Recorded in a Haze of Aspen Saplings – For Len Switzer

Today is the memorial of Len Switzer.

Often, I find myself thinking of Len, his sweet spirit, his buoyant soul, his soft and kind presence; then, immediately, I think of Rianne, his partner, her sorrow, a hole of inconsolable depth, then later I wonder, perhaps some memory is flooding her, recalling for her the gift of intimate friendship, companionship, partnership with Len, only she had. The other morning, I read this line in a poem: “All things are eternally present in time and nature,” and remembered how soon — in a dream or otherwise — Len came to comfort Rianne, and is “eternally present” with her. In her ocean of grief, her sea of memories, images, scenes, “all things,” enveloped by the deep love they both shared, still share.

The following is a poem from several years ago that Len liked: He wrote to tell me, “Love this quiet reflection…carried me back to similar memories of a childhood long forgotten.” 

Recorded in a Haze of Aspen Saplings

Above the cliffs along the Jaun de Fuca strait are patches of prairie,
and when you walk beside the Meadow barley, Nodding onion,
and Nootka rose, you nod to the spirits within, in recognition
of a bone-deep bond with the grasses, forbs and shrubs,
that still green your prairie blood, where as a boy, you ran,
arms outstretched, through shoulder-high wild rye.

You were called into the silver tunnels of willow and buffaloberry,
knelt, as one knighted at the Indigo Milk Caps, sailed a scrap-lumber
frigate, held fast by spike and rope, through battalions of bullrush,
their velvet heads bursting up small clouds of down.
Coyotes held your head above sleep in windless nights,
and tri-toned trains poured songs into sedge-lined skylines.

Your birth is recorded in a haze of aspen saplings, near a bend
on the Battle River, where swallows of mercy inhabit a mud-chinked
log house that stands as a cenotaph to the mothers and fathers,
their hard long hours, where windrows of scrub brush burned
far into winter, where moldboard and share, cut sod, bled
summerfallow, and bouts of drought and blankets of hail
gave way to a red barn, white chickens, and bins of barley,
where a pine-trimmed home saw the coming and parting of children,
all dreaming of voyages beyond the bush-belted yard, where now,
through some trick of time, you walk among the bright spirits
of goldenrod, blue stem and sagebrush, listening
to the drumming angels of the great plains,
radiant with a joy you can’t name,
and a peace in full bloom.