Converting Cubic Centimeters as Life Lurch
One of the largest of my life challenges was converting cubic meters to cubic centimeters.
In 1973 I was prospecting in the Stikine Range of northern British Columbia as a blaster and geological assistant. My colleagues were college graduates in geology and they out-ranked me. I had no college education – I had picked up my rudimentary geology and geophysics knowledge on the job since 1969. My boss was Arne B~, a fine geologist and Geological Engineer. During previous prospecting seasons, he had advised me to go to school and get a degree to advance my career in mineral exploration. Read more
On Becoming a Failure
During my life I have been told: you cannot do this, you cannot do that. Such and such will not work. Nobody does that. Why can’t you do this the way everybody else does it? You will not succeed.
I was once told that I was a failure. Read more
Chanting Mantras
Several short phrases are essential to me. I first started to whisper them when passing through grim Berlin and Eastern Germany in 1985 – jerked by travel hassles; irritated by surly border guards; sore with love and life pains. Over the years the phrases have become adaptable; pithy but pliable. Read more
Junctions
Unheeded until
clicketyclack, switching,
come junctions, where our lines
combine and meet and apart Read more
Curses Into Pearls
WARNING – this post has rough language. If you are offended by coarse curse words, you will be offended here. Better leave now. You can always read one of my poems – there are smoother, genteel phrases amongst them.
I have worked in geology and engineering for nearly 40 years; mostly with men, in the field. By the field I mean the bush, taiga, tundra, swamps, mountains, jungle, drill rigs, construction sites and so on. You get the idea: rough, dirty places; not dainty offices. For the most part the men were rough too and they talked rough. I talk rough too, when needs be, or I forget my manners. Some would say rough words are “dirty words”. That’s OK; I am a dirt/rock sort of engineer. Read more
Before
Before, when sitting on rocks in the middle of a bubbling stream
we had thought of mountain brooks and mountain air
and parting.
So we loved.
Around us were trees, a blanket of black twisting twigs
through which the valley glimpsed
and others’ homes glimmered. Read more
