fter speaking in Oregon this summer, Nancy and I had some professional commitments at Esalen ( www.esalen.org ), which took us down to one of the most beautiful land/sea interfaces in the world, Big Sur. We stayed at the historic Big Sur Inn where they have a section of the dining room dedicated to the life and poetry of Robinson Jeffers. Big Sur has been a magnet for the giants of American photography including Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. Robinson Jeffers is the poet of Big Sur, which he called his "inevitable place". It was there he built Tor House and there he wrote all his major works.

Herewith, one or two of my attempts to capture the "invulnerable beauty" of Big Sur on film and one of Robinson Jeffers great poems, For Una, which he wrote for his wife, the hand-written original of which hangs in the Big Sur Inn.

1941
For Una

I built her a tower when
I was young -
Sometime she will die.
I built it with my hands.
I hung stones in the sky.

Old, but still strong, I climb
The stone -
Sometime she will die
Climb the steep rough steps
Alone,
And weep in the sky.
Never weep, never weep.

Never be astonished, dear
Expect change.
Nothing is strange
We have seen the human race
Capture all its dreams,
All except peace.

Tonight dear,
Let's forget all that, that and the war,
And enisle ourselves a little beyond time
You with this Irish whiskey. I with red wine.
While the stars go over the sleepless ocean.
And sometime after midnight I'll pluck you a wreath.
Of chosen ones; we'll talk about love and earth,
Rock solid themes, old and deep as the sea
Admit nothing more timely. Nothing less real.
While the stars go over the timeless ocean.
And when they vanish we'll have spent this night well.

Robinson Jeffers

the photo album

I find poetry wherever I go. I spoke recently at the Yukon College in Whitehorse, which has an outreach program in the local Correctional Center. The instructor encourages the inmates to write and I was struck by a poem called "In Celebration". The celebration of which Wayne Jackson speaks is nothingness, because as he says, 'desire only leads to sorrow, that sorrow only leads to achievement which leads to emptiness". My heart aches for an intelligent man who has come to believe that "by giving yourself over to nothing, you shall be healed".

In Celebration

You sit in a chair, touched by nothing, feeling
The old self become the older self, imagining
Only the patience of water, the boredom of stone.
You think that silence is the extra page,
You think that nothing is good or bad, even
The darkness that fills the house while you sit watching
It happen. You've seen it happen before. Your friends
Move past the window, their faces solid with regret.
You want to wave but you cannot raise your hand.
You sit in a chair. You turn to the nightstand spreading
A poisonous net around the house. You taste the honey
Of absence. It is the same wherever you are, the same
If the voice rots before the body, or the body rots
Before the voice. You know that desire leads only to sorrow,
That sorrow leads only to achievement which leads to
Emptiness. You know that this is different, that this is the
Celebration, the only celebration, that by giving yourself over to
Nothing, you shall be healed. You know that there is joy in
Feeling your lungs prepare themselves for an ashen future,
So you wait, you stare and you wait, and the dust settles
As the miraculous hours of childhood wander into darkness.

Wayne Jackson
AKA Abadite