at Campo Verano. Eskerod has enlarged the faces of the deceased behind the glass casings, some barely visible due to the scratched and broken glass. And yet their personalities and expressions come through with stark reality. By removing these faces from their original context, they become even more haunting—emerging like ghosts from behind the weathered, discolored, and broken glass. The purpose of these portraits behind glass is to keep alive the memory of the decreased for the living. And yet, the poignancy is that even these nonmortal structures disappear with the ravages of time.

I was completely taken by the photograph to the left. The woman's eyes stared back at me, beautiful and refined. I felt the gentle presence of one of my Polish ancestors behind those brutal cracks.

Campo Verano Exhibition by Torben Eskerod

Winter Afternoon

Suikinkutsu 

       wind blows
       the last brown leaves
       clenched fingers

John and I spent the afternoon at the Portland Japanese Garden. After last week's storm, everything looked cold and barren. Yet, this is one of the most beautiful times of the year in a Japanese garden—when the 'bones' are in their glory. Sinuous lines of tree branches form natural sculptures against the pale backdrop of winter. We enjoyed being alone in the garden, strolling slowly, remembering it in other seasons. My thoughts returned to winters in Japan—sitting in a favorite temple in the mountains outside Kyoto, warming my hands over an iron hibachi and gazing at the garden.

       sunlight on tatami
       the old Buddhist temple
       smells of chrysanthemums


John and I ended our walk on the southeast side of the Japanese Garden pavilion with visit to the suikinkutsu (water harp). On the surface it looks like a water basin with water flowing from a bamboo spout. But buried beneath the ground is an upside down pot with a hole at the top. As water trickles through the pebbles at the base of the water basin it resonates through the underground chamber. The Japanese say it sounds like a koto, a thirteen-string zither, or a bell. To me, it sounds like pleasant splashing.

                             late November
                             even the water harp
                             is frozen silent


Haiku are from Grinding my ink, which received a Haiku Society of America Book Award. Visit http://www.margaretchula.com for more information.

                       the way

                       koi pleat the water

                       my lips open

On these cold, rainy days it's pleasant to remember our visit to Hakone Garden nestled in the hills of Saratoga, California. In 1915, inspired by both a lifelong interest in Japanese culture and their travels throughout Japan, Oliver and Isabel Stine purchased 18 acres  to build a summer retreat. Isabel hired Tsunematsu Shintani to design the Upper "Moon Viewing" House and Naoharu Aihara to design the gardens. Hakone is the oldest Asian and Japanese estate in the western hemisphere.

Strolling through Hakone on a late summer afternoon, John and I felt that we were visiting a daimyo's estate in the mountains of Kyoto. The hillside gardens, unique lanterns, waterfalls, ponds, and meandering pathways were all expertly designed and maintained. I especially enjoyed watching the koi swim nonchalantly over two huge tortoises in the pavilion pond. Also the wisteria tunnel, which I hope to walk through in the spring when the scent and the buzzing bees will be a sensory delight. If you're fit, climb up the path through the bamboo forest in the late afternoon light. Sit on the pavilion and look out at the "Valley of the Heart's Delight", which is present-day Silicon Valley. While we were resting there,  I overheard a man telling a group "Over that ridge is Jiko-ji." The name sounded familiar—my friend Chris Herold had sat meditation in that Buddhist temple many years ago. John and I stopped to talk with them and got invited to visit Jiko-ji, which we did the following day. Good things happen when you're in a beautiful place!