goldenwordsmith

Writing by the Columbia

Hanging out in Astoria., originally uploaded by lordog.

Writing by the Columbia

by Kerri Buckley

You don’t always get to change or choose locations for writing a book, but last summer I moved to Astoria, Oregon, to write in a room that overlooked the Columbia River — the huge, legendary, Lewis and Clark marine highway. The Columbia spills into a bay that connects to the Pacific, and the view of the sunset from my room was spectacular. At night I could literally see ships pass in the night, and small fishing boats illuminated as they bobbed on the river. Not only could I watch the river, but four miles across were the misty blue mountains of Washington.

This view was everything to me as I worked. I put together my first collection of poetry with the river always in sight and in mind. The room was a few stories up in a hundred-year old building on a hill, and I’d frequently look up from my computer or paper to see factory-sized ships painted in bright colors floating up or down river.

Sometimes I’d jump in my car, grab a chai, park facing the river and write for hours. When I needed a break, the path along the river was the perfect diversion–full of bicycles, dogs and wild flowers. The fishing boats drifted in and out; sea-lions yelped their constant barks to one another, and the sky over the river changed color and hue from moment to moment—from clear to a cold, mysterious fog. And then, shortly, a rainbow arced down into the river through sun-filtered clouds.

There was always a breeze, and through the window in my room, I could hear strains of The Magic Flute, or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as the musicians and performers of the Astoria Music Festival rehearsed at the nearby Liberty Theater. The Liberty, opened in 1925, was grand inspiration itself, beautiful, elegant, and undergoing extensive and careful renovation. I could cross the street to a flower shop, walk a few steps and duck through the alley to The Rusty Cup, a coffee shop next to the Liberty that always welcomed writers, artists and creative projects. Sunday mornings I could hear the crowds down below at the Sunday Market, and the distant bells of the trolley. Always, though, there was the river–the perfect writing companion: moving, changing, reflective as I wrote, revised and rewrote.

This essay appeared in the “Write This” section of Seattle Writergrrls UNCAPPED ZINE in 2005.

Time To Write

coffee Waves, originally uploaded by Omar_MK.

Today has been the most perfect day to write. The temperature is lovely, somewhere in the distance a concert of some sort. Not too loud, low background noise, and usually I prefer the sound of nature to write by—frogs, for instance, I can hear them, now, or birds, or the geese and ducks on the reserve I live next to. Even the sound of children is fine with me. Natural sounds, I think, of kids and dogs and animals, this middle of May day, and a lot of catching up to do with the blog, poems, and a few articles. This weekend will be too short.

The Haunted House

“The apples were in the loft.”

THE HAUNTED HOUSE
by Virginia Woolf

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure—a ghostly couple.

“Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here too!” “It’s upstairs,” she murmured. “And in the garden,” he whispered. “Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.”

But it wasn’t that you woke us. Oh, no. “They’re looking for it; they’re drawing the curtain,” one might say, and so read on a page or two. “Now they’ve found it,” one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. “What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?” My hands were empty. “Perhaps it’s upstairs then?” The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling—what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat softly. “The treasure buried; the room …” the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?

A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burnt behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat gladly. “The Treasure yours.”

The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.

“Here we slept,” she says. And he adds, “Kisses without number.” “Waking in the morning—” “Silver between the trees—” “Upstairs—” “In the garden—” “When summer came—” “In winter snowtime—” The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.

Nearer they come; cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken; we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. “Look,” he breathes. “Sound asleep. Love upon their lips.”

Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.

“Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. “Long years—” he sighs. “Again you found me.” “Here,” she murmurs, “sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure—” Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. “Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.”