Chosen of the Santa Veronika

The dragon and the human reached the sparkling ripples that defined the ford across the Santa Veronika’s laughing waters. Indeed, Eppy felt stronger, drawing strength from the dragon’s fire and power. In spirit and mind he was clear as the brilliant sky above, infused with a clarity unknown before in his short life. However, he was still a human form, wounded, dehydrated and physically spent.

Dræco spoke: “Little brother, drink first, fill your belly. Then I will speak to our beloved sister. She makes her home here. She and I will hasten your healing. This is ancient magik, uncluttered, unsoiled by him who we do not name."

Eppy lifted his arm free of the dragon’s neck. The long upper muscles racked tight, stiff. He felt cold migrating from his blackened fingertips, down bone and sinew, seeking his core. It was grave cold, slow and insistent. The tracker knew he was acutely dehydrated and would go into shock without water and warmth. He knew that the sun was still high enough to throw some heat, here in late October. Alone, he stumbled downstream toward a gentle sided wide pool at the foot of the ford. There was lay a shallow depression partially cut into the living rock by the Santa Veronika’s raging spring run-off, grinding away against the soft sandstone. The Adonii Clan engineers had added their own thought and structure, creating a clean water trap for man and stock. Eppy’s instinct drove him. He desperately needed to hydrate his tortured body.

Dræco eyed the human as he stumbled, listing side to side like a sailor too long at sea, unable to regain his land legs. If a dragon could show compassion, there was compassion deep in the red beast’s dark yellow eyes as he watched his little changeling brother.

The dragon turned his massive body upstream, stepped gently into the upper reaches of the shallow ford and bent his great head low until his heavy chin barely touched the racing water. Dræco drank in a long, slow and deep breath. He began to sing. His voice thrummed deep and resonant in what we humans might think a sing-song. It was subtle, slow and deliberate. The dragon’s mantra rose from the waters, rang off the hills and echoed wall to wall in the vale. Rock doves rose with the echoes and carried them high across the sun washed craigs and deep, into dark canyons above; speaking the power manifest in Cĕdro Park.

Upstream from the chanting dragon a steep vertical knife blade of schist and basalt cut across the river’s path. The stone gathered the Santa Veronika’s waters and dumped them over a short, vertical fall. Below, the splashing water gathered in a deep basin, darkened by massive twin spruce arching over the pool, like giant cathedral towers. Interwoven ilex, alder and willow brush limbs drew together defining a hidden hall over the pool. As the dragon’s song grew in complex intensity, a shimmering form, barely visible at first, slowly rose from the pool. Silky and flickering silver green, a distinctly sumptuous female form coalesced and began a sinuous dance in rhythm with the dragon’s song.

There danced Santa Veronika herself, called by the dragon, rising from her deep water home in answer to Dræco’s passioned call for help. She would minister to the tracker, to Eppy. She knew him well, his life and history and loved him well from the first day, as a giggling, summer boy child, he had played in the twisting skirts of her shallow ford under the watchful eye of his mother. Veronika’s form grew as solid as focused thought. Her deep green eyes flashed like liquid malachite. As she watched the dragon and dehydrated human, her undulating form shimmered full of water that poured in constant, shifting colors, reflecting the westering sunlight. Autumn wet leaves and moss wove in a wreath with plaited black hair, an oval framing her wide and deep, ever-changing countenance. Tiny Brook Trout, bright in spawning colors, danced in a woven necklace that fell deep between the flow and swell of her full breasts. When she moved, she didn’t walk, she didn’t swim. She drifted in a dance that could at once mesmerize and delight, or, quick as thought, rise up in power and destroy.

“What is this? Who calls me to rise in these bright Autumn aires? Veronika’s voice rippled; at once soft and watery laughter, it held a cold and fierce ice knife edge. Dræco lifted his wide head, slowly shook it side to side. He chuckled.
Twisted, woven steam chuffed from his dripping jowls and rose into the deepening western sun. “Svelt sister, you know me. I know you and your dark green eyes.” Dræco laughed again. His own eyes, cat wise, swelled bright, full of memory. Then quickly his vision snapped back, sharp and fully present. “The changeling, we must look to his health, sister.”

Nikolas Eponymous lay on his belly, nestled in a smooth, water worn trough of cool, damp stone. His outstretched arms, pinned like piers in the slow twist of water, held his upper body just above the flow. In a slow rhythmic cycle he first buried his face in the Santa Veronika’s flinty waters, drinking long, full draughts, then raising his head high, arching over his back, he drank deep the cooling afternoon air. It didn’t matter that he was growing chilled. His body reveled in the fresh water and air flowing, restoring power, focus. Not only did Eppy feel his strength return, he felt the strong resolve of the Adonii blood pulsing through his veins. This was his river, just as he belonged to her.

The human quietly chuckled out loud. While he tended his dehyadrated, wounded body, his mind wandered down the halls of family memory.

“Dragon’s indeed! Grandfather would have been non-plussed and grandmother would have been pleased, no, delighted to have proved her stuffy, old curmudgeonly husband wrong. What a sight that would have made.” Eppy laughed again, softly and strong. In the back of his mind he listened to the dragon’s song, paying no heed to it or what it had accomplished. He did stop his reveling when the all-pervasive sing-song turned silent in the brilliant late afternoon. He looked upstream to see what next would happen. Eppy gasped. All his newly regained strength failed him. He choked in mid breath and nearly fainted as his young eyes fell upon the flickering form of Santa Veronika rising in response to Dræco’s song.

Nikolas knew her. All of his conscious life, his dreams and visions had been filled with her flowing presence, persistent and powerful. Her shadow had spoken with him, her voice nurtured him. Now, on this auspicious day when Eppy first found dragons to be true, this came to pass. Veronika was real, alive. And he wept.

Thrice in an instant, oh beloved, a serendipitous dance exploded thus:

The wind changed, flowing swift and cool out of the north. The sun’s dazzling, low raking light spilled into Cĕdro park through a wide break between high peaks in the upper canyon and a glorious song rose like twisting incense into the bright Autumn aires.

Nikolas Eponymous burst into joyous tears, wailing the long and rising pulse of the Adonii anthem. Dragon Red and River Nymph joined the human in deep, rhythmic harmony. High above in the deepening sky, two falcon voices screamed, high and lonesome while the strident, repetitive coarse croak of a raven echoed one word:

“…ADONII…!”

Then, oh beloved, the haunting, hoarse wail of the thrice forbidden pipes joined in song as the upright form of the Elder of elders, head of the Clan Adonii, rose into the far North saddle between the sparkling quartz spires. The Clan’s best and brightest spread out in an arc around the Elder and those who served him, voices and pipes joining the refrain. Glistening spearheads danced a dazzling dance in the low sun. Human voices rose in harmonious clamor with Red Dragon, River Nymph and the wounded human changeling, wet and cold, yet filled with the Father of Father’s joy unbounded. High above in the deepening sunset air, hawk and eagle, raven and falcon voices echoed in wild born refrain.

Pipes and voices; joyous dragon, nymph and human; wondrous and wild the call of creation; bird and air, trout and water, stag and land…Oh, beloved, the song of creation there in Cĕdro Park rose high into the heavens. Intertwined voices rose like clear incense, sweet and unsullied.

Listen oh beloved:

Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…great and glorious creator God,
Father and Mother, wood and vale, fire and air, hear our song.
Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…great and glorious creator God,
Brother and Sister, peak and plain, water and earth hear our song.
Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…great and glorious creator God,
Beloved lover of all creation, hearken to the voices of your beloved.

…ADONII!

Oh beloved God, creator and lover to all who exist on this broken sphere,
You who know each broken heart and wicked mind that cries out to you,
You who weep at each unseemly death and rejoice in the redemption of one,
You who call each of us to choose ‘tween you and the empty darkness;
You who call all creation to choose ‘tween your full breast and death;
You who call us with patience and quiet judgment to choose…SPEAK!
“Choose oh beloved, ‘tween the tempting world and my broken Son.”

…ADONII!

Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…humbled and broken creator God,
Lost father and broken mother weeping on bloody streets, hear our song.
Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…humbled and broken creator God,
Raging brother, wicked painted sister wretched on mean streets, hear our song.
Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…humbled and broken creator God,
Empty souls cry out to you, weary of the world’s wrecked and wretched songs.

…ADONII!

Oh beloved God, creator and lover to all who exist on this broken sphere,
You who know each broken heart and wicked mind that cries out to you,
You who weep at each unseemly death and rejoice in the redemption of one,
You who call each of us to choose ‘tween you and the empty darkness;
You who call all creation to choose ‘tween your full breast and death;
You who call us with patience and quiet judgment to choose…SING!
“Choose oh beloved, ‘tween the tempting world and my broken Son.”

…ADONII!

Then, as the sun turned behind the sharp, dark violet mountain teeth, it’s light reflected red and gold shimmering on the high clouds, pouring a soft and subtle light into the park. There silence reigned. No breath of air, nor bird, nor animal, nor thought of man remained. Only the gentle voice of the river murmured in the quickening sunset. The elder of elders slowly raised his carven staff into the last rays of the sun. The lingering light caught one last ray and spread a soft rainbow over the depths of the Adonii Keep and all of Cĕdro Park.

The Great Creator’s quiet reigned, the quiet of the dawn before creation rested in every heart as darkness crept up the canyon, hush and soft. Only a shimmering, northern light and breath of wind stirred with the river’s subdued voice.

More than a Few Ruffled Feathers...

Serendipitous - Our friends over at Merriam-Webster have this to say about the root word "serendipity":

Main Entry: ser·en·dip·i·ty Pronunciation: -'di-p&-tE Function: noun Etymology: from its possession by the heroes of the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.

The last few days I have been reading an posting on other BLOGS and cleaning up some overdue correspondence. Most of the writing has been involved with veterans and the current iteration of the Holy War that continues to plague the Middle East and the eastern Horn of Africa.

While sharing a specific war related poem, reflecting a conversation with a Viet Nam era vet, my close friend , Peter (http://www.nyx.net/~pforss/index.htm) shot back an e-mail asking if I had sent a copy to the vet for whom I had written the poem. DUH!!! I immediately sent him a copy of the poem, (which follows in this post) and received a warm and thoughtful response (which also follows in this post.) Meanwhile, I found link to http://gatheringofeagles.org/ , their logo graces the head of this post. I also revisited the Virtual Wall Memorial website where my closest High School friend's death is remembered here:

http://www.virtualwall.org/dk/KempCC01a.htm

I am sharing all of this for one very specific reason. No matter on which side of the socio-political spectrum one sits, stands or shouts-out-loud, I do truly believe that respect for those who have fallen in defense of this country and those hallowed places which memorialize them, must not be defiled.

The folks who will gather on 17 March 2007 to protect that long black wall from any foul desecration deserve support. I urge those who can to join them, those who cannot to get the word out and those who can afford to send funds, to do so without reservation.

Here shared, my reasons why I support the upcoming "Gathering of Eagles" :

~~~~~~~~~~

Kansas Eyes

I thought 'twas done. Forty years spent

Walking with ghosts, hearing the tales.

Once mute, lost voices rise in autumn light.

Over coffee I was pierced when I plumbed the depths,

His haunted, ice blue Kansas eyes.

He spoke of joy in flying over these high plains.

His ragged tooth smile, his modulated radio voice and

A heart that tends a hedgerow tall and strong.

Born in pheasant farm memories when Mithras called,

Tossed a farm boy, yet a man, into the killing fields.

French Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia:

Soggy, fetid dark green jungle folded rank;

Shadowy nether world, Old World, older than Christ.

Called him to unknown flesh and a festering war.

It tore a bloody, twisted screaming wound.

It ne'er was healed, that stinking wound.

It's septic, fouled puss still flows;

Infects and sickens his beloved home.

I saw it in his eyes today, haunted manhood's

Sour wine racked in long memory.

I saw it in dark rimmed hollows,

Sad and distant ice blue Kansas eyes.

Drawn close, new bloody born;

Remembered in quiet conversation

Fresh, over coffee hot and apple pie.

A cigarette glows, the traffic groans

In rhythmic haste. Now my soul eyes

These words drawn here, remembering

That cold, long black wall of names.

As once again, war's red fire set aflame.

~~~~~~~~~~

Tom's response:

Stephen,

'tis not so long since floods of memory clouded my eyes, but your poem did it just that way.

I, and the 59,000 brethern would be honored to be associated with those words.

Back in '82, I ventured to Washington DC, to do battle with the business mavens of my profession at the time, and while there, I visited The Wall. It was berift of any lights, flag, grass, nor statues... it didn't even have a proper sidewalk.

As I thumbed through the dog-eared pages of the "book" on either end, and came across old friends, I made my way down hallowed tablets of numbered stone, the better to find them all. At one point, I just bloody well SAT DOWN and cried my eyes out, trying to cover my face in the worn jungle hat, I'd stuffed into my suitcase. Passers by, tried not to stare, and some understood - that's when a fellow who had been sitting under a tree in the afternoon shade, came up... placed his hand on my shoulder and said those amazing words, that nobody had ever uttered.

"Welcome Home" he said

- and that began the voyage back to pasture and pond... the halcyon days of my youth, armed with naught but fishing pole and bare feet in the warm mud of a Summer's day - chasing madly after those lost days of a peach-fuzzed young man from a wheat field.

Bless You - Tom

~~~~~~~~~~

Yes indeed, more than just a few ruffled feathers await those who, for whatever reason, see fit to attmpt desecration of sacred ground.

The North Side

Actually, it is the North-west corner of Denver where Italian immigrants settled back in the early years of the last century. They found the floodplains of Clear Creek to be ideal land for truck farms. Once settled and worked, the land produced legendary crops. Long summer days, not too hot and mostly without rain provided ideal weather conditions for growing vegetables. The soil was deep, not too heavy with clay and rich from thousands of years of snowmelt washing soil and minerals off the Front Range mountains to the west.

The original immigrants were farmers, craftsmen...simple folk who wanted nothing more than the opportunity to make a better life. However, as the community grew in wealth and stature, it also drew notice from other Italian/Sicilian communities in Chicago and further east. The "Family" moved in and by the mid 1920's they were fully invested in local, ummmm, "politics". Railroad, commerce, ranching, mining and their attendant industries turned Denver into a wide open, if small, western city repleat with all of the attendant underworld activities: gambling, booze and prostitution.

Many of these enterprises were housed in the upstairs rooms or back offices of restaurants. Tradition!...It was the way things had always been done. These family run restaurants served up a wonderful mix of Italian food style food that was influenced by the local environment. Spanish and Mexican, German and Polish immigrants all added to the mix, along with the still plentiful wild game.

The following is one of those regional interpretation of a traditional dish that will serve 4 to6 hungry people...Enjoy:

North Side Spaghetti

- 1 to 1 1/2 lbs of Belfiore’s fresh ground, bulk, hot Italian sausage
- 1 link of “Columbus” Salame Secchi, sliced thin
- 1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped fine
- 4 to 6 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed and diced fine
- 2 stalks of local Paschal celery, chopped fine
- 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped fine
- 4 to 6 medium button mushrooms, stems removed and sliced fine
- 1lb can of local tomato sauce
- 1lb 12oz can of local diced tomatoes

- 1/4 cup of Kalamata olives, pitted and diced
- 1 to 2 tblsp of dried, sweet basil
- 1to 2 tblsp of dried, Mexican oregano
- 2lbs Barilla, fresh or dried spaghetti or linguine pasta
- A good sized wedge of Parmesano Regiano cheese

- 1/4 cup of fresh Extra Virgin Olive oil

- A jug of decent red wine, a spicy Chianti or Cabernet Savignon

- One loaf of fresh, heavily crusted, Ecchi Panis, or similar local Italian bread

Brown the Italian sausage in a well seasoned dutch oven over high heat, crumbling it as it browns. Add the onions and garlic and continue stirring until the onions begin to brown and caramelize. Add a cup or so of the red wine. Have a glass for yourself, if desired. Once the mixture comes to a boil, turn the heat down to medium high and allow the wine to reduce in water content, about half, stirring frequently.

Add the cans of diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, celery, bell pepper and olives. Crush the oregano and basil to a coarse powder in the palms of your hands and stir into the sauce. Allow it to come to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, fill a medium stock pot with cold water, add about 1/4 cup of the olive oil and put the pot on over high heat. Take a fresh baked loaf of crusty, local Italian bread, sliced not quite completely through, slathered the slices with garlic butter, wrap in foil and tuck into a low (200-250 degree) oven... more wine for the cook?

Stir the sliced mushrooms and Salame Secchi into the sauce and turn down to medium low, allow the mixture to continue to simmer uncovered.

When the water comes to a rolling boil, add the pasta and stir until the pot comes back to a full boil. Continue to stir the sauce. It will thicken into quite a savory and colorful sauce.

Test the pasta after about 10 minutes. I like mine a bit "al dente". Remove it from the heat and drain off the water and cover.

Pull the bread from the oven. The garlic butter should be melting into the body. I like a bit of grated Parmesan added at this time.

We serve this dinner buffet style, allowing each individual to come to the kitchen and plate their own portion of pasta, sauce, bread and grated parmesan.

The rest of the wine jug is on the table covered with a red checked tablecloth and a couple of candles, just for atmosphere. A little blessing, a little toast and a hearty meal, spiced with good conversation and laughter is sure to follow.

Judge Wallace Lundquist

11 February 1923 ~~~ 14 January 2007

Dad's full obituary can be read at the following site:

http://rememberedby.us/judgelundquist.

~~~~~

Wetterhorn Peak, 14,015 ft. - San Juan Range, Big Blue Wilderness, Southwest Colorado

The Echoes of a Man Remain Long After His Passing

Wetterhorn Peak, as pictured above, is a quintessential Colorado fourteener...that being one of fifty some-odd peaks which rise over fourteen thousand feet in altitude. That would translate into nominally two and two-thirds miles above sea-level for those of you educated in the public schools or those of you living in Rio Linda.

It is not an easy climb. At that altitude, it is said: "There are only two seasons up here, Winter and August." The air is thin, little oxygen content and prevailing westerly winds blow unceasing. The ascent begins with a two hour hike from approximately where the photo was taken to the final approach. The easiest route leads up to the left hand facing ridge where, at about thirteen thousand feet, the climber heads almost straight up towards the small needle's eye you can see at the base of the Shark tooth peak. Three hours up and three hours down, if afternoon thunderstorms don't drive the climber off the final approach.

Although, Dad Lundquist and his roughneck, pre-teen buddies would have found a way to climb to the top with their suspect climbing gear...The story follows below:

~~~~~~~

The last time I sat and talked in private with my biological father, Wallace Lundquist, his straight and tall six foot-one, John Wayne kinda' frame had been twisted, compacted by a Staphylococcus infection that twisted his spine. Add the weight of eighty plus years living, working and loving on this broken ol' earth and he ended up at about five foot-eight inches in height.

His old eyes, still bright and strong, rose to look out the window of the small, assisted living apartment that he shared with Than, his beloved wife of 56 years. That window gave Wally a full view of his favorite Colorado Massif....Pike's Peak. A broad smile rose and lit up the room. It was obvious to me that a memory, strong and bright was breaking free, yearning to be shared. He struggled to speak, his once strong Marine D.I.'s voice, ravaged by age and a compromised cardio-pulmonary function.

His eyes misted over as he recalled his boyhood. Dad told me of a summer in his early teens when he and his friends would "borrow" their mother's woven clothes line ropes, wrap them around their torsos, mimiking what they hadl seen at last Saturday's matinee...the flickering newsreel that spoke of the newly formed and infamous "10th Mountain Division."

He and his buds wrapped their clothesline "mountaineer's ropes" tight, hopped on their Schwinn single speed cruisers with flour sack bags stuffed with sandwiches and jugs of Kool-Aid and headed west.

Dad's home was located in the heart of Denver's Capitol Hill Neighborhood at 1554 Emerson Street. His third floor bedroom faced west, toward the mountains. On a clear, bright summer morning he could see the full Front Range, from Longs Peak up north, all the way down to Pikes Peak rising above Colorado Springs.

The boys rode west on Colfax Avenue, one of the longest, contiguous Main Streets in the American West.

They pedaled down from Capitol Hill into the Platte River Valley, filled with the stench of industy. Mine and mill, rail and rock, water and sewage. That is where the Poles, the Irish and the Italians worked. The boy's legs and lungs began to burn as they climbed up into the Barnum neighborhood. If it were Saturday, all commerce was silent for this was the heart of the Judiasm in Denver. The synagogues overflowed with songs of praise that poured out onto the asphalt running west, growing warm in the morning sun.

When they reached Sheridan Boulevard, Denver ceased to be. The boys' eyes ran gun sight straight into the proto-suburb of Lakewood, then into the farms and ranches pushed up against the rising waves of foothils where Colorado's first Capitol, Golden, sat grinning in the sun, nestled in the uplifted old ocean floor of broken sedamentary rock. They could barely see their goal, the dusty, brick colored formations called Red Rocks. When they finally arrived, Dad Lundquist and his young roughnecks would climb the rock formations, eat their lunch and then rappel down, using the clothslines!

Mid-summer mornings in Denver and her suburbs are created for children. The air is cool and full of life. It is a vibrant mix, heavy with the smells of farm and ranch lands stretching east across the high plains, and sharp, bright and cold as soft winds wander their way down from the montane heights through the canyons. Some folks have remarked that a soul would be hard pressed to need any other food to exist. And that is what I saw in my father's ancient eyes as he recalled his youth in this old Queen City of the Plains, Denver.

Now he is gone. Yet the echoes of his life continue to resonate in all the lives that he touched here on this broken'ol world. I know that to be a fact.