INTRODUCTION:
Jake’s paintings and Ken’s poems are a delight for me to present to you on the Nester blog. Even while living lives quite distant from each other, these cousins’ lives intersected several times geographically, intellectually and spiritually. Jake early on joined Ken on the troller Lady Fay on a trip to Alaska and in later years, Jake spent time with Ken and Nancy on the Christian. Both Ken and Jake were Lutheran pastors and that, at times, was a bumpy road for each of them. They shared some of the same doubts and also shared similar beliefs about this earth, God and how humans ought to behave while living on this earth. What is maybe most important is that each was a unique human being and left us with cherished memories of their lives.
Tim
Thanks to Susan Olson & Dave Olson for providing the images of Jake Thompson’s paintings.
GHOST BOATS
SEA MOTION
up up up
profound swells follow
storms rising regal
heights sinking somber
depths smooth distances
lengthening slowing surging
pulsing never ceasing
down. down. down
THE HUMAN SPIRIT
Sounds and rustlings heard in the earth:
Capillary music of fluids and movements
of musky things –
Feelings are appearing, life forms frightened
and beautiful, pushing up.
Restlessly touching and searching,
Questionable natural (wasted, deadly, overreaching)
. . . in love hesitantly and creating meaning.
TROLLER UNDERWAY ON A CALM SEA
MY NAME
my name is coffee
in the focsle of
a little troller
named Lady Fay
laying on anchor
in a harbor
named Little Daykoo
where the little geese
come to peer
sideways.
Dance of leaves
in wind and
rain
morning butterflies
floating through
my brain
ALONE NEAR THE BREAKERS
Have you heard the sound of the sea
off Cape Addington
Where the great mother ocean
heaves her breast out
And the stellar lions splash
under the August moon?
Running fast and deep
following a trace
Twenty fathoms down bright
golden-backed salmon
weigh thirty pounds.
I dizzy and delighted to hear
the song of my lines.
A SLOOP HEADED OUT TO SEA
PASSAGE
These morning breezes!-Blessing drowsy senses,
Shaggy unkempt firs and cedars waving
Incensed wakening branches while fiery rim
Of sun spays fireworks blinding tints on heights
To reach before I die. A bell rings!-How many times?
Could I count them if I tried? Should I live
To be a million, shall I know the hues
And faces on my white woven cloth shall leave
Their traces? Shall I lay again at rest, sleeping wonders
New performing, dreaming, watching, faraway places.
Stars and planets with their infinite spaces –just so
And this way? And when I from them awake, shall I
Draw again from dancing colors dawning splendor
This poet’s pilgrimage of passing nature.
EVENING SONG
A day’s done with truth and love seeking,
ended wearily, gratefully in hope of new beginning.
Only the angels of heaven rejoice in the goodness
others share.
Now an ether of creation breathes wisps of memories;
the sun’s lingering light touches tenderly
incorporeal mountains burnished rose golden
in delicately tinged anticipation of slumbering meaning.
May the queen’s mantle rest gently covering, so carefully
protecting so human, so generous and faithful
a heart resting, faintly yet pulsing in
in harmony with beauty of goodness.
Peacefully, quietly now sleep till love again wakens,
calling for you to be there.
To read previous SALMON JOURNEY V – click here
Thanks so much for this lovely post. It is wonderful how they seem intertwined….the paintings so much describe the poems and opposite also true.
As for Jake’s visits….he indeed did go fishing on the Lady Faye with Ken as told to me by Ken….but as for visiting Ken and Nancy on the MV Christian…Jake did not make it up there during Ken’s life and regretted not having done that…so when we took the boat to Nichols Brothers to have the new Engine installed….Jake came aboard and made the trip aboard from Everett to Wrangell…and what a trip it was. We also had a crew of high school Church youth coming along to do helping events for others…and Jake entertained them with song accompanied by his guitar playing and stories. He so much loved that trip. He would sit out on the aft deck and smoke his pipe with a red bandana around his head and laugh and sing and take it all in. He told me lots of stories of the Olson’s and Thompsen’s lives and what it was like for them as pastors, as kids and about life itself.
So happy to have these reminders of just how special both of them were as humans, as people., as for Ken, the Love of my life. Thanks, Tim.