POETRY IN MOTION

From "Borders, cages, and walls" by Homero Aridjis
Life keeps its distance,
love holds its tongue,
and poetry comes up where it can.
This is not a story about me or my objects. This is a story about the Great Spirit Who Walks In All Things. And how there are no coincidences.
To the right, when coming through the front door, the right stair hand rail.
The big fir tree on the far left began life as a volunteer in the back of our old house. I moved him and a lot of his brothers to the front by the highway. This to block the view and the noise.
They all grew like crazy. When this guy was about twelve feet tall, I cut him down to use as a Christmas tree. Then the second "this guy" grew from a twig on the side of the stump.
While I was building the house, the power company came along and said that my trees had to go. I said OK but don't cut them up, I'll take care of them. So that's where this guy came from.
Through no plan of my own this guy is on his third or forth life, or death. He has two little stubs toward the top, that taller people can hang their hats on.
The large dark curved piece over the top came from the beach at Taft Oregon. After the winter storms, there are great piles of drift wood there. I found this one while we were building the house. It was up toward the top of a pile. I got it up on my shoulders, round my head. When I stepped backwards of the pile, I stepped right onto a two by four with a 16d nail sticking out of it. I let out a yell and fell on my ass! Then picked it up and made it to the car.
The post on the right wasn't here until I needed it. When I was pondering what to do there, son Matt called to tell me that he had cut down his dying plum tree. Do I want it? Yes! One trunk of this became the post with a Salmon coming out of it. The other trunk was used upstairs. I'll show you later.
The bent Sugar Pine piece with arms and a Stork like creature coming out of came from an Elk hunting trip with the boys to the Ochoco Forest. No animals were harmed. We spent the afternoons collecting sticks and building furniture, which we lined up a long the gravel road for the cougars and loggers to buy! The Ochoco Is a place of huge stumps, tree giants devastated by humans!
The rocks come from the creek and plug the holes for the building inspector.
I call the curved dark piece , The Whale Tail, and the stork, Big Bird. So, as the whale breaches, the stork leaps up and the Salmon jumps through the torrent of spiritual water rushing down the stair.