Trails - Part VII

How to count the days of my trail?

How to number the steps of my trial?

How to see whether triumph or travail

awaits me at my journey’s end?

I keep time the old way

with the speeding race

of Apollo’s chariot across the sky

and fix my position by the passing

of Polaris and Orion’s belt.

I drink when I thirst,

I eat when I hunger,

I rest when weariness overcomes me.

I carry on until the muse who prods

my restless bones with the electric sting of wanderlust

tells me I have arrived; my journey

into the unknown is complete,

the flight of driven fancy fulfilled.

The forest grows scant as I climb upward

in my southerly quest,

the maple, oak, and ask replaced

by long needled firs

and fragrant wax-green leafed

flowering bushes.

Wild raspberry gives way to huckleberry,

and as the valley deepens,

or perhaps it is the trail that rises,

the mist is my one constant companion.

I hear the approach of thunder.

The wind becomes itself a foe to be conquered

its weapons the blinding wash of torrential rain,

searing flash of laser bolts,

the explosive roar thunder and wind,

and the gun-shot rattle of frozen bullets

that strip the skin from tree and bush

and creature foolish enough to stare

into its raging face.

I hide, shivering and shuddering

from the tempestuous tantrum

in the belly of a hollowed pine

whose towering height

and gluttonous girth

have somehow managed

to withstand the maelstrom

as if by some unknown bit

of natural wisdom carried

to its slender green-tipped fingers

whispers into the shadows,

this, too shall pass.

Trails - Part VI

I slept a fitful sleep,

visions of the Ancients

clouding my dreams

the bone chilling cold

of my granite mattress

poking, beating as it were

the tender places of my weary frame.

The cry of the mountain cat,

the roar of the black bear

and the scream of the eagle

breeching my vain attempt at slumber.

Dew in the highlands falls heavy

and lingers in the air

long past the breaking of dawn,

in a palpable mist that leaves you thinking,

if I could but grasp it

and separate it into strands

it could be woven

into broadcloth fit for a king.

Here the day begins,

beneath the slight overhang

of a sheer granite landing

forever high above the valley floor,

and from this place

my walk into eternal discovery

as morning has broken

with the last hoot of midnight’s vanguard

and the gentle cooing of mountain doves

returns to the trail

to see what shall be seen

and know what shall be known

step by carefree step.

Trails - Part V

This trail I follow,

ancient when my ancestors

tilled fallow ground

an ocean of time and space eastward

speaks to me in voices

familiar and disparate.

I pause, as much a moment of respite

as reflection, to consider.

I have moved away from the trail

to balance precipitously

over the vast expanse of valley

that dips between my resting place

and the ridge of horizon to my west,

as far and deep both north and south

as the eyes of the heart and mind can see.

From my granite plateau I notice

spindly wisps of smoke from the lodgings

that dot the valley and shelter others

of my kind.

I find the wire stitched pad

of processed tree bark

opened on the flat of my hiking sack,

the lead cored twig in my hand

urged on by voices I cannot discern

like mariners of old set sail

my restless urgings need prevail

I argue but to no avail

the sun and moon my only friends

as on this endless trail extends

my meditative soul contends

I know not where the pitfalls lie

nor reasons boasting where or why,

nor reasoned answers which to ply

is this the place where I will die?

The pad and pencil return

to the safe confines of my back pack,

and as daylight fades and stars begin

to twinkle both above and below me

I ponder the journey

and the night

night on this ledge

at the edge

of forever.

Trails - Part IV

Forest primeval

floor of hunter green moss

and mountain laurel

towering oak, old when the

earth was young

maple the color of wildfire

and ferns, shoulder high

the fuzzy tips of their tongues

curled in whispered sneer

surround me.

A solitary beam of golden light

peers through a hole in gilded cotton sky

the color of slate,

reaching, like a lonely finger

through a tear in space and time

as if to spotlight my wanderlust

and transmit its findings

back to the mother ship.

The piercing sliver seers my retina

only to take cover in the ghostly mist

before it can be taken and held prisoner below.

I hear the crisp bark of a red fox

somewhere below, toward the valley

a she-fox, I deduce from the

from the cacophony of tiny yelps

that follow the initial snap.

A muted rustle of leaves

precedes, if only by moments,

the sudden shower of acorns

and impudent chitter of rebuke

from the tangle of heavy limbs

above my furrowed brow.

The chittering ends abruptly

when I presume acceptance

and join in laughter at the joke

only to be answered

by sounds of tiny, clawed scurrying feet.

I amble on,

ignoring the trusty compass

strapped to my wrist,

I travel by instinct to a place

far distant from whence I began;

a destination unknown to me

but felt with a yearning

that crowds that place

of obsession steadfastly defended

by lost sailors and woodsmen

in the cinema of my dreams.

A siren’s whisper promises

in echoes in my mind

that the place to which I journey

like love, will be known to me

when the final step is made.

E-Books and the Big House Publishers

After being a holdout for a long time, relatively speaking, I decided to take the plunge.  I purchased an e-Book reader.  The Sony Pocket Reader 300, to be precise.  I also purchased the hard back cover with built in reading light because honestly, who only reads during daylight hours, or where there is adequate ambient light available?  Certainly not me.

It has proven to be a good move for me.  Mostly.  I currently have forty titles installed, if I include my own work.  The booklet says it will hold over 300.  Right now this pocket sized device contains the equivalent of  about three shelves of the bookcase in my living room.  Additionally, I have a handicap that makes it necessary for me to require both hands to read a book and turn the pages.  E-readers let me accomplish the task single-handedly.

I subsidize my income by writing book reviews, primarily focusing on self-published, little known, mostly local writers.  Many of them are willing to give me a copy of their book in exchange for the review.  I am not an easy reviewer.  In fact, I tend to be very critical, especially where editing is concerned, but that’s another topic already covered here.

A new trend I am seeing is that self published authors have already locked into the idea of multi-format e-Book publishing for their work, with mediums like PayPal^® for remittance.  An increasing number of writers are sending me their books in e-Book format.

Pity that the big imprints and national chains don’t get this.

Last night I was browsing Fictionwise,  Barnes & Noble’s only outlet that does accept PayPal^® for payment.  But there is a catch, and that’s point one of this commentary.  The lion’s share of the better known authors are only available in the locked B&N exclusive ‘free’ reader format.  The Lost Symbol, for example, by Dan Brown, was not available in multi format.  What that means is that while I could still purchase and download the book, if I wanted to read it, I was locked to my notebook computer.  That sort of defeats the purpose of getting an e-Book reader.  Oh, I could get the book from the Sony e-Book store, but Sony doesn’t accept PayPal^®.

Part two of the rant is pricing.  It is mostly based on hardcover retail pricing.  In most cases e-Books sell for about half to two third of the hardcover price.  The absurdity here is two-fold.  First, once the original electronic copy from which the hard cover books are printed is coded for e-publishing,  any additional cost to the publisher to make it multiple formats is negligible.  Second, if you’re patient enough to wait for the mass market paperback edition, the book can be purchased for between 25% and 35% of hardcover.

I’m not arguing that e-Book should be a free medium, but personally I’m more inclined to pay $8.00 for a paperback than I am to pay $15.00 for the same book in electronic reader format.