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Catharsis
--Jim Cobabe |
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Great and Small
--Jim Cobabe |
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Stormy Night
--Jim Cobabe |
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The Question of Injustice And they brought their wives and children together, and whosoever believed or had been taught to believe in the word of God they caused that they should be cast into the fire; and they also brought forth their records which contained the holy scriptures, and cast them into the fire also, that they might be burned and destroyed by fire. And it came to pass that they took Alma and Amulek, and carried them forth to the place of martyrdom, that they might witness the destruction of those who were consumed by fire. And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames. But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day. Now Amulek said unto Alma: Behold, perhaps they will burn us also. And Alma said: Be it according to the will of the Lord. But, behold, our work is not finished; therefore they burn us not. (Book of Mormon, Alma 14:8-13.)
Do we have the testimony and faith to accept Alma's answers? As long as I'm keeping cool, Alma's answers work fine for me. Perhaps it is easier to be philosophical about other people's pain. But when I find myself starting to get a lot warmer, and the flames are rising around me, I begin to have second thoughts. Please understand what I mean to say. I am not repudiating my true faith, nor do I think my testimony is unraveling. Nor am I recommending that you or anyone else do so. Rather, I'm discovering that in the face of challenge, some of the things in which I invested my faith have proven to be not true. This is more of a "weeding the garden" process than one of losing faith. One hopes that the end result of such a refining will eventually be a remnant kernel of unshakable eternal truths. It appears that I have a long way to go. --- Jim Cobabe |
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The bird, a lone young kestrel, graces the skies in beauty and majesty, lofting effortlessly on swift wings, as he scans the range for prey. Circling the bluffs, scudding across the open blue sky like a tiny missile, in a sudden ferocious stoop he plummets down, ferociously intent on sinking his needle-sharp talons into the flesh of something huddling unseen and unsuspecting on the forest floor. Arrowing through the trees at tremendous speed, he makes the slightest miscalculation in his flight. An outstretched wing brushes against the stalwart shoulder of a towering fir tree, unyielding and massive. He spins out of control, shrieking in shocked pain and shedding a trail of gory feathers. As he slams into the ground, the fatal trauma is obvious; his left wing is shredded to ruins. The dying bird claws across the rocky ridge, struggling in vain with ebbing strength to obtain some unknown and unreachable place of refuge. As his life blood and energy quickly drain away into the calmly receptive earth, the violent and convulsive movements of the crumpled and wretched bird grow still. He raises a last cry of angry defiance and protest, then his head bows to the ground and he is still. Later, a wandering coyote happens upon the remains and makes a meal of it. Nothing is left but feathers that flutter away in the breezes. --- Jim Cobabe |
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Legacies
of Pain
--Jim Cobabe |
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Legacies
of Endurance
How long will it take us to learn? -- Jim Cobabe |
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The Panther
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I have been struggling to follow Tom's shining example, in more ways than poetic. I have discovered that composing poetry is somewhat of a contrived effort, for me. :-) After admiring Tom's smooth-flowing sonnets for some time, I decided to try my hand at composing something in that discipline. Here's something I contributed to the family discussion list, a few weeks ago -- --- Light snow has been sifting down for several days atop the Wastch Plateau, laying down layers of downy fluff several feet deep, over a hard-packed base. A beam of sunlight breaks through the afternoon clouds and blowing spindrift, turning the surface of the meadow into a sparkling sea of diamonds. Above the trackless snow blanketing the broad meadow, a row of towering spruces column up high into the sky. The blowing snowy dust has covered the tree canopy, transforming each laden branch from splendid green into a billowy white sculpture. Naked white aspens barely contrast with the shady contours of drifted banks. This is a nearly colorless world of black and white half-tones, shadow and darkness. Across the meadow for a half mile or more, my tracks are mute evidence of the lonely visit of an ungainly creature, floundering deeply and making very slow progress. No other creatures venture out into this land when it is locked in the deep winter. Trekking on snowshoes in the deep powder is very much like wading. Every step sinks down through several feet of insubstantial fluff. Most of the way today I was buried up to my knees. After the most recent storm, the snow depth exceeds 5 feet in most places where it accumulates without drifting. The whole face of this rugged land is smoothed over like a deep coating of pure white frosting. Rocky ledges and declines are obscured. The transformation is incredibly striking. --- I spewed out these few paragraphs in the space of time it took to type them. Since then I have been fighting to versify something that follows a similar theme, but at least loosely following the rules for iambic pentameter. To my surprise and dismay, it has been rather painful and constrained. I find that my thoughts simply do not fall out in the same fluid and spontaneous response. It seems like it has taken forever just to sweat out several miserly lines. I became so discouraged with the effort that I left it stranded in mid-stream. Here is what has come out thus far -- --- Snowy drifts spread smooth o’er frozen splendor, And sprinkle gems bright, far across the meadow, As fair sun breaks, the winter storm concluding, Fiery sparks glint against slow deepening shadows. Long sought, treasure in the tops of the mountains, A fabled fortune for countless ages concealed, The heavens in blessing pour forth precious fountains, A legacy beyond price, only to few revealed. --- I am terribly disappointed and frustrated with this. It does not say what I intended when I set out. It took so long to hammer out that by the time I arrived, I forgot what I came for. And the rhyming constraint between alternate lines rather irritates me. Aren't these petty and peevish complaints? |
Time to dry your tears, No one remembers your pain. Laughing is better. --- Jim Cobabe |
Waking, in terror, but a dream is only a dream -- cruel reality. --- Jim Cobabe |
counterhaiku
To write a haiku, I respectfully decline your invitation. --- Jim Cobabe |
Caring dies the slowest death, drudging along the dreary road to personal extinction. Thoughts take ever longer to flower and blossom -- longer and longer, the barren pauses intervene. Blood stirs seldom into heat, The heart grudgingly murmurs its constant monotonous complaint, but passions never kindle, all joy ceases. The man who wished to be, loses his vain grasp on one ambition after another. And incrementally surrenders to the endless array of interminable damning obstacles. Slowly fading away like the mucous streak left by a passing snail -- an insignificant trace of slime sliding silently across the bleak dirty window of life. Finally, emptiness prevails, the soul withers, deflated and flat, despair and despondency are the only feelings left filling the void.--- Jim Cobabe |
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Pink Floyd, the flamin’ pink flamingo bird, he flew the coop today, to search the land. Into the skies of blue, poor Floyd was lured, enticed, away from friendly keepers hands. Captivity he fled, to seek his kind, compounding his own natural mistake. How seldom has a bird been proved so blind – he roosted on the marge of Great Salt Lake. For birds of like, sad Floyd has waited long. Alas, his flock in Africa abides. He wastes his days composing lover’s songs, high hopes on languishing good fortune ride. Pink Floyd, how long his lakeside vigil keeps, in unrequited love, the lone bird weeps. (Pink Floyd is an African flamingo who escaped from Tracy Aviary and is now occasionally seen along the shores of Great Salt Lake.)
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments, love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come, Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom: If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. --- Wm. Shakespeare |
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Ascent from darkness into despair, climbing from oblivion to light: A transition -- a shocking awakening, a rebirth, from bland nothingness, into cold bitter hell. Expelled from the comforting shell of non-experience, raised up naked and defenseless only to shrivel and wither beneath the glaring harsh actinic stare and intensely chilling illumination of the full realization of damning guilt. The depth of horror, self-knowledge tasks him to desperate searching for escape, longing for home, hoping for a place of refuge, pleading for mercy, weary as the grave, the prodigal son plods on. But sad reality intrudes at every turn and relief is ever denied. |
His home has ceased to exist, refuge has fled, and those that might have succored have disappeared, crumbled into dust, and scattered in the wind of desolation. There is no rest, no surcease, neither victory nor loss, not even surrender. Just continuing without purpose in a senseless savaging battle with entropy, inevitably the eventual victor. Unremitting and relentless, stupefying pain colors every perception blood red. His worthless tears continually melt away leaving only emptiness and no hope. --- Jim Cobabe |
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Walking out on the thin edge A most precarious balancing act. Rocky chasms on either side patiently await the smallest misstep. There is no end in sight, but the never-ending battle against the heights, ever driven to conquer the next craggy ridge, only to ascend high enough to reveal the next, and the next. Prolonging the struggle, step after painful step, he wavers and teeters along the verge, halting and fearful. Safety lines discarded, halters of security thrown aside, unroped, alone, vulnerable, he forges ahead in the ultimate danger and freedom of total self-determination, far beyond all hope of rescue. Visions of splendor open out to the far horizons. Blazing sun, massive granite, mountains arching to the blue dome. Cool clean winds whisper down the slopes and canyons. Lured ever upward by the entrancing beauty, he scorns the peril of the towering heights. --- At the moment of the last critical mistake, as he pitches headlong over the precipice to certain destruction, he finally finds the briefest possible moment of peace --- At the moment of reaching the ultimate goal, he searches the skyline, confused, for the next rampart. Then, realizing that the summit is won and the trial is finished, he opens his arms to embrace the sun, and is taken up in fiery clouds of glory. --- Jim Cobabe |
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Mourning We should feel joy, should we not? When Heavenly Father gathers home one of his own. Tears remember the face of a loved one--gone, gone. We await the bright dawning, morning of the first resurrection. How long, ere all will be called forth, restored, united? --Jim Cobabe |
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Resolution of Tears Sadness beyond words. Mourning the great loss. In an act beyond understanding, my beloved brother ended his life. Alas, my brother! In the throes of deranged thoughts, he thought he was beyond help, that his troubles could never be wiped away. He felt that he had no friends, as he saw the people he loved draw away, and everything he had devoted himself to denied. He died alone, with great suffering, in the ultimate pain, unable to withstand any longer the betrayal of a bitter ruined life and the ceaseless punishment of living without hope. We wept. Then, in a vision of comfort and reassurance, amidst a choir of heavenly voices, we saw him, my brother, in the company of our loved ones who had passed before. His suffering is ended. His tears are wiped away. Now the challenge is to go on, enduring to the end, that we might at our appointed time pass through the portals of death and join in the loving joyful embrace of those we now so miss. --Jim Cobabe |
I so much wanted to take you there. To share the experience would be such a joy. Up to the soaring heights above the beautiful Anthony Lakes resort, to witness the wonders of the towering green trees of the forest, the deep drifted snows, the blazing blue above, billowing with massive looming black clouds moving quickly in the winds, the jagged snow-crusted rocky crags and high valleys spanning out from these great peaks of the Elkhorn Mountains, across so many sweeping miles. Alas, the day is long past when you could go. It is too far to travel. It is a hard climb. You’ll have to close your eyes and imagine the trek from where you are. Starting at the parking lot, donning the snowshoes and layers of winter clothing, preparing against gusty winds and new snow yet falling at these lofty elevations. Though the temperatures are mild in the valley far below, here it hovers just above freezing. Gusty winds send the chill penetrating through layers of warm clothes. Fingers and toes are quickly numbed. It is better to keep moving, to keep warm. The snow here is hard-packed and crusty. The sharp blades of the snowshoe crampons bite through the ice. Very grippy climbing, not at all like floundering through Utah powder snow. Setting off, skirting around the shore of the tiny still-frozen lake, following the rushing stream as it climbs winding southward through the still-deep drifts, threading through the tall trees. Brilliant sunshine alternates with dark fast-moving clouds, sending down brief showers that pepper the ground with fiercely wind-blown snow pellets that impact like little white bullets. The trail climbs steeper and steeper with every stride. Occasionally the stream makes a surprise appearance, but mostly it tunnels far beneath the snow. Standing above where there are hidden waterfalls under the icy mantle, the rumble and roar of the secretly tumbling cascade shakes through your feet. At the shore of one of the small mountain lakes, a man on skis comes suddenly out from the trees, gracefully swooshing down off the incline, with his two dogs in company. He stops to chat for a moment, explaining with apparent frustration that one of the retrievers, just a silly puppy, will not keep out of his way, and has tangled with his skis more than once that morning. Higher up, during a prolonged rest, two other hikers pass by on the way to the summit of nearby Gunsight Butte. They also have brought a dog along. They say they were following the snowshoe tracks all the way up from Anthony Lake. Faster hikers, they pass by and take over the lead, leaving a trail of steps up the steeper parts of the snowy slope, marking the path to the saddle, which is today’s goal. After miles of slowly climbing, reaching the end of one high hanging mountain valley, only to discover that it opens up into the next, and the next, each cirque-formed amphitheater smaller than the last. Finally a turn to the east, and the summit ridge is in sight. Climbing carefully up the last few precarious slopes that are steep and frightfully exposed. A precipitous tumble off the edge would not soon be stopped. There are only a few sparse and wind-twisted trees scattered around the end of this high-walled rock bowl. On the saddle ridge, the most incredible views all around. High above, to the north and south, massive granite mountain crags piercing the blue sky, wreathed in blowing snow and misty storm clouds, higher than anything else around. A place for magnificent eagles to soar. Sweeping vistas to the east and west. As the veil of brooding clouds occasionally lifts, views that span more than fifty miles can be glimpsed. It is like standing on the top of the world. To the west, ridge after ridge of forested mountains fade away into the distance. Far below, the tiny city of Granite, an old mining town of former glory, with a few windows that still twinkle in a beam of sunlight. Eastward, the green fields of Baker Valley spread across to the horizon, which then lifts up to display the two complementary ranges of snowy mountains, the nearby Eagle Cap range, and farther away, across the Hell’s Canyon of the Snake River, looms the Seven Devils range. Pausing at the high perch only for moments, to take in all the surrounding views. The wind whistles briskly across the saddle, blowing hard little snow pellets that sting when they hit on your face. Thrilling, but cold, very cold. Turning around to descend across all the slow laboring steps climbing up, the trip back down takes only a fraction of the time. Leaping strides span across yards, skimming down the steep slope, now with all the help of gravity. Back at the car, peel off the sweat-soaked stuff and crank the heater up. Then back down the winding mountain road, returning to civilization. --Jim Cobabe |
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I owned the tops of the mountains today. No others tracked the smooth white surface of the cold, clean snow. The mountain heights and I held our secret soul tryst, a chaste and joyous virtue only open to the lone and lonely. I traverse the high passes, seeming so near to the pale blue sky, bracing against the fierce onslaught of the merciless freezing north wind. Howling gusts sweep up gritty blasts of icy snow grains in a ground blizzard, below a dark horizon troubled by passing storm clouds. As I struggle upward, the icy wind steals my breath away with each passing burst. In the shelter of the deep shady canyon, I pause before tall green firs swaying and sighing as the force of the gale funnels up the slope, the wind whistling and moaning through the tossing boughs like the keening of mourners. The feet of the great trees stand deeply buried beneath the drifts. Laboring to slowly climb the steep slope, bundled heavily against the freezing cold, my body is soon dripping with sweat. As the moisture accumulates under my hat and across the back of my neck, a rime of ice quickly forms around my head, into the simulation of a frosted white helmet. I stop at the summit for a brief respite, in the lee of a swarm of boulders. I comb the ice out of my hair. Over the top of the broad peak, bare crusted snow is sculptured by the wind. The blowing snow appears to form sinuous snakes that writhe and coil and dance like living creatures. A sort of white noise, the continuous susurration of millions of snow grains skittering and slithering along, masks the roaring of the wind and creates a deep dynamic silence. Pressure against my back builds and ebbs from the force of the wild wind. I have overstayed my welcome. The wind intensifies and the snow turns into heavier pellets that plaster across the front of my jacket and trousers, until I start to resemble an animate snowman. I hasten down the front side of the mountain, and as I pass, drifting snow quickly obliterates the traces of my passage. --Jim Cobabe |
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Bitter cold penetrates with a chill that cannot be dispelled, as we waddle along the trail, bundled in thick layers of clothing, clumsy burdensome snowshoes stealing all grace from our walk. Steaming clouds of frosty breath trail behind. Crusty snow emits weird squeaks and groans as our toes dig in. We stop for a breather, at a vista overlooking the valley. Night in the deep woods is silent and brooding dark, swathed in a blanket of snow. Nature's array is spread forth before us in the moonlight, hundreds of acres of evergreen spruces and firs, looming black and secretive in the still night air, climbing the hillsides and standing stern and motionless sentinels along the ridge tops. Crossing a thick stand of brush, we stumble across a resting elk, who springs up in alarm at the disturbance. Which of us was frightened more? With sweeping strides and massive power, plunging headlong through the undergrowth at a thundering gallop, he escapes from our threat, and is gone from view almost before we realize what we are looking at. We stand there for a moment in amazed silence, gaping at each other like wondering fools. |
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Later on, crossing our trail like a silent wraith, a red fox flashes by
and disappears into the chaparral. From time to time we hear a great
owl, his muffled query floating across the dark forest, as he glides
through the night sky, scanning the snow for prey.
We are the strangers here. This is no longer our world, we find no warmth in nature. We have too long allowed ourselves to be enticed away, wrapped in the insulating comfort of technology. In our complacence, we have been robbed of natural rapport with the forest. Now we stumble as aliens through this seemingly stark wilderness, interlopers for an hour, feeling as if we could barely survive a few miles trek through this unfriendly locale. To every creature of the forest, we are a threat and a foe. We don't belong. In the end, we circle back to the car, arriving in relief back at civilization, anxiously looking forward to the comforts of home, and a long hot shower.--- Jim Cobabe |
Streams of life carry us gently forward, winds and currents drive, toward the ultimate destination, which is also the primal source. While we mourn the loss of company of loved ones passed on, and mark their crossing over with sadness, our faith whispers of what great joy awaits the successful navigator, coming to port, to rest and reward, at the end of long voyaging. --- Jim Cobabe |