Cliff Crego

TIMES TEN, the tracks…. (1) WHO ARE WE TO BELIEVE? A soundpoem on the insanity of war (2) LOSS OF TRUTH / excerpt from DESERTS, Edgard Varèse (3) NEW MUSIC Reports: Varèse in North America (4) BUDDHA IN GLORY / BUDDHA IN DER GLORIE, Rainer Maria Rilke (5) CLIMATE BREAKDOWN Reports: The Aridification of the Intermountain West (6) ROUGH ROAD AHEAD, a music of protest (7) SMOKE / HUMO, a poem in English & Spanish (8) DIABOLUS IN CANNABIS, a Dutch soundpoem (9) I’m too alone in the world….a soundpoem, after RILKE (10) THIS IS WAR, On a text of Marilyn Waring, Simone de HAAN, solo trombone IMAGE: First Fire at morning basecamp, the WALLOWAS OREGON

IMAGE: Mule’s Ears (Wyethia amplexicaulis) WALLOWAS, OREGON WHO ARE WE TO BELIEVE? Brother Sun; Sister Moon. Who are we to believe? The geometry of life is not two guns pointed at each other; it’s a circle. The guided missiles of hate.  Who are we to believe? Try to be serious. The Price of freedom is not blowing up oil refineries, and sinking oil tankers? The endless news reports filled with the horrifying noise of drones, filled with the coming end of time. Who will save us? Who are we to believe?p “Altissimu, onnipotente, bon Signore, Tue so' le laude, la gloria e l'honore et onne benedictione.” Who are we to believe? We are all Brothers & Sisters, you and I, the Rock, the River, the Tree, the Sky. I wrongly divide myself from the world; everything other, I either ignore, or fear, or seek to control or destroy.  Who are we to believe? “The virtue of speech is its honesty; the virtue of government is establishing peaceful order.” Brother Russian; Sister Ukrainian. Brother Iranian; Sister Israeli. Who are we to believe?  Basecamp Earth turns each day around the Sun. We are all turning. We are all turning. We are all turning. War is not a game; it’s a form of schizophrenia, the left hand of humanity fighting against the right. Who are we to believe? “With usura hath no man a simple house of stone. With usura...” “Today, it is no longer a choice between violence or nonviolence. It is either nonviolence, or...” Twenty lessons from Apocalypse. Who are we to believe? CODA: Solo Hermit Thrush, at pitch, and then slower knocked down a few octave. Recorded in the WALLOWAS, OREGON.

WILDFIRE 2.0: Lightning bust, phenological chaos & outmoded grazing practices A major lightning event, described as a "large lightning bust", impacted northeast Oregon on Thursday night, July 18, into early Friday morning, July 19, 2026. Sparked by a low-pressure system pulling monsoon moisture northward, it produced a massive number of lightning strikes and ignited numerous wildfires across the parched landscape. A Historic Lightning Outbreak The storm was one of the most significant lightning outbreaks in recent Northwest memory, generating well over 5,000 lightning strokes regionally: Regional Impact: The system brought lightning to several paths, including a broad band across eastern Oregon and Washington, with more than 8,000 strikes recorded across both states within 24 hours. Northeast Oregon Focus: The greatest fire activity was concentrated in southeast Washington and northeast Oregon, where the most lightning occurred. The resulting grass and range fires made this area the clear "hot spot" for new ignitions. Aftermath: Wildfires and Evacuations The lightning strikes ignited dozens of new wildfires in a landscape suffering from moderate to extreme drought: Fires: At least 100 fires were burning across Washington and Oregon by Friday morning, with 140 new fires reported on Wednesday and Thursday alone. Many fires were in grass and range vegetation. Evacuations: The fires prompted evacuation warnings for thousands of people. Approximately 11,000 people were under some level of evacuation order, including about 1,200 people under the most urgent "Go Now" order. Smoke: The fires produced smoke that spread across the Pacific Northwest, with the most unhealthy air over southwestern, central, and northeastern Oregon.

IMAGE: August wildfire smoke, first light, the WALLOWAS, OREGON. SMOKE Each day, the rancher gets in his white flatbed rig and turns the key on a view of the world that begins with the sounds of hate, not of his diesel, but the radio. Hate radio. Each day, for twenty years, before first light, he hears these same voices explaining to him the evil of the world. Ragheads. Radical leftists. Those dark- skin worthless bastards from somewhere south of where he’s never been. Each day, the price of beef sinks further and further into clouds of wildfire smoke that settle down over his house, his family, his cattle, his hopes for future, what? That’s the part he can’t get clear. He turns the radio off and spits out the window. The Sun appears as a small, muted, dim orange disk over Idaho, smoke so thick the headlights don’t shine past the gate. Thank God the cows still eat the hay. That’s the part he can’t get clear. He turns the radio off and spits out the window. The Sun appears as a small, muted, dim orange disk over Idaho, smoke so thick the headlights don’t shine past the gate. Thank God the cows still eat the hay.

IMAGE: PATRIOT Missiles, at a cost of more than $1,000,000 a piece. Wem sollen wir glauben? Wem sollen wir glauben? Eine Klanggedicht-Meditation über den Wahnsinn des Krieges Wem sollen wir glauben? Bruder Sonne; Schwester Mond. Wem sollen wir glauben? Die Geometrie des Lebens sind nicht zwei aufeinander gerichtete Pistolen; sie ist ein Kreis. Die Lenkraketen des Hasses. Wem sollen wir glauben? Seien wir doch mal ernst. Ist der Preis der Freiheit nicht die Zerstörung von Ölraffinerien und die Versenkung von Öltankern? Die endlosen Nachrichten, erfüllt vom grauenhaften Lärm der Drohnen, erfüllt vom nahenden Weltuntergang. Wer wird uns retten? Wem sollen wir glauben? „Erhaben, allmächtig, guter Herr, Dir sei Lob, Ruhm und Ehre und Segen.“ Wem sollen wir glauben? Wir sind alle Brüder und Schwestern, du und ich, der Fels, der Fluss, der Baum, der Himmel. Ich trenne mich fälschlicherweise von der Welt; alles andere ignoriere ich, fürchte ich, versuche ich zu kontrollieren oder zu zerstören. Wem sollen wir glauben? „Die Tugend der Rede ist ihre Ehrlichkeit; die Tugend der Regierung ist die Schaffung friedlicher Ordnung.“ Russischer Bruder; ukrainische Schwester. Iranischer Bruder; israelische Schwester. Wem sollen wir glauben? Basislager Erde dreht sich jeden Tag um die Sonne. Wir alle drehen uns. Wir alle drehen uns. Wir alle drehen uns. Krieg ist kein Spiel; er ist eine Form von Schizophrenie, die linke Hand der Menschheit kämpft gegen die rechte. Wem sollen wir glauben? „Mit Wucher hat niemand ein einfaches Steinhaus. Mit Wucher …“ „Heute ist es nicht mehr die Wahl zwischen Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit.“ Es ist entweder Gewaltlosigkeit, oder … Zwanzig Lehren aus der Apokalypse. Wem sollen wir glauben?

IMAGE: Tree Island, Fall in Whitebark Pine Country, Eagle Cap Wilderness, the WALLOWAS, OREGON.

THE TEXT IS from the 1996 Terre Nash documentary, "WHO'S COUNTING: Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics. Special thanks to my close friend, the great Australian trombonist, Simone de HAAN; the mysterious, sustained, deep resonance of his sound never ceases to amaze me... VIDEO for THIS IS WAR is at vimeo.com/928814171

IMAGE: Wikipedia 23 simplexity phrases recorded at pitch, then sbout x4 lower & slower. NOTE he ends with an F with 7th 8th 9th & 20th partial in a virtuosic improv. A miracle! There are a quartet of thrush like birds I record in the WALLOWS. The Varied stopped coming back 10 years ago. The Swainson was for weeks late. The Verrie hasn’t shown up this sean. Snd finally, the aHermit was six weeks late. Be he arrived. Snd is in good forma! SEE also Converging Lines, South Wallowas | ON THE TEMPO OF PERCEPTION http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/converging-lines_3-2-09.html

IMAGE: Granite ridge divide at 2600m,Eagle Cap Wilderness, the WALLOWAS, OREGON. This is a little ten minute demonstration of what I think of as a new synergistic genus of Art Music Concert. A lot like a wilderness journey made together on foot, we hear short, challenging, at times wild, virtuoso piano pieces performed as interpolations between prose-poem-like philosophical meditations. If we say, MUSIC is MOVEMENT; MUSIC is a movement of RELATIONSHIP, then here we have a new dynamic balance, a kind of inner tension that unfolds as we listen to all eight parts as a whole. See what you think! RIDGE RUNNER….movements (1) “Swallow clavier / strange loops” (2) “One voice / many sorrows” (3) ON THE DYNAMIC BALANCE OF PRIMARY CONTRASTS (4) “Quarter-tone bells / Stolen Moments” (5) TOO MANY VARIABLES (6) ‘“60” Scherzo / 5:3” (7) WATERCOURSE WAY (8) “Straight tight lines / spiral tail” TEXTS used are here http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/dipper-falls_sparkles.html PIANO SKETCHES: Sharp curves. Falling rocks. Severe slides., is on Soundcloud.

IMAGE: Lost in OHIO COUNTRY….Which way to go? The DAO OF SOUND:--What it is not... . (1) Whatever you say Sound, or music, or the DAO OF SOUND IS, it isn’t: . (2) iforced, in any way, in the way its played (amplification), conceived (mechanical thought forms, notation, computer programs), or how we listen, (mere consumption); (3) mechanical order IMPOSED FROM WITHOUT by the fragmentation of duality; (4) instrumentalized by the desire, either individually or collectively or both, for mere self-centered expression or gain; The DAO or the LIBERATION OF SOUND is essentially a movement of negation, of taking away the blocks that are in the way. The DAO or the LIBERATION OF SOUND can only be demonstrated in what we make, say, or do. The key question now is, is this true? Let’s find out! NEW MUSIC Reports playlist https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/sets/new-music-reports-fighting-for INTRO music, PHAROS “Nightwind” https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/from-pharos-nightwind-for-the-asko-ensemble-cliff-crego-conducting / OUTRO music StarCYCLE DUO, “Eltanin” for two timpani players. Both tracks are on Soundcloud….

IMAGE: Aspen & Cottonwoods, mountain fall. THE ASPEN OF FORGETFULNESS Some things we wish to remember; others, we'd rather forget. The latter we'd prefer to see turn yellow and dry, withering away till they fall like autumn leaves to the ground, feeding the fertile humus of some common past under our feet. Descending a steep southern slope, I stop to rest a while under an old doug-fir. The late-summer draw is dry, but sill full of the lush green of quaking aspens. Heart-shaped leaves on long, slender stems, some say the most beautifully proportioned leaf of all deciduous trees, their blades now quivering in the gentle afternoon wind like the soft skin of a young woman first falling in love. The sound of the leaves glistens with light-filled silences between the green blades, the shape of the whole coming in slow, easy waves that seem to say in a receding, ever- softer echoing, "Let it go. Let it go. Let it go." I look for a pen to write something down, which I can't find, and then look at the new blank page I had ready. This I fold up and put back into my pocket, as I shoulder my pack, stand and start walking again down the hill, happy to have rested a while among aspen and fir, and forgetting about all those things in the past that now seem continents away, that I really didn't intend to, didn't want to, really didn't need to say. EL ÁLAMO DEL OLVIDO Hay cosas que deseamos recordar; otras, preferiríamos olvidarlas. Estas últimas, preferiríamos verlas amarillear y secarse, marchitarse hasta caer como hojas de otoño al suelo, alimentando el fértil humus de algún pasado común bajo nuestros pies. Al descender por una empinada ladera orientada al sur, me detengo a descansar un rato bajo un viejo abeto de Douglas. El barranco de finales de verano está seco, pero aún lleno del verde exuberante de los álamos temblones. Hojas en forma de corazón sobre tallos largos y delgados, algunos dicen que son las hojas de proporciones más bellas de todos los árboles de hoja caduca, sus hojas ahora tiemblan con la suave brisa de la tarde como la delicada piel de una joven que se enamora por primera vez. El susurro de las hojas reluce en silencios luminosos entre las verdes hojas, la forma del conjunto se extiende en lentas y suaves olas que parecen decir en un eco cada vez más tenue y lejano: «Déjalo ir. Déjalo ir. Déjalo ir». Busco un bolígrafo para anotar algo que no encuentro, y luego miro la página en blanco que tenía preparada. La doblo y la guardo en el bolsillo, mientras me echo la mochila al hombro, me levanto y empiezo a bajar la colina, feliz de haber descansado un rato entre álamos y abetos, y olvidando todas esas cosas del pasado que ahora parecen estar a continentes de distancia, que realmente no tenía intención de decir, no quería decir, realmente no necesitaba decir.

IMAGE: IMAGE: The nested realities and the ground of truth. This is a quick sketch of the basic metaphysics which underlies TALKING HANDS. Here’s the text I cycle through the 5 Time-spaces…. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." [40 steps = 1600 Qualitative Ground QT] Fourth Amendment

IMAGE: BIG VIEW ROAD, Lost in Idaho, on the way to CRATERS OF THE MOON. THE SIMPLEXITY CYCLE. Simplexity is a composite of simple = one-plex or one-fold, and complex, many-plex or many-fold; Its composite nature calls attention to the fact that, like sound and silence, simple and complex are not opposites, but complementaries, like the North and South poles of a magnet. In other words, both in the world of Nature and with human perception, they are indivisible. Simplexity, if we take movement as primary, solves the problem that has paralyzed musical thinking for 100 years. One doesn't think in terms of tonality or dissonance, but in terms of movement, say, from simple to complex (or composite) sounds, and back. Like vowel to consonant, or like striking a bell, the sound moves from rough nonlinear turbulent complexity to the smooth laminar simplicity of whole number ratios 100 200 300 400 etc. of natural sustained sound. Also, it may help clarify theoretical thinking if we add the concept of complicatedness. COMPLICATEDNESS is unnecessary difficulty. COMPLICATEDNESS is never a part of Nature. WHY? Because it wastes energy. Complicatedness is simply an uniquely human failure of design that makes things like sounds, symphonies, poems, or political systems, whatever- that are either unknowingly or deliberately DIFFICULT. COMPLEXITY, in contrast, is always GOOD, is always a feature of richness and blessed diversity.

IMAGE: Quaking Aspen leaves, after mountain rain, MONTANA, (Lost) Glacier National Park. RIPARIAN DUO, Aspen & Cottonwood Aspen and Cottonwood are close cousins in the willow family (Salicaceae), thriving as foundational riparian species across the Pacific Northwest. They stabilize streambanks, regulate water temperatures by casting shade, and create vital microclimates for aquatic and terrestrial wildlife.Their similarities, ecological roles, and key differences define these western woodland giants: Shared TraitsThe Willow Connection: Both are poplars that feature smooth, pale young bark, fuzzy spring seeds, and flat leaf stalks that allow the foliage to flutter in the wind. Sunlight Requirements: Neither species tolerates deep shade. They rely on disturbances—like seasonal flooding or wildfires—to clear canopy gaps and deposit the bare, moist sediment their seeds need to germinate. Clonal Growth: Both can reproduce vegetatively. Aspens are famous for sprawling underground root systems that produce massive, genetically identical groves, while fallen cottonwood branches carried downstream can sprout roots to form new colonies. Key DifferencesFeatureQuaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides)Black/Plains Cottonwood (Populus spp.)

IMAGE: Snowbrush leaf (Ceanothus velutinus) Form emerging out of movement. Six Metaphysical Miniatures (0) The spring gives freely of its water, but only in freedom can we drink. (1) Dialogue is a journey made together on foot through unknown terrain. Where we do not move as one, we simply stop and start over again. It is the quality of the movement of the journey itself which is primary, and not any particular content, or predetermined destination or goal. (2) In Art as well as Nature, there is a necessary complementarity between the conservative tradition which embodies and safeguards the knowledge of the past and the revolutionary insight which reveals the new. One is mechanical in a subtle way, the other is creative. The dynamic balance between the two is crucial. Too much stubborn repetition and the source of fresh meaning goes dry. Too much of the new and we lose all the skill needed to make the new manifest. A creative tradition is then at once both constant and changing, like the solid bed of rock which allows the river to flow free. (3) A potential danger of poetry is that we may develop the habit of giving too much significance to words, to language, to thought. The poem which has its source in words and not in deeply lived experience is much like the water of any large city; it may seem perfectly clear, but we somehow sense the drop of poison added to keep us from getting sick. (4) We shape the world and the world shapes us. To degrade the world is to degrade ourselves.After destroying the river and building the dam, we quickly lose the sensitivity of ear that once heard the music which is now no longer there. Children who grow up in a world of straightened and muted rivers will themselves never know that no one ever taught them how to sing. (5) The most insidious of all degradations is the loss of something vitally important for which we do not yet have a name. (6) Sometimes the shift in the usage of but a single word reveals a deeper, unseen, yet potentially radical transformation of the way we perceive the world.New words in this sense are not invented, but rather emerge out of a need -- sometimes an urgent one -- to manifest in clear form new meaning. The practice of metaphysics is in this sense by no means merely an intellectual exercise, but is, like a yoga we do every day, a space both public and private in which we can step back from the pressures of the present moment and look at life as a living, moving whole. That is why poetry, when we come to see it as the energy of insight --or of new meaning or essence -- made manifest in the singing, speaking voice, stands at the very center of this endeavor like a mountain of pure light.

IMAGE: East Eagle, WALLOWAS, OREGON. (17) “There’s a man with a gun over there.” Beware:— His name is thought itself. ++++ SEE also…..LOST IN IDAHO, A pilgrim’s notebook….Sequences I through IX, by Cliff Crego https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/lost-in-idaho ++++ A 17 seventeen-step poem is a kind of generalized HAIKU. How it is notated in the score isn’t relevant. Only the 17 steps as we hear/sense/feel them as a dance, a pattern of movement, is important. A SEQUENCE strings 17 of these seventeen-step poems together, like strings of lights on a Christmas tree. Each string has a different color or theme or center. There are 17 SEQUENCES. Here, we hear the first nine. Each numbered pattern we hear is a single image or experience from a bike packing pilgrimage made through the mountains of IDAHO and OREGON. 120 days / 80 camps. Many more, new special places and new friends. TEXT of SEQUENCES I through XI… (rough draft…) is at www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/lost-in-idaho.pdf

IMAGE: Alpine Knotweed, sure sign of past overgrazing and mismanagement of the commons in the WALLOWAS, OREGON. READ draft of Report: http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/the-commons.pdf

IMAGE: Basecamp along the great STEENS MOUNTAINS east from, the western edge for me of OWYHEE COUNTRY, 10,000Km of Cheatgrass & Medusahead. This is just a TRY OUT for a much longer, detailed report.

IMAGE: Whitebark Pine Country, Eagle Cap Wilderness, (Lost) Glacier Peak, OREGON, where Sharp Curves. Falling Rocks. Severe slide was composed and produced, off-grid, as I say, Sun2Sound! Movements... (1) “Straight tight lines / spiral tail” (2) “Calling out / mountain silence” (3) “Swallow clavier / strange loops” (4) “One voice / many sorrows” (5) “Quarter-tone bells / Stolen Moments” (6) “Singing voice / sheltered space” (7) ‘“60” Scherzo / 5:3” (8) “Signal fire….” (9) “Resonance waves” (10) “Entanglements in 2 voices I” (11) “Entanglements in 2 voices II”

When photographers are out of work, they make black and white prints of their lovers; When composers are out of melodies, they make arrangements of Bach; But when poets out of rhymes, they translate, even from languages they they hardly know. LISTEN mp3 [3Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/mp3/buddha-in-glory_poem.mp3 IMAGE: Grouse whortleberry,(Vacinium scoparia) Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON

READ full report [3Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/the-boulez-legacy.pdf If you’re interested, you can listen to the recording I’m referring to in the text below: The short, biased, summary [7M] http://www.picture-poems.com/mp3/the-boulez-legacy.mp3 Of all the Reports I’ve composed using GEMINI, this one went off in a dircetion that surprised me. I disagree with much which is being said, not because it’s factually incorrect, but because it focuses on funding, which is important, but not primary in my view. My reports are an AI composition experiment, so eventhough this one is a failure, I offer it to the listener as documentation of a relationship. It’s ironic that the header of this Report--Night Wind of my PHAROS, written for and played by the ASKO Ensemble, me conducting--was actually recorded at IRCAM, Paris, in OCTOBER of 1982. The EIC wanted to play it, but I was skeptical because I thought the piece was beyond not the great talent of their individual performers, but outside their narrow philosophy of NEW MUSIC. ……

IMAGE: The RODIN BUDDHA, 1901, inspiration for Rilke’s classic poem… Buddha in Glory Center of all centers, kernel of kernels, almond enclosing and sweetening itself— all this, out to the furthest of stars, is the flesh of your fruit: hail to you. See: you feel how nothing clings to you now; your shell extends out to the infinite, where the strong sap stands and presses on. And from without, a radiance helps it, for high above, your suns, full and blazing, are turned over. Yet within you has already begun that which survives the suns. Rainer Maria Rilke, Summer 1908, Paris (tr. Cliff Crego) Buddha in der Glorie Mitte aller Mitten, Kern der Kerne, Mandel, die sich einschließt und versüßt, - dieses Alles bis an alle Sterne ist dein Fruchtfleisch: Sei gegrüßt. Sieh, du fühlst, wie nichts mehr an dir hängt; im Unendlichen ist deine Schale, und dort steht der starke Saft und drängt. Und von außen hilft ihm ein Gestrahle, denn ganz oben werden deine Sonnen voll und glühend umgedreht. Doch in dir ist schon begonnen, was die Sonnen übersteht. Translation from the German by Cliff Crego. LISTEN to text only https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/rilke-buddha-in-glory-buddha

READ full Report [2Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/micro-plastic-edc.pdf IMAGE: ICE MOUNTAIN (aka The Matterhorn) at c. 3000m Eagle Cap Wilderness, the WALLOWAS, OREGON. Imagine micro-plastics raining down on the isolated peaks of the Northwest. It’s happening!

This is where the DIALOGUE CIRCLE begins… Philosophy? It only takes one bad idea to destroy a man, or woman, or even an entire civilization. Philosophy is not just something we think about; it is something that we do-a practice - like music or yoga. It goes after the contradictions, the misplaced, broken strings, and tunes and retunes its lyre religiously, each day, to the ground of truth. Philosophy sings its songs in the open - honest, naked, direct - and simply listens to how the sound resonates as it rings out into the Universe. ++++ CROW & COYOTE PROGRESSIVE vs. REACTIONARY? CROW asks COYOTE, "Give me your definition of PROGRESSIVE & REACTIONARY. ~ Not just politics. But science and art too!" VeN, And COYOTE says, "Oh, that's easy: QUESTIONS exploring new ways of being attuning to the ground of truth, vs. Rigid CONCLUSIONS holding onto the mistakes... ... of the past.” Music interpolations heard. For fun, two POTS & PANS street protest pieces; Ara, a StarCycle Duo for vibraphone and marimba; Finally, Eltanin, for two timpani players. All of which are on my Soundcloud… IMAGE: The TECH REACTIONARY Map. In the dialogue circle, we go through, one by one, all of these ideas. I would suggest that behind the map is a wildly runaway metaphysics of MORE: more MONEY, more POWER, more CONTROL.

The entire dialogue circle focuses on this miniature…. THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE IN AN AGE OF DENIAL Science is not its content; Science is a way of being that questions everything, and is willing to drop an idea, a theory, a way of seeing if contradicted by fact. This is what makes Science essentially self-correcting; It is Western Culture’s greatest gift to the world. [For people doing TALKING HANDS and who wish to to practice this little MINIATURE as dance and music: 84 steps = squared 7056 Qualitative Ground QG] IMAGE: A rough picture of how much glacier ice—10% or 6.4 giga tonnes—was lost in the ALPS just in the summers of 2023/24. Clearly, for the future of water in the heart of EUROPE, this is an emergency, this is climate breakdown.

Liberating our sense of moving sound is what TALKING HANDS vocal yoga practice is all about….. As a thought experiment, sit down in a shady sidewalk cafe anywhere in the world w/ Western commercial music of the past 50 yrs playing in background speakers. My conjecture is that everything you hear will fit this pattern of 7 octaves (doublings) of tempo (or time). But mechanically. Like a drum computer. Like a click track. This is what I think of as the PIANO IN THE BRAIN, a self-world view which shapes both our thinking about, and our perception of, music. In TALKING HANDS, based on movements of the non-mechanical, embodied, DOWNLOAD a working draft of The TALKING HANDS / TALKING FEET FLORILEGIUM:—100 poems, sayings, chants, songs, & rhythms to learn by heart, by Cliff Crego [1Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/talking-hands_florilegium.pdf

“Today it is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it is either nonviolence or nonexistence.“ Dr. King (first composed in1959; TALKING HANDS vocal yoga practice 29-steps = squared 841 Qualitative Ground QT) IMAGE: CANNONS IN THE HAY, the ‘intrepid’ (insane) Swiss militia taking over a mountain pasture in URNERLAND for ‘target practice’, shooting live 155mm rounds at a distant glacier. I can assure you, if you have ever stood close to this kind of collective crazy behavior, and suffered it 200+ Db explosive noise, you will never make music again. The first draft of the new TALKING HANDS FLORILEGIUM that I refer to in the DIALOGUE TAPE is here http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/talking-h…lorilegium.pdf SEE also ON TYRANNY: A critical appreciation of Timothy Snyder’s work (from POEMS TO LIVE BY) by Cliff Crego https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/on-tyranny-a-critical

Read Varèse NEW MUSIC report pdf [2Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/varese-radical-decade.pdf PIANO Metaphysics vs. VOICE Metaphysics We shape the world and the shapes us. Contrasting two very different self-worldviews. One is based on piano, and how it has conditioned our thinking and perception; The other is based on the voice, and how if the fully embodied voice is primary our thinking and perception will be very different. That is why in TALKING HANDS we say, “Our first instrument is always your speaking singing voice.” Not the piano. Not the violin. But the voice. Then I show how this liberates the way we hear and perform the music of Edgard Varèse, right down to the basic temperament or tuning of sounds. Think of that! To hear what this sounds like listen to Varèse DESERTS, part two on Soundclous https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/deserts-by-edgard-var-se-part DOWNLOAD a working draft of The TALKING HANDS / TALKING FEET FLORILEGIUM:—100 poems, sayings, chants, songs, & rhythms to learn by heart, by Cliff Crego [1Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/talking-hands_florilegium.pdf

“Our musical alphabet is poor and illogical. Music, which should pulse with life, needs new means of expression. And only science can infuse it youthful vigor.” 1917, Edgard Varèse ,THE LIBERATION OF SOUND Read Varèse NEW MUSIC report pdf [2Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/varese-radical-decade.pdf

The Enduring Impact of the Varèse Decade The decade from 1915 to 1927 transformed New York City from a provincial outpost of European Romanticism into the vanguard of the global avant-garde. Varèse’s legacy during these years was a fundamental redefinition of the composer’s role: from a creator of melodies to an "engineer of sound". The influence of this period can be traced through the subsequent work of composers like Henry Cowell, Carlos Chávez, and Charles Ives, all of whom were championed by Varèse through the ICG and the later Pan American Association of Composers. Even more significantly, Varèse’s focus on timbre and "organized sound" became the cornerstone for the development of electronic music in the 1950s and 1960s, inspiring a lineage of musicians that extends from John Cage to Frank Zappa. The "radically progressive" ideas Varèse introduced—equal pay for conductors, democratic orchestral governance, and a refusal to repeat works for the sake of familiarity—remain a challenge to the contemporary musical establishment. In those twelve years, Varèse proved that music could be a "scientific construct of sounds," a laboratory for the soul that was as vast as the galaxies he invoked in Arcana. When the era ended in 1927, it was not because the energy had run out, but because Varèse had successfully exploded the traditional concept of music, leaving only "organized sound" in the silence that followed. Full report pdf [1Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/varese-radical-decade.pdf IMAGE: Varèse c. about the time of his HYPERPRISM premiere, 1923 INTRO: NIGHTWIND from PHAROS / ASKO Ensemble / CODA: StarCYCLE DUO “Eltanin” for two timpanists, Both pieces are on Soundcloud….

Synthesis: The Irreversibility of the Tipping Point The confluence of permanent aridity, the physical limits of aeronautics, the physiological constraints of the human body, and the fragility of mechanical life-support systems suggests that the Intermountain West is approaching an irreversible tipping point. This breakdown is not a singular event but a "great wave" of interconnected stressors that amplify one another. It also has an hard-as-granite objective reality about that makes climate emergency undeniable. The historical strategy of "engineering out" environmental risk is failing. The HEAT-Lim model proves that the biological limits of the population are lower than previously assumed, while the 3HEAT study demonstrates that the infrastructure meant to protect that population is on the brink of collapse. As seen in Tehran, the very tools used to survive the heat—like evaporative cooling—can accelerate the depletion of the water resources necessary for long-term survival. In conclusion, the Intermountain West's abrupt shift into a state of permanent aridity and extreme heat represents a fundamental change in the region's habitability. Without a paradigm shift in urban design, energy resilience, and water governance, the region risks a catastrophic breakdown where the physical limits of the environment exceed the adaptive capacity of human civilization. The lessons from Italy and Iran suggest that this is a global crisis of aridification, but in the Intermountain West, the high-altitude, high-dependency nature of its urban centers makes the coming "great wave" especially perilous. READ full report at [1Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/tipping-point-intermountain-west.pdf IMAGE: Alford Playa, East Front Steens Mountains, Owyhee Country, Southeast OREGON.

Learning to improvise rhythmic patterns with the classic Lo Shu magic square; it goes back to #Confcius & #Laozu What it sounds like in a StarCYCLE DUO "Syrma" in the TALKING STICKS section

FULL report pdf [1Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/the-berio-berberian-vocal-revolution.pdf The six essential keystone BERIO / BERBERIAN works, written and recorded between 1959 and 1969 are: The six keystone works are: (1) Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958) (2) Luciano Berio Epifania 1961 (with Cathy Berberian); (3) Passaggio (1962), subtitled Messa in scena (with Edoardo Sanguineti) (4) Laborintus II 1965 (with Cathy Berberian and Edoardo Sanguineti); (5) Sequenza III (with Cathy Berberian); (6) Sinfonia 1969 The two of these I think are most important are Epifanie and Laborinttus II. Conclusion: The Silence of the Renaissance The Berio-Berberian renaissance (1961–1969) represented a pinnacle of Italian vocal-instrumental innovation, born from the anti-fascist resistance and sustained by the intellectual "openness" of the post-war progressive left. Their work used the voice to expose the "non-identity" of individual and society, providing a "negative truth" against the reification of the Cold War state. However, the lack of continued exploration of their insights can be understood as a casualty of the "Cold War mold" established in 1948, which eventually gave way to a neoliberal institutionalism and, finally, a reactionary nationalist resurgence. The Meloni government’s "occupation" of culture seeks to erase the radical potential of the avant-garde, replacing the "pluralistic dialogue" of Berio’s vocal theater with a monolithic "cultural hegemony" that prizes national identity over progressive aesthetic truth. As music education fails and economic barriers rise, the radically progressive voice of Cathy Berberian and the revolutionary new architectures of Luciano Berio remain artificially "isolated"—a haunting reminder of an exploration that was interrupted, leaving a generation once again "starved" for a modernism that is being—similar to a keystone ecological species, say, like salmon in great Pacific Nortwest—systematically erased from the public consciousness Luciano BERIO / Cathy Berberian: Epifanie (1961) RCA recording 1971, BBC Orchestra, Berio conducting LISTEN to mp3 [20Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/mp3/berio-berberian_epifanie.mp3 EXCELLENT background webpage [web 1.0 at its best] is: Joyce Music - Berio: Epifanie –Shipwreck Library https://shipwrecklibrary.com/joyce/joyce-music-berio-epifanie/ INTRO: NIGHTWIND from PHAROS / ASKO Ensemble / CODA: StarCYCLE DUO “Eltanin” for two timpanists, Both pieces are on Soundcloud….

Full report pdf [3Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/dew-crisis.pdf The Thermodynamics of Vanishing Morning Dew: A Comparative Analysis of Montane Eco-Hydrology in the German Central Alps and Northeast Oregon The montane zone, specifically at the critical ecotone of 1350 meters above sea level, represents a transitional environment where the hydrological cycle is increasingly governed by atmospheric demand rather than simple precipitation patterns. The phenomenon of morning dew, a ubiquitous but frequently overlooked component of the mountain water budget, is undergoing a profound "unseen crisis." In both the German Central Alps and the high-elevation meadows of Northeast Oregon, the historical regularity of dew formation is being disrupted by a multifaceted interplay between rising mean temperatures and the exponential expansion of the Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD). This analysis investigates the physics of dew formation, the morphological and physiological factors that dictate droplet behavior on montane flora, and the divergence in regional climate trajectories that threaten the persistence of this vital moisture source.

MIRRORS MADE OF SOUND? (0) When strings at rest reflect in sympathetic resonance the movements of other sounds played around them, we hear the beginnings of Love and Compassion in the physical world. (1) The quiet mind reflects the movements of the Universe around it, without limit. The beginnings of intelligence and insight, perhaps. (2) The everyday noisy mind is caught in the tight echoes of its own not intelligence but intellect, its own thought. It is this everyday mind that Artificial Intelligence imitates and amplifies brilliantly a billion fold. Al, however, evidently does and cannot touch or resonate with the source of (0), the quiet mind. Cliff CREGO, The WALLOWAS, OREGON READ full report pdf at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/loss-sympathetic-resonance.pdf INTRO: Pharos Nightwind CODA: StarCYCLE DUP Etalin, for two timpani players, by Cliff CREGO, both on Soundcloud

There are two complementarities at play in WOBBLE : (1) 1/4-tone (24 tones per octave) to semitones (12 tones per octave) back to 1/4-tones and around in a circle turning in a cycle (2) density waves rhythmically (without a pulse) to metrical movements with a beat and back to density waves without meter or pulse. This is SIMPLEXITY, a composite of SIMPLE to COMPLEX and back…

IMAGE: Blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia parviflora) Diminutive spring ephemeral of the WALLOWAS, Land of Winding Waters, OREGON. FULL text you can use with your own improvised background is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/on-love-and-learning.pdf On Love, Learning and the World-wide Tragedy of Public Schools, a set of eighteen metaphysical miniatures (0) Talent? Everyone appreciates the wild flower's showy brilliance, but few care to follow the slow, steady ripening of the seed. (1) Schools? A place where the gift of wonder becomes the terror of exams.A child who can no longer tell the difference between a real question and a test, by what path do we lead it safely into the unknown? (2) Tests? Where the natural fear of outward attack gets mixed up and confused with the inward fear of failure. Watched carefully, we see that the fear thus generated folds into the body movements of a child at every level of subtlety, and, with time, causes any number of unnecessary permanent distortions. Later in life, in music, this leads to a forced, strident quality of sound which is never quite in tune, does not combine well with others and does not project well in space; in dance, the holding of tension caused by fear can lead to a debilitating rigidity and fragmentation of the primary head-neck-and-back relationship. If this goes on long enough, we will actually begin—completely unawares— to compose pieces which fit the distortions, and to a certain extent, even learn to enjoy playing and listening to them. Still later in life, pain and injury can bring this cycle to an abrupt stop.Why then do we not see this? Perhaps it is because, as F.M.Alexander used to say, "When people are wrong, the thing that is right is bound to be wrong to them."

IMAGE: Earthrise, perhaps the most beautiful photograph ever made, 1968, Astronaut William ANDERS & the great crew of APOLLO 8… ETHICAL IMPERATIVES, a meditation on Earthrise We shape the world, and the world shapes us. The price of freedom is no longer war. The price of freedom is the revolution of thought and consciousness that ends conflict--BEFORE-- it happens. The first imperative of ethics is that ethics itself should not be thought of as belonging primarily to what is now considered religion, but rather as a primary dimension of all human activity. 'Primary' means that it is the first aspect to be considered in all action and decision making, and not the last. All action resonates in space and time. Sometimes only a second or two, sometimes for centuries; Sometimes only a few centimeters out from my own body, sometimes perhaps to infinity. Outwardly, this is ethical consequence; inwardly, it is ethical conscience. The key feature of this complementary inner and outer movement of consequence and conscience is the breadth of the circle of awareness and responsibility. The great leap of consciousness brought home in the historic Apollo 8 Earthrise photograph made by astronaut William Anders in 1968--perhaps the most important image of our time--is that it shows to the mind of compassion with granite-like clarity that the necessary breadth of this circle of awareness and responsibility begins and ends with the whole of the living Earth, and not with the largely arbitrary, conflicting fragments like current nations states. Necessity is a thing of great philosophical beauty. This is so because necessity awakens, and in a most powerful way brings together, the very best of our intellectual and spiritual energies, both individually and collectively. Just as the wild proposal of the poet-politician that we must go to the Moon not because it is easy, but because it is difficult, crystallized and brought together an entire generation of creativity, we need now to see that the dual imperatives of the new millennium are ending waste and war: Waste, because it in one word summarizes where the conventions of Culture are out of tune with the laws of Nature. Eliminate waste, and you solve the problems of pollution, renewable energy, corrupt agricultural practices and climate change all at once. And War, because of its destructive insanity—and it is insanity because the entire Earth is now at stake given contemporary weapons technology—and because it stands before us as the central fact of our time: that it is no longer a question of violence or non-violence, as Dr. King suggested also about forty years ago, but rather of non-violence or non-existence. Seen from this larger perspective, it becomes clear perhaps that War and Waste are essentially two sides of but one problem. For who would not say that, from the perspective of the Moon, waste is indeed humanity's total war on Nature, and that, in turn, war is not humanity's total waste of its own spiritual essence and promise? +++

IHSV In Hoc Signo Vinces / In this sign you conquer // A saying that horrifies me, carved into 🌲 STONEPINE crucifixes in the #ALPS It took me decades to see its meaning …. RESURRECTION OF THE TREE OF LIFE Let us take suffering down from the tree of life. A half-naked young woman rip starts her chainsaw above her head, gives it a rev, and in a few seconds brings the wooden cross and two thousand years of Patriarchy flat on the ground. In this sign you conquer In Iraq, a helicopter gunship murders in cold blood a group of reporters, while those who leak the film to the press remain in prison. In this sign you conquer. A young Nimipoo boy is arrested four times trying to escape Mormon terror in Salt Lake City and return home to his own language and people in Montana. In this sign you conquer. Praise be to you my Lord... The Pope convenes leading scientists from around the world to combat in one breath both Poverty and Climate Breakdown. In this sign you conquer. A young boy cuts his name into the hard gray wood of the dead stone pine. Fifty years later he returns. The climate is in ruins. The country is in ruins. The mountain forest flourishes. The streams and rivers flow clear. He touches the four letters, separately,, one by one, and speaks not a single word. Composed and recorded while working on my COLD SPRING MOUNTAIN:— Climate Breakdown in Whitebark Country project, Upper Pine Lakes, Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON IX.1.2021 IMAGE: White oaks (Quercus alba), keystone species of OHIO COUNTRY & the Tall Grass Prairie, after late Spring snow storm…

IMAGE: The devilish wayside plant I call BIKER’S BANE, flowering phase at 600m in Northeast OREGON, Summer Solstice Time…. READ the detailed full rort pdf [300Kb] at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/bikers-bane-and-climate.pdf

What's important in Music, for me, is a mysterious confluence of meaning, movement & energy. A "Grief Circle" is a kind of ritual of purification; it heals by singing together, by deeply resonating with this movement, meaning, and energy. #ClimateCrisis “And all the warning lights are flashing red...” TEXT: a stand-alone version of the poem itself is also on Soundcloud at: "What would you do?" the Earth asks . . . bit.ly/2mZTLh0 pdf bit.ly/2jBn7zC mp3 [4Mb] bit.ly/2jBJMM3 IMAGE: Whitebark pine on WALLOWAS Greenstone at 2650m, Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON

ENGLISH summary of a detailed Dutch Report: De Architectuur van de Nederlandse Avant-Garde: De Notenkraker-generatie en de Institutionele Strijd tegen Culturele Erosie http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/progressive-music_reactionary-times.pdf

NEON GRAFFITI, a genus of STREET or PROTEST poetry… Written in a rare, inert gaseous element, obtained by a fractional distillation of much suffering. Colorless, but glows reddish orange in an electric discharge. displayed on walls... soon to be taken down. ROUGH ROAD AHEAD? All passengers in a car running on a full tank of fundamentalist religion, we're tied up with Freedom and Democracy in back seat. Money's in the driver's seat, with Nation States, fighting one against the other, for wheels. "Hey," somebody just yelled, Get out at the next right!" TEXTS are at picture-poems.com/photoweek/freecy…es_missoula.html

IMAGE: Western Yellowjacket, native of the Intermountain West… Perhaps poems are simply paths we make in walking, sometimes, even when headed the wrong way; these things—gifts, one picks up and passes on, along the way. A New Friend for Paolo Before I could remember how to say I was walking, he leapt out of his car, speaking perfect English, throwing my pack in his trunk. "You can stay with me. But you'll need a car, some money and a date, perhaps." How could I refuse? The idea that I must walk the whole way went up in a puff of smoke on the sound of tires quite used to losing their grip three or more curves down the road. On the Necessity of Poetry (1) Walking from spring to spring, one tires quickly of all the intellectual bushbeating, telling me I'm not thirsty when I'm thirsty. (2) Let's be simple: A house with a hearth is a home with a center. After somebody lets the fire go out, they always like to tell you it wasn't important. (3) Bird calls are often answered by silences of equal duration. Who is to say which one— the sound or the silence, is more important. (4) We are born naked; we make love naked; we die naked; Though not strictly necessary, doing poetry naked seems to work just fine, too. (5) Once the commons are fenced in and sold, on the very same ground we'll argue incessantly about— the necessity of poetry. Lamb of the Lord All energy is directed down to a single point as with but one blow he hammers the bullet into the kidgoat's skull. Just as deftly, he slits its throat, draining the blood. Still warm, what was once all muscle and resistance lays limp in the straw, while a sibling is tied with a short snatch of rope and wrenched up to the scale in one smooth motion. More than 12 kilos means certain death. He carries the two carcasses by the hind legs, one in each hand, working hard to keep their dangling heads with stubby little devil's horns out of the freshly fallen snow, making his way from barn to his basement where he'll dress the meat. Three of the village children peak out from the side of the barn, their blushed cherub faces watching the scene as if from a slightly distant. more subtle realm of being. A lean black dog growls and snaps, cutting frenzied figure 8's in the snow around the farmer's slow, methodical. all-business-like trek back to the house. Meanwhile, in a distant city, a dinner party is about to begin. It is spring, Everyone is dressed in their Sunday best. "How tender," they say. At that same moment, the farmer and his family say grace and cross themselves. From a window looking in: Inside, almost timeless, happy, faces look down into their steaming bowls of fresh stomach stew. Outside, in the mountain darkness, snow falls without a whisper of wind, flake by flake erasing all the travail of the day's passage. Truly, if there were indeed angels, how they would endlessly love to discuss the mysterious ways our world of earthlings is threaded together anew, each time a life is taken, each time it snows, each time— we break bread. The Room of Mind My conscious mind is but a small room, full of facts of different kinds; it has no windows and is rather stuffy. Outside the room is non- conscious mind; it is vast and surrounds the room like a wilderness over which I have little control, although I can venture there, which is refreshing. I've noticed that walking gets me out of my own little room. I've noticed, too, that it's easy to get stuck inside— very stuck. Before I know it, forgetting that poems are something like paths we make in walking, I'll mistake the dark little closet where I've locked up all the unpaid bills of the past for the door which leads outside.

IMAGE: January SNOW DROUGHT at HEARTBREAK Meadow basecamp, the WALLOWAS, OREGON. FOUR LAKES / ONE SKY, a quartet of voices (1) The price of freedom is no longer war; It’s the revolution of consciousness that ends conflict--BEFORE--it happens. Witness the four great inland seas of the living Earth: The ARAL SEA, broken basin, cut off from its rivers, Sun enters the wounds, salt lifts and festers, thirsty winds carry the sea inland to melting glaciers and high mountains, wrecked fishing fleets line the shore, no return, no return. The GENERAL speaks: I will secure the future. I strike first. I take no prisoners. History blesses the ruthless. Death is the price of total peace. Chorus REFRAIN: War’s not a game. it’s spiritual illness, a mind split against itself, a body at war with its own hands. (2) The price of freedom is no longer war; It’s the revolution of consciousness that ends conflict-- BEFORE--it happens. Lake IRMIA, white heat holding, a mirror that burns, water divides from itself, salt thickens the tongue, thirsty air drinks what remains, the shore vanishes inward, thirst leading to thirst, white heat holding, no return, no return. The PROPHET speaks: We are a chosen people. My land will be great. Abraham’s rock will run pure again with Isaac’s blood. May the fire of a thousand of my bullets and bombs and missiles light up your total darkness. Chorus REFRAIN: War’s not a game. it’s spiritual illness, a mind split against itself, a body at war with its own hands (3) The price of freedom is no longer war; It’s the revolution of consciousness that ends conflict--BEFORE--it happens. LAKE CHAD, heart of Africa, flood arrives like a child’s cry, flood leaves like a thief in the night, grasses rise, then vanish, fish die and mud cracks open, too much / not enough, the thirsty sky in wild runaway, pulse without memory, no return, no return. The PRESIDENT speaks: I am great. I never lose. You’re a loser. I always win. I will win so much you will forget your sins. The threat is everywhere. I will end it totally. I am great. I always win. Chorus REFRAIN: War’s not a game. it’s spiritual illness, a mind split against itself, a body at war with its own hands (4) The price of freedom is no longer war; It’s the revolution of consciousness that ends conflict--BEFORE--it happens. The GREAT SALT LAKE, white lung exposed, the breath of Joseph Smith turns bitter, the floor becomes air, the thirsty air becomes burden, wings pass through poison, a whole basin speaks in the noise of toxic dust, a body forgetting water, no return, no return. The good Pastor End-times speaks: The earth shall be utterly laid waste. For the earth lies polluted under your worthless feet. Therefore, I send curses that shall devour the earth, and devour you and all other worthless creatures who shall suffer and suffer and suffer for their guilt till the end of time. Chorus REFRAIN: War’s not a game. it’s spiritual illness, a mind split against itself, a body at war with its own hands, a body at war with its own hands. Composed ar HEARTBREAK Meadow, III.27.2026 the WALLOWAS, OREGON

IMAGE: Whitebark pine emerging out of bare mineral soil SOUNDSCAPE: Swain’s thrush duo, Red Squirrel barking, & solo Hermit thrush…. Walking the World: Stone Pine Mountain / Recorriendo el mundo: Montaña del Pino Pétreo The Earth is not everywhere old. Hidden away wherever we look are these little places where life is just beginning anew. It is as if the Earth prefers to sing its song all at once, with hesitant, vulnerable fresh sproutings sounding together with the sure and steady magnificence of great age. At the upper edge of a mature subalpine forest, where the larches and pines take over from the Norwegian spruce, the forest canopy begins to open up with more space between the individual trees. Here, a stone pine seedling has rooted itself on top of a large granite rock. Just half a hand high, emerging out of but the thinnest trace of soil covered with a small patch of moss and a scatter of fallen pine needles, this little tree already resonates with a presence which says, "this— is my place to be." And so, a solitary seed, perhaps dropped on this rock by a careless nutcracker, unfolds into tree out of almost nothing, itself calling forth the matrix of energies which will create the soil it needs for future growth. Tiny as it now is compared to the ancient thick-stemmed, weather-beaten pines which surround it, this seedling is wholly tree, wholly present in this movement of life. A movement which, like the shimmering high country waterfall, is forever beginning and ending, all at the same time, everywhere, at once. ++++ Recorriendo el mundo: Montaña del Pino Pétreo La Tierra no es vieja en todas partes. Escondidos dondequiera que miremos, hay pequeños rincones donde la vida renace. Es como si la Tierra prefiriera cantar su canción de golpe, con brotes frescos, vacilantes y vulnerables, que resuenan junto a la segura y constante magnificencia de la antigüedad. En el límite superior de un bosque subalpino maduro, donde los alerces y los pinos reemplazan a los abetos noruegos, la bóveda forestal comienza a abrirse, con más espacio entre los árboles. Aquí, un retoño de pino piñonero ha echado raíces sobre una gran roca de granito. Con apenas medio palmo de altura, emergiendo de una finísima capa de tierra cubierta por un pequeño parche de musgo y algunas agujas de pino caídas, este pequeño árbol ya resuena con una presencia que dice: «Este… es mi lugar». Y así, una solitaria semilla, tal vez arrojada sobre esta roca por un cascanueces descuidado, se convierte en árbol de la nada, atrayendo a su vez la matriz de energías que creará el suelo que necesita para su futuro crecimiento. A pesar de su pequeñez comparada con los antiguos pinos de tronco grueso y curtidos por el tiempo que la rodean, esta plántula es un árbol en su totalidad, plenamente presente en este movimiento de la vida. Un movimiento que, como la resplandeciente cascada de las altas montañas, comienza y termina eternamente, al mismo tiempo, en todas partes, a la vez.

IMAGE: Lake Malheur, bone dry, OREGON, just 500m East of where the illegal aggresion of the BUNDY CLAN occupied the historic Wildlife Refuge on historic Paiyute Land Read the full report pdf here: http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/inland-seas-and-vapor-pressure-deficit.pdf

IMAGE: GARDEN OF 1000 Buddhas, Jocko Valley, Arlee, Montana, USA. ANTIPON, from the Ancient Greek… Let your life shine Have no grief at all Life exists but a brief while And Time will have his due (from the oldest noated music we have in World Culture….) SPIRIT THRUSH:--a long-line sonnet Poor Francis made two great mistakes: after stripping naked In the open air of the public square, liberating himself from Patriarcal dominion, he then sought false refuge under The corrupt Cardinal's cloak; Then there was this mistaken Sermon to the birds. Poverty is simplicity is wealth, yes, Is listening. But witness the Spirit Thrush. Unlike the So boastful Robin, we never see him, still, we are enchanted By his space: dark evergreen, cold, clear-flowing water. Nothing in excess, his music floats like a morning mist Over an alpine lake. When song is mostly silence, we guess That angels are near. But with two tones in perfect mistuned Unison, we can be sure of the divine. Poor Francis was right. Yes, The world is our family: brother Sun, sister Moon. But this sound From another space:—far beyond the line we draw around Time. [This poem is named for, and dedicated to the Naked Poetry artist among avian maestros, the Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius). I call them "Spirit Thrushes" for the etherial quality of their music, made all the more so by the fact that they are rarely seen.] WATCH: Varied thrush (Ixoreus naevius) song http://bit.ly/ZrzCh8 They sing two slightly 'mistuned' unisons. A kind of frequency modulation

Have you ever noticed? Every Governor of California has his eye on the Whitehouse. OUTWARDLY: Handsome. Articulate. Professional. A carefully managed meaningless slop of words. INWARDLY: Full of fear of the real power of the donor class. “Don’t say Genocide! Make sure to hate the Russians...” Bored, I tune out... Have you ever noticed? To the side of the screen, a young woman signs his words, transmuting them into a miracle of silent sound, a ritual conviction that would make the walls of an Altamira & Lascaux come alive with light, conducting rhythms of awestruck hands pointing to Fire & Sun & Stars. Have you ever noticed? I must learn this poetry of primal gesture, this energy of a teacher writing “W-A-T-E-R” in the palm of young girl’s hand. ++++ ¿Te has dado cuenta? Cada gobernador de California tiene la vista puesta en la Casa Blanca. EXTERIOR: Guapo. Elocuente. Profesional. Un revoltijo de palabras sin sentido cuidadosamente manejado. INTERIOR: Lleno de miedo al verdadero poder de la clase donante. “¡No digas genocidio! Asegúrate de odiar a los rusos…” Aburrido, me desconecto… ¿Te has dado cuenta? Al lado de la pantalla, una joven gesticula sus palabras, transmutándolas en un milagro de sonido silencioso, una convicción ritual que haría que las paredes de un Altamira & Lascaux cobraran vida con luz, dirigiendo ritmos de manos sobrecogidas que señalan al Fuego, al Sol y a las Estrellas. ¿Te has dado cuenta? Debo aprender esta poesía del gesto primigenio, esta energía de una maestra escribiendo “A-G-U-A” en la palma de la mano de una niña. IMAGE: BUD BIRST, Mountain SNOWBERRY at HEARTBREAK Meadow, a sure sign of montane spring III.22.2026 the WALLOWAS, OREGON.

Every time a bomb falls, we see a Technology, a Science without intelligence, without ethics; Every time a bomb falls, we see an Economy at war with the beloved community, the beloved sanga Of the Earth itself; Every time a bomb falls, we see the left hand of humanity at war with its right; Every time a bomb falls, we see the utter insanity of the idea of a chosen people, of Hydrocarbon Man at war with the energy of the Universe itself; Every time a bomb falls, we see the implosion of promise, we see the death of Poetry, we hear a deafening drone drowning out the cries of the cildren of the World, drowning out the Musics of the World. Every time a bomb falls. Every time a bomb falls. ++++ CADA VEZ QUE CAE UNA BOMBA Cada vez que cae una bomba, vemos una Tecnología, una Ciencia sin inteligencia, sin Ética; Cada vez que cae una bomba, vemos una Economía en guerra con la amada comunidad, con la amada sanga de la Tierra misma; Cada vez que cae una bomba, vemos la mano izquierda de la humanidad en guerra con su derecha; Cada vez que cae una bomba, vemos la absoluta locura de la idea de un pueblo elegido, del Hombre Hidrocarburo, en guerra con la energía del Universo mismo; Cada vez que cae una bomba, vemos la implosión de la promesa, vemos la muerte de la Poesía, escuchamos un zumbido ensordecedor que ahoga los gritos de los niños del mundo, que ahoga las Músicas del Mundo. Cada vez que cae una bomba. Cada vez que cae una bomba. Heartbreak Meadow, los Wallowas, OREGON 22/11/2026 IMAGE: SUNSIGHT! over the WALLOWAS, Whitebark Country, Eagle Cape Wilderness, OREGON