5:53 Sunday Morning in Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gray skies, drizzle as lint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elmer and I on the move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discarded shoes everywhere,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
pairs from the homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sneakers, loafers, slippers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why sometimes only one shoe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Zen koan never answered by10,000 monks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the old axiom goes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve walked in these discovered shoes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
many years now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They’re almost shot,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sole shredding,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
holes in the mesh,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
stitches unraveling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We pass two men smoking something in a red sedan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We pass a homestead carved into a hedge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A young black man with a sizable afro<\/p>\n\n\n\n
rides a bicycle towing a trailer contraption<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with a fishing rod sticking out the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He’s coasting fast to the boat ramp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stops beside the 40-year-old Bounder RV<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with three orange tow tags peeling off a panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He leans the bicycle and trailer against the RV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He carries a tackle box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He places it on the parking lot,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
approaches the open driver-side window<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of the Bounder, climbs through,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
opens the front door, emerges,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
lights a cigarette,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
starts doing something inexplicable<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with shit around the rig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Parking lot packed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forty boat trailers, more trucks and boats arriving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Families prep to clam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seven dollar coffee drinks<\/p>\n\n\n\n
kept warm inside space age containers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A kid cries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad threatens violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hear terrible music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Big black dog runs wild in a field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A woman sitting in a chair wails<\/p>\n\n\n\n
alongside the Park Host’s RV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Black man yells \u201cShut the fuck up!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fisherman goes up to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can’t hear his words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More wailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She’s drowning the sound of ospreys chirping overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elmer and I hit the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smoke swirling from the encampment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New tent,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
new pile of firewood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
new shopping cart<\/p>\n\n\n\n
toppled, charred<\/p>\n\n\n\n
from barbecuing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
roadkill raccoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Disembodied voices screaming profanities in the willows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’ll have to pass close by,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but we don’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I whip us around,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
head home,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
angry,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
robbed this early morning on Coos Bay<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of what I need to<\/p>\n\n\n\n
contest the utter crush of American civilization<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n as Jim Harrison so accurately described it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 5:53 Sunday Morning in Empire. Gray skies, drizzle as lint. Elmer and I on the move. Discarded shoes everywhere, pairs from the homeless. Sneakers, loafers, slippers. Why? Why sometimes only one shoe? A Zen koan never answered by10,000 monks. As the old axiom goes: I’ve walked in these discovered shoes, many years now. They’re almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,5,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coos-bay","category-meditations","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10020"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10023,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10020\/revisions\/10023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}