the Vietnam War
but left once the protests started.
When I asked him why, his answer was,
“For the same reason you did.”
He came to wire my studio for a kiln -
the Berkeley professor turned red seal electrician.
While he worked, we spoke.
Breakfast until dinner -
he’d sit in his car at lunch.
Academic freedom.
The commodification
of
counterculture.
fir and fungus
During these talks, I’d think of my
university buddy
Barry and his mocking tease,
“You want to touch his brain,”
I couldn’t say it wasn’t true.
A precise man of slight stature with
long grey hair,
down the middle of his back-
and always in a ponytail.
50 years moving between Denman and Hornby.
Married twice.
A bit of a loser for a son.
zinnias
He’s kind, compassionate and emotionally intelligent.
An “amateur expert” botanist.
He spends days on end collecting native plants
from
North Island mountains
and from the side of Hwy 19A.
His property is filled with his fifty-year collection -
an herbal tea garden, his prize.
I gave him bushels of my peppermint.
It’s invasive. He didn’t grow it.
He asked my Venus and laughed knowingly when I
said
Scorpio.
A friend, who also wanted to touch his brain,
told me he
used to lead naturalist hikes
around the island.
On his last day of wiring, he asked me if I’d ever seen
chocolate lilies.
I said, No
the castle house
He recited
what I thought was a Wordsworth sonnet.
When I heard the castle house, I realized he was giving
me
directions from heart.
When my cat died, he brought me a tin of Lemon Balm and
Chamomile tea
from his garden.
