Postcards from
the Angry Trout Cafe

"I don't love the woods it occurs to me, the leafless, brushy, November pope trees that stand around, stand around crowding the peripheral vision, each waiting to take its place in my consciousness and each falling back to become a part of the line that divides gray earth from gray sky, as undistinguished as gray hair." Louise Jenkins, from "November"







Stay for Awhile


You don't spend every waking hour reconsidering why you didn't build that great cafe that stands out on its jutty into the Grand Marais Bay so close to the border of Canada you could leap up into a tossed handful of wind, float a mile, then land on the other side. You don't wonder what it might be like to wake with a cold smile in February, pole in hand, kid in toe, bucket looped over an elbow, as you tip toe across the disheveled beach that now is a floe unalterable frozen beach. You have all day to walk the trail that curls around the Coast Guard headquarters which stands against the northern elements just waiting, itself, for the next big mistake that the fisherman takes in the open floe out across the breakers where, once you reach the end and look out over the Lake, the biggest of big, you know nothing of yourself, mind so full of ants and hiccups back home, laced to the city gears, postcards in hand of the hundred lives you could have taken. Sit down, have a cup of coffee at the Angry Trout Cafe. Stay for awhile. Live inside yourself for a minute.

Three Songs

"My dogs perk their ears, and bound from the path. Instead of opening their dark wings the hens swirl and rush away under the trees, like little ostriches." – Oliver, "Three Songs"











We cross the highway by clicking away at the crosswalk for a light. Gas stations, print shops, a veterinarian line the road from left to right and hustle as best we can across, my dog somehow sensing we want to quickly escape the snare of turning traffic. My ear buds are still in, for who wants to hear the raw crash of such noise in the morning. I see the library, folded in by a hollow and trees, upcoming, the highschool set up upon a hill, the coming park a respite against the silliness of the world we continue to create and, sensing that truck brakes can no longer be heard, take out my music, and there it is, a crisp February wind slipping through the pine limbs. It might be a swingset, abandoned now by cold chrome winter, squeaking at the links and latches. My eyes are the same as when I twelve. There I lived the two same lives. Did they ever write a song about me: he escaped through to the wind on the other side.

On the Yahara

"In all these rotten shops, in all this broken furniture
and wrinkled ties and baseball trophies and coffee pots
I have never seen a postwar Philco
with the automatic eye
nor heard Ravel's 'Bolero' the way I did
in 1945..."  – Gerald Stern, from "The Dancing"



A Time To Come


The molecules have shifted now, here in the Midwest,
here in a city that is known for its motion forward,
and fledgling industry which surely models for ages to come,
in along this pocket of five lakes,
normally, in July, at least, so beautiful that the mystery
of its native origin takes no imagination whatsoever,
shifts to the permanent drapery of thick cloud;
and our eye knows it deserves better as it wakes up,
it's partner, the first five fingers,
slip along the rod the brown curtain to see if it possible
sun, your mind's winter god, has awoken
from its time under the Boy tree of the horizon,
or if instead the fires of Galapagos
and the dwindling centuries old ice at top of Greenland
has been pierced to slow your favorite patterns
of jet stream;
plight, you know, will come by a love of your earth;
a love swells up but you wonder if its the sign of the dead.
You turn the soft jazz on in the walls,
cuddle of a cup of wake up,
forget about the hemisphere for a minute.

Sangha Cafe
A Bed and Breakfast

"You will notice, as you flit through these reminiscences of mine, that from time to time the scene of action is laid in and around the city of New York; and it is just possible that this many occasion the puzzled look and the start surprise. 'What,' it is possible that you ask yourselves, 'is Bertram doing so far from his beloved native land.' – PG Wodehouse, from "The Artistic Career of Corky"





Much preparation still had to be done. A morning may begin slow like this, with a long look to the river to see if portions had frozen over or if it was still open at the mouth, and whether the ducks were flopping up against the sides of the crusted ice, perhaps a good fifteen minutes sitting to get rid of the electricity in the mind of worries and plans and all the little things that could, of course, go wrong; by the end of these two stages, enhanced by just enough coffee to keep him bright but not ecstatic, it now time to get ready for the daily kitchen and go through the reservation list and begin to match the menu to the wishes of the visitors. The Sangha Cafe was still in its prototype stage, there was really little doubt about that, although there had been many small successes, and so he gave himself the luxury of creating virtually every stage of the preparation as he went along, no real rules, just an inherent conscientiousness for what was to come; in how many places had he been in his lifetime in which the so called 'service' was either overbearing or negligent; the falsity of overwrought service would be one of the very quickest ways to ensure that he would never return to your diligent property; and yet, even recently, he had also been restaurants in which he might very well be completely forgotten at a table in the back corner despite an emphatic attempt at making eye contact with the lingering server. His would be, as he liked to call it, a service of perceived benevolence. He began to wash over what that would be exactly and concluded that would be quite similar to raising children well – there was always the inherent care, of course, otherwise why in the world get into such a racket (parenting or the bed and breakfast), and it would be present but not clingy. There would be offerings that were available but not forced. My god! Had he been overthinking already! He fingered through his notes on sweet appetizers that would sitting out onto the granite counter on arrival. There would be good coffee, decaf and regular, plus a quality cream; this was the first impression, was it not? The coffee and French cookie as the newcomers were able to just peer through the hallway through the dining room and out the living room windows to see that same very sight that he had just witnessed, a calm river moving past, and suddenly, the stressors of the drive they had just completed would hopefully flit away like a morning bird and then he would quickly show them to their rooms, assure all was well for the rest of the day, and then offer a tour of any number of options. Could he help himself, he thought, now as he had begun the flour, sugar and egg base for his madelines, that he was tickled to be conceiving of such a fine day! He was fifty now. It had taken him five decades on this very earth to get the physical space and the mental pace figured out. As he rolled out the flour and looked at the relatively blasé photo of what he was about to create, the simple French cookie, he looked up into the courtyard and the magic of the sun mural on the backside of the garage. And there, later, he would offer to lead a short session of Chinese poetry. Oh my oh my. The tickle. The sun. The home had risen and took off like a very pleasant ship and began to float down the river along the waves that felt like clouds and the rest of the world, it was true, floated away.

I wonder if anyone knows
how much I enjoy old age

"The Eighth Month in the mountains
the perennial fruits are at hand." – Stonehouse, 69














Snow so cold it has become stone
it litters every city terrace and alley
piles along the sidewalk turn to icy pillows
they tighten spaces to bedroom comfort
Some days I walk along the hallway
of these gifts of hours as if in a cloud of dreams
when I was young I felt the motion
of a wooded creek as silent poetry

Why Should I Cater to Gods

"Lunch in my mountain kitchen
the spring provides the perfect sauce...

but why should I cater to gods." – Stonehouse 67











2


We speak of mindfulness at Lakeside
Coffeehouse as the winter sun dims early
the world around us could dissipate
and march off by shadows the lake
It would not matter; inside the flute
plays from the old wooden walls
the espresso machine screams one last drink
our words like thoughts escape

I Always Go to Sea
as a Sailor

"With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts."
 – Melville, from Moby Dick











Day 3


You would not have done well a whaleman, Ishmael of today.
Not well at all.
Sense of adventure, you say? Does that mean
staving off the robocalls even on a sunday night?
Apps, new and old, pulse some days
along the shorelines of the phone, that is for sure,
but the basement camaraderie
doesn't engender quick action of the human kind.
And anyway, a whale? There are documentaries, of course.
Your most recent, of two fellows who took a year away
to kayak from grizzly country north
down along river banks
across bulbous shores as the fog shrouds increasingly engulfed them.
That drama quickened.
It became modern because the two men formed moods.
Over time we witness ridiculousness of choosing our dangers.
See the difference?
You would have walked along the potholed streets of New Bedford
as wiseass. Had to of.
Mind a swarm of buzzing fears.
Those ladies, formal dress, bonnets up, severe eyes,
broom by hands, might have watched you
with pack over your shoulder
and wondered what you were up to.
Mother.
Adventure.
Starts somewhere else.
Far off lands, mornings when young forced to chores
wherein dreams of islands of appear.
The space between the shovel in your hand
and what to become in years is adventure, vast mist of that dream,
propels you as ocean current
into worlds.
Look away from the eyes of any whale.
Pinpoint your finger on the car dash.
Hope it didn't snow too much and that the roads are clear.