March 9, 2008
No longer adrift
…listen
…about the music
Grounded.
A signature of this island is the impressive amount of driftwood that wanders to its shores. Not just small branches, flung by a few gusts afar to become suddenly afloat, but entire trees blown over and out to sea from violent storms, and very large logs that tumble from barges while en route to a less sandy substrate. Our beaches are a repository for the thousands of stories these wooden immigrants might tell.
My own story becomes a happier one with each ring I add around my trunk (figuratively, not literally, otherwise my figure would be literally disfigured after 46 such rings and I’d need larger jeans). I spent much of my twenties and thirties adrift on seas of uncertainty. I worked ardently, but sometimes at cross purposes with my true self. Yet something clicked in my later thirties. An inner compass pulled by an invisible magnetic force took hold, and steered me to joy. Love, music, friendship, personhood, all became easier. I have no idea why, but I am grateful.
I’ve arrived to these shores, right alongside of the driftwood. All of us, no longer at sea, no longer adrift. Home.
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 10, 2008 @ 6:28 am
Driftwood always attracts me too, each piece sculpted, sanded, twisted, taking up shapes of sea horses, great sharks, whales, octipi, jellyfish, dead flowers all, piled up for our perusal. More great music, Alex; EvensongPhos 1:33
Family
Long fingers move
methodically,
and Piano takes
the lead,
as Clarinet grasps
its busy hands, both
happy to welcome
Flute,
who breathlessly joins
the venture–
the joyous search
to discover
the tattered tales
of each individual
piece of driftwood,
while swaying
to the log rhythms.
Driftwood,
together now,
was once solitary
strangers
rooted on distant shores,
before each journeyed
to this spot,
to become something more;
a community,
an integral part
of a Poseidon sculpture,
bleaching together
into one great White;
all there,
still wearing the sand
they picked up
rolling across the welcoming
beach after
riding the tall waves
like war canoes;
adrift yet resolute,
as they searched
in their way
for sanctuary;
feeling compelled
to mingle,
to tangle,
to add themselves,
to become part
of their very own
sea wall.
Glenn Buttkus March 2008
Of course we cannot miss out on the Shapiro poetry extant within your posting.
Grounded
A signature
of this island
is the impressive amount
of driftwood
that wanders
to its shores.
Not just
small branches
flung by a few gusts afar
to become suddenly afloat,
but entire trees
blown over and out
to sea
from violent storms;
and very large logs
that tumble
from barges while en route
to a less sandy substrate.
Our beaches
are a repository
for the thousands
of stories
those wooden immigrants
might tell.
I’ve arrived
to these shores,
right alongside
of the driftwood—
all of us
no longer
at sea,
no longer
adrift.
Home.
Alex Shapiro March 2008
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 10, 2008 @ 7:15 am
Pretty slick, sneaking in that bassoon on me with my untrained ear. Oh well, it is hard to find words that are compatible with bassoon. Though I guess there is croon, and loon, and Rangoon, and moon, and dune. Just too bad I missed it. The poetry might have been improved with its participation. It is a good start to the week. Your poetry and a bit of mine emerged quietly as the sun peeked past Mt. Rainier, as I gazed across American Lake. Poems will do that some time; like music they perculate and mellow from those cells that are creative, and must find their way out, into the world; birth, rebirth, a new day.
Was the Evensong a church there in CA? A commission to do a piece for the evening prayer; that’s kind of heavy duty and sort of spiritual, like a lot of your music. My first comment seems to have slipped into the cyberspace of your blog. So for all I know, this follow up comment might come first; the last shall be first kind of thing.
Glenn
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 10, 2008 @ 7:34 am
I cannot wait for the first comment to finally appear, for I have made a discovery that excites me. One year ago, March 28, 2007, you were still in CA, and you and Charles went whale watching. The first part of your posting was done as free verse, and I was overjoyed to find it already extant, waiting to be unearthed.
Whale Watch
We waited.
We watched;
two mourning doves,
three tiny lizards,
four adorable squirrels;
no whales.
Where did they go?
Did the Union
give them
a lunch break,
and no one
informed us?
Are they striking,
in protest
of the commercial squid boats
whose flood lights lure
the cephalopods,
and deplete
the whale’s food source?
Or maybe they knew
I had my camera
poised
to capture their grace,
and like the Amish,
didn’t want their souls
stolen.
Alex Shapiro March 28, 2007
And you told me that you do not write poetry. Gosh, what a lovely fib.
Glenn
Alex Shapiro said,
March 10, 2008 @ 10:55 am
You are releasing my inner poet, Glenn! Thank you for opening my eyes to another form of expression I didn’t realize was lurking.
I’m glad that I found
your first post
lurking
like my poems
in a place as yet unseen
The spam filter!!
Ha ha.
I was able to rescue your prose
as you have rescued
mine.
The Evensong Suite was a commission from St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Mar Vista, Ca. (part of Los Angeles, next to Santa Monica). I couldn’t have had a more lovely client. You hear the church’s music director, Frank Basile, on piano, along with Brice Martin on flute and Charles Boito on clarinet. The bassoonist who entrances you is my very dear friend Carolyn Beck, for whom I subsequently composed several pieces.
Life as a composer opens up unexpected collaborations: the church, the Army, the ACLU… I laugh when I think about the diversity of my work life!
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 10, 2008 @ 12:07 pm
Gosh, the spam filter…I guess that is where comments sometimes go. And then when I lament the loss of a comment, you go off on your quest to rescue it. You are more than welcome for the acknowledgement of your inner poet. It is such a terrific way to interprete the world around us, and the people, and life’s special moments, and cats, and deer, and clover, and mushrooms.
I really was amazed to find a smidgin of free verse from one year ago. Will I find more if I look? Your archives are like going through an attic full of treasures, and holding them up the sunlight, and filling in the gaps, and dotting the “i”s. With all the music you have composed and has been recorded, I don’t suppose that you will run out of material to accompany your iconography, your visual stimulus, your capturing of tiny pieces of your world, and your sharing with the anixious kelphistos who gather daily at your blog step. That, and the fact, of course, that you are writing new music on a regular basis; it really is the neverending song of Shapiro, the siren’s songs, the natal notes.
Glenn
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 11, 2008 @ 5:22 am
Reading your lovely postings from last Spring and early Summer, as you and Charles were sad that the first house you tried to buy, or looked at, turned out to be too much of a fixer upper, and then after wandering on the beaches, you drove past a handmade sign on a tree advertising a “Home For Sale”. Like so many things in your life over this last year, your present abode was meant to be. The universe is smiling because you are exactly where you are supposed to be and the planet is a better place because of it. You lend stability now in place of chaos. Within the first few weeks of moving in you had to make another one of your frequent trips to NYC. Returning to the SJI you had the strongest sense of coming home that you had experienced in years. it was a lovely message, and it went without comments until I chanced upon it.
The Meaning of Home
Words do little
to describe
how glad I am
to be back
from Manhattan.
A volcano,
a boat,
and an archipelago are
to my senses,
a vast improvement
on a skyscraper,
a subway,
and a few
siren and soot-filled boroughs
called
New York City.
But that is just me,
now.
When I was growing up,
I was
A quintessential
New Yorker,
who couldn’t have imagined
living anywhere
else.
I mean,
what else could there
possibly be
to do
and see
and experience
that wasn’t in
the greatest city
in the world?
Why leave?
And then at 21,
I left,
and my world
expanded.
I still love
New York,
the way
one still loves
difficult relatives;
but my heart
lives here.
Alex Shapiro June 2007
I loved all those blog entries about your kayaking and sailing amongst the islands. You were, and still are like Alice in Wonderland.
Glenn 🙂
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 12, 2008 @ 6:57 am
Growing up on the concrete island of Manhattan, and then migrating to allure of the Pacific beaches of California, you found inspiration and solace in driftwood, kelp, shells, and tide pools. You put it all together last summer when you pulled up those Hollywood coattails and journeyed North to the Archipelago of Dreams, and adopted your very own island, San Juan; living close to nature there on your dead end road, feeding foxes from your hand, being overwhelmed by the swarms of likewise migrating humming birds. But there was more to be enjoyed in your new home, a kind of Ozzie & Harriet, and Donna Reed Americana, a small town feeling that you were not accustomed to, but that you welcomed with open arms, as it welcomed you.
Tribal Welcoming
Independence
is sometimes contextual;
like these shore pines,
one can stand
alone
and still be bolstered
and protected
by others nearby.
When a strong wind blows,
surrounding neighbors keep
the damage
to a minimum.
Without them,
a lone tree
could easily topple.
Such is my growing,
happy experience
on this little island
in the foremost
upper left hand corner
of the United States.
Lots of independent thinkers
here;
lots of folks
with open minds
who choose not to tell others
how to live
and prefer not
to be instructed
on that
themselves.
Yet the palpable sense
of interconnectivity
is everywhere.
Living on an island,
just about
every person you meet
is framed
by a musical repeat sign:
you will see them again,
somewhere,
and often
in a different milieu
than where you last met.
That’s
the jazz version;
different harmonizations
second
and third times
around!.
It is a far more
tribal level
of awareness
than one would ever find
in a city;
and it is a fascinating
lesson
in the simultaneous truths
of independence
and interdependence.
Alex Shapiro July 2007
I live in Sumner, WA, also a small town, with manicured lawns, smiling neighbors, low crime rate, and having grown up as urbanite in Seattle, I do enjoy the slower pace and geniune warmth of AndyGriffithVille.
Glenn
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 13, 2008 @ 10:56 am
Pardon my snooping, but there I was pouring over your posting archives, and I came to a lovely pic of moss covered trees. I could smell them, as did you. You opened the post with free verse. Caught you again. But this time I had to do some tinkering to wring the complete poem out of the prose.
There you were, damp and delighted with your new digs in July 2007, and Santa Barbara was choking on cinders and ash from California fires. You felt their pain. It was still quite recognizable. But today, many months later, the tongues of fire have not sung to you in some time. They may never again.
Drought Dirge
Here I am
bathed in Northwest
dew,
caressing thick moss,
as I hear—
Voices
from the trees,
technicolor green,
alive,
deeply fragrant,
strong,
very beautiful;
old.
We should all be
so lucky
to age
this well!
Every time it
drizzles a bit
here, or
thick fog rolls in,
I do
a little rain dance
of celebration.
Having lived
in a fire zone
for so long,
and having had
to evacuate
more than once
in the face
of oncoming flames,
I realize that I
suffer from
Post Traumatic Drought Syndrome!
California,
your hair is on fire,
and I will do
my best rain dance
to bring some
of this moisture
to you.
Alex Shapiro July 2007