The Narrative Image

Wind racing over the waters Careening around canyon corners Ice cold waves leap with delight ...Idiot kayaker, not so much High desert mountains Try on a flimsy spring dress of sheer green Teasing again Blooming flowers witness  The grass being whipped Trembles in the shredding wind Curious clouds Sniff alien contrails As they scurry by  I don't think flowers Often experience existential dread But you never know  Before the gale Flickering like bright yellow Daylight fireflies  In a symphony of windblown grass There's no telling which baton Belongs to the conductor There's those flowers again Acting all happy And shit Shy plants looking back and away All the time nodding consent to nothing in particular  Surveying the dead and wounded At the end of the grass battle In memory of those Who dared to show their faces to the sun Hey flowers! Suck it! ...

How it looked Saturday Morning Midweek, I saw a picture of Multnomah Falls in the Oregonian (Portland’s big daily newspaper) that showed the giant waterfall as a kind of hybrid water/ice sculpture and decided I’d try to see it for myself if daily temperatures would agree to stay close to the freezing range until the weekend. Multnomah Falls is situated toward the west end of the Columbia River Gorge, an eighty mile long canyon that stretches east through the Cascade Range. This high walled ‘funnel’ turns out to be an excellent conduit for frigid arctic winds that seek an avenue to the Portland Metropolitan area. Anticipating ice, I stopped at REI Friday night and picked up some traction devices that are supposed to allow a person to walk on ice. There were three options, but the two in my price range were All Purpose Traction Aids by Due North and the Yaktrax Walker. I chose to try the Due North offering since I couldn’t see how the little metal bands on the Yaktrax wouldn’t slip on ...

I got a new waterproof, breathable jacket for Christmas so I took it out for a test drive on the Wahclella Falls trail. The canyon walls rose on either side of me as I followed the path in along Tanner Creek. Heavy dark clouds scraped across the treetops enclosing the chasm below in a dark gray gloom. Ice fell from the sky. Soft hail accumulated on the ground here and there. Like water overflowing leaf clogged gutters, streams and rivulets of instant tributaries poured into the valley. The rain-jacket did an admirable job of keeping exterior water out, but I’m afraid no current technology is sufficient to dissipate the sweat produced by a feverish semi-fat man. It seemed I had only got started, when the trail forked upward to the left or downward to the right. I chose to head upward and was soon surveying the lower trail as it snaked its way through an evident landslide. The unremitting precipitation was making it difficult to keep my camera lens dry. I found a dry spot on my t-shirt...

As the guidebook says, digital cameras, “…are not waterproof, and may malfunction if immersed in water or exposed to high levels of humidity.” Don’t be deceived. If you immerse your digital camera in water, there is no ‘may’ about it, it will malfunction! (Don’t ask me how I know.) But digital camera owners in the Pacific Northwest face the prospect of never being able to use their cameras outside if they don’t come to terms with humidity in the form of precipitation. It’s been raining in the Columbia River Gorge for about two straight weeks now and I’ ve been thwarted by ‘humidity’ in two ways in my efforts to get pictures at Oneonta Gorge. The first way is by high water that confines me to the mouth of the gorge. The second way I’ ve been thwarted is by raindrops on the lens which I don’t notice until I unload my images to the computer for review. I thought the solution to my first challenge would be hip-waders, but the helpful outdoorsmen at work suggested neoprene bib overalls ...