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As you all probably know, if not read, I visited Crater Lake last month for the second time in my life. It was the first time I touched the water. Which to me, makes it the first time and a spiritual experience of belonging.

Oregon is my home, and I want to know every facet of it. From the coolness of the waters in Crater Lake to the grain of sand under the gaze of Haystack Rock to the wildflower embrace along the slopes of Mount Hood.

These are all the big things, however. And for all their majesty, they have not provided a setting as cool as Whitehorse Falls along the North Umpqua Highway. It was at this place that a friend and I found a sufficiently damp spot, set up a camera, dipped our props, and burned.

Later, as I watched the footage, I was struck by the sense that it was a clean burn with very slips. Those that did occur were covered by grace and a smile. To cut it would have been a disaster. To cover it in music would have been impossible.

There was no music playing when we recorded. The only melody was the droning timbre of water falling, rapid and rushing to join, the northern fork of the Umpqua River. To cover that in music would have been unconscionable.

But what to do about giving this video some audio spice?

Well, the Friday after this experience at the falls, I was at a little private festival near White Salmon. While there, my friends told me how much they enjoyed my “Bubbles” poem and video and encouraged to read more. Not to just recite the words, but to read and feel the poems themselves.

It was a liberating experience, and it revealed a truth: the poetic lyrics I write are not an expulsion of an inner thought, but the extension of the inner self. However cringe or unvarnished or saccharine they may be.

I feel them. And to deny them their place and power as I read through them again, would be to deny myself my own purpose.

So that’s what happened: I wrote a new poem, inspired by this new spirituality found in both the land of Cascadia and the deed of being a fire performer called “A Prayer Roll.” I paired it with two other poems I wrote this summer that spoke to what it means to possess and what it means to be caught in loops.

And I loved the end result.

It may not be perfect but is an answer to a conundrum of my creative flow. One that has often felt like I was just managing my writing, photography and flow art impulses rather than manifesting them into one cohesive whole. In particular, writing had come to dominate my creative efforts. It’s been taking up more and more of time each day as I work on the poetry, the journaling, the short stories.

As that happened, the joy of photography took up less and less of my time. I haven’t stopped doing photography–I’m always bringing my camera to the function–but there was a moment this spring as I worked on the cherry blossoms posts, that I realized how much I missed video editing; how it scratched a different type of itch.

One that wished it had some field recordings of the sounds of people walking down the Waterfront. This was only confirmed later, when I put together Bubbles Popping in Slow Motion.

To that end, I’m committed to making more short films. Little slice of life documentaries. These future Casual Cameras short films are not always going to be about me spinning my stick, but there will be more poetry. There will be stop-motion scenes and documentaries of caterpillars.

No, seriously, I got about 1000 photos of a single caterpillar from Bird Creek, I’d be remiss not to write about him.

The general rule of thumb I’m keeping is that if it exists under five minutes then it’s a Casual Camera. If it ranges above that, then a Casual Camera will be made for a preview version, and any behind the scenes stuff will become a Patreon Exclusive.

Those longer short films may be more of a quarterly event, but I do want to make them and release them as they happen.

So with that said, Casual Ramblers, I present to you all the new and improved Casual Camera, starting with “A Prayer Roll.”

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A Prayer Roll

Discard the old gods, depose the masters,
Shake them all off: the withering leaves,
The ancient stones, the decrepit these

And pick me up gentle, ready for what still comes

For I am your eye and you are my see,
For they are the falls, but we are the stream
And together that is all we will need

So pick me up ready and take another breath

For if you are my breath, then I will be your lung,
And if you are my lung, then I will be your breeze
And if you exhale me, then you I will breathe

For if you so were, then I would so be

For if you were my staff, then I would be your chi
And if you were my chi, then I would be your roll
And if you rolled with me, then your prayer I would be

For if you so are, then I will so be

Pray with me like so and let us burn
A branch of leaves unwithering
Burn with me like so and my wicks
Will be the only stones you carry.

Possession

This is my temple now, this mark atop the brow
This knife, that tissue, this hand, those fingers too,
These levies collected on shoulders by brown eyes lashing you

My fur light, feet nude, hands callous, clapping sore,
Let dirt be my cloth, be my glove, be my shoe,
But be not mine as I gambol with flame and roll with you

My staff works ground to cradle where boughs break two
Ere their jealous arms hid the sun, stars and moon,
Your spindle limbs weave fire, flying rope dart into festoon

Then stir cauldron as my hands turn to paws
Pacing with cats eyes, balancing rod above neck
Who is to say this must end, who but you could cure me sick?

So hold me, take me to your laurel eye and crown
Closer now, let ears lay where words will stay,
Weary from the wild waltz that Pan’s new flute had come to play

And whence day breaks hold, let it find aftermath
Let it find footprint litter of bacchanal passed
Let it find syrup words and surface burns
We left to shine and dry upon the blades of grass

All the easy metaphors are gone

written before I knew
how to write this song

all of them snatched by someone
else’s pen

each a sun set in silver, left to luster
and grow old
in sepia tone

all of them photographs taken
or at least
i thought i did

but try as they might, the old words
never compared

to the roasted chestnut chocolate
perfections
that you wear

or the way your confetti charm
laughter lilts
to my ear

i lower my hand, open palm, to find
nothing but air

or at least I thought I did

and now the grass is wet from dew
i thought was yours ‘til
the page came to view

splotched and splashed and shuddering
to think we’d try

to catch something as feral as the days
and claws and paws
of a wanton child

running fire through woods and
stacking branches high

for mountain flames climbing tree sides
shooting sap and
exploding pine

then settling as we ran, rushed, rapid
to the next pile

struggling to make it all rhyme

but as the years rise and the days die
i can’t help but find
myself running again

through some long trodden dell
with a stick

that i fully intend to burn like hell
collect the ashes
and mark a poem

or at least i thought i did again.

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