 feel like the more I read her poems the more they open up to me and I have such faith that they're those kinds of poems that live forever and travel where they need to go. So I picked out a few. I couldn't decide so I have so many favorites. I've met Janice in Colorado Springs when I moved there for a few years to go do my PhD and I was living with my parents in Colorado Springs and I I somehow looked up and found out that Janice Gould lived in Colorado Springs and I'd read her work when I was a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts and so she was you know this magnanimous poet to me. I was a little nervous if I could reach out to her and if you know someone of her you know magnitude as a poet would want to talk to lowly old me and but she greeted me with such kindness and we went and had coffee together and thus began several years friendship when I was in Colorado and we would get together once a month or so and take a walk or have coffee and talk about poetry and life and the world and politics and Aikido and just plants flowers and I too have learned so much from her little did I know when I was nervously calling her thinking oh I'd love to meet Janice Gould in person that she'd become such a dear friend and a great teacher in my life a poem is about to flower full force from my abdomen my spleen my wrists my ankles I could feel the pip of it in last night's dream that kept threading its way back to sacred land where I found myself in my 20s and where later you and I were dream happy our house the one that appears in all the strange locales you and I dream inhabit could be seen dimly through the pines on a dry hillside our landlady was there stooping over her garden we are always moving in or moving away from that falling down place made of stone or weathered wood or adobe but just passing by our old home as I did in last night's dream made me feel excited yes there it is and serene like seeing an old friend and when I woke I longed for that familiar dreamscape as if it is a real land as if that dark earth the landlady turns with her trowel is scented with loam is mapped with leaves and small roots as if the wind blowing dust down the mountain road is an actual wind as if a poem could emerge from a seed I remember a walk that we took in springtime and the cottonwoods in Colorado were just like lime green small leaves and everything smelled fresh and yellow and and I remember she was talking about how to interact with difficult things in your life peacefully and that's something that I've just learned so much from and I grew to love and with her was her her way of being peaceful and being a warrior through song and through gratitude she also loved the land so much and we connected on the fact that I had been living here for a long time in San Francisco and she grew up in Berkeley and so we would talk a lot about California oh actually that's when I wanted to read this is kind of a prose piece it's called running and I wanted to read it in honor of here where we are in this land and all those who protect it including her running in the morning I run on the big springs trail late spring summer and fall it's a dirt access road for the Tilden Park Rangers a fire road because our California Hills are dry for much of the year the Canyon Oak Chaparral and Eucalyptus could provoke a lively burn mornings jogging in wispy fog I watch a stellar Jay diving into the branches of a Monterey pine here a toey kicking up leaves beneath a clump of chaparral or see a young fox diving for a rabbit that had just disappeared down its hidden hole a breeze rustles the pale red and blue leaves of the oily Eucalyptus trees cools my face as I begin a steep part of the ascent towards the top of the ridge the road is rutted with deep cracks and in some places sharp around it rocks jut out I have to dance around them choosing my path carefully the soil is gritty a soft brown my pace slows to the east I can see the bryonis reservoir its water glinting a silvery gray the bleach slopes of the hills the shadowy greens of oaks and laurels spread up the banks and into the canyons farther east Mount Diablo rises and I can hear the drone of the freeways the streams of traffic the acrid smell of weeds dry brush dead fall then the full force of the bay wind travels briskly upslope when I reach the apex of the ridge to the west toward the bay and ocean fog has burned away the sky above the shoulder of mount tamal puss glows the clump of dark outcrops called the feral on islands look like the backs of wales what have I been thinking about nothing or rather as I run I silently sing a kate wolf song about the red tail hawk remembering the time I saw a hawk soaring high above the silvery chain of a snake rising in its talons moving sweating physically straining the other things that come to mind disturb me less my mom's illness my dad's transvestism and the slender woman I'm in love with the highest place on the road feels like the top of the world right here my older sister and I once spotted a coral snake slipping beneath some dried wood and brush a rare sight garter snakes and even rattlers are a bit more common I used to have dreams about snakes I believed they were friendly creatures that often talked invariably after such a dream I would see a snake next time I went out running now looking north panting lightly I catch my breath I can see loaf shaped Mount St Helena the far reaches of Suisse and Bay the rolling marine hills I turn to the south beyond the suburban towns lie the rangelands and valleys big cattle ranches watersheds the multitude of wildflowers growing in secret places during the passing of seasons owls clover choreopsis clarkia buttercups california poppies lupine turks cap scarlet pimper now I can feel the sun warming the top of my head while my body is cooling in the fresh breeze I like to imagine the time before the white people came to this land a time of plentiful game salmon runs grizzly bears honey bees among the flowers women grinding acorns while their children scrambled among the rocks playing people fished along wildcat creek or went clamming on the mudflats by the side of the bay when I start trotting down the road back to the trailhead I have to be careful where the dirt track is steepest and the soil crumbly then I'll drive home to our old house to the big quiet rooms the hum of mom's sewing machine where she sits making rag dolls and toys to fend off the certain pain that lies ahead I will return to my bedroom with its books papers and poems my studies my helplessness but the sweat drying on my body feels good and that moment at the top of the hill when I could lose myself in memory stays with me I will always know the smell of these canyons this sky the feel of this earth beneath my feet dear soul I find a few words you scratched on blue lined paper ink fading over time a photo of you as a child frowning as you hold a blanket to your naked breast I remember everything you said not each word but enough to know your goodness your resolve where have you gone dear soul have you learned to value the luster of your own bright heart always I wonder which star you have become have you joined the flight of birds are you in sunlight shining through the green of june or are you in the wind a chime tolling its one true note I'm just going to read there's this last piece this last section of a very long poem and then one more and then we'll move on this is just the seventh section of a beautiful long poem in seed I like this drift of memories and spend a lot of time here driving to point rays and back home to Berkeley rain or sun fog or wind thermoses of tea coffee or cocoa empty someone hands around sections of appealed orange or a package of cookies funny how the journey home invites contemplation rather than conversation everyone watching the highway the woods clouds passing over the crest of hills horses and pastures stocks of dry thistle funny to remember the place along this road I picked up three girls hitchhiking the place my car broke down and dad had to come for me the hillside where the prickly pear cactus grows wild the old movie theater a back road up to Malpas the 1930s houses tile roofed painted white some architects dream of mexico or spain then the long span of bridge over the silver bright water smell of refineries oil tankers at dock the dark east bay hills gray green and the afternoon light and finally the winding streets of our town pungent smell of eucalyptus heavy shadows the chilly north slope where our house sits among redwoods and rhododendron I know so little about the soul but I think we are always heading homeward determined to arrive finally welcomed and I'll close with this last poem which is the last poem of seed beyond knowing if I look with the corners of my eyes to that place where poetry begins images may appear despite the ringing in my ears and raging in my mind the imperious demands of what they call the future or furious denunciations of self looking is the beginning of seeing the risk one takes in discerning what is there rattlesnake coiled by the roadside history buried under abandoned foundations the stain of blood on quilts and blankets if I look with the right eye I see my own intention extending into the distance past the place where the earth curves into a light blue sky if I look with the left eye I settle into my own breath feel the beat of an invisible heart the tremor of soul fastened to the integuments of my body if I look beyond the corners of knowing I can see the shimmer of a different light illuminating what could be naked small truths ocean washed agates along the north coast spider's web bedecked with spatters of dew even a discarded cat's claw shining on the hardwood floor