Sense of Place - Unspoken Poetry - Silent Music

View from Crutcher’s Bench

Last night poet Paul Keller and musician Will Frank entertained 50 or so fortunate mountain dwellers at the Rendezvous Tap Room in Wemme, Oregon. Paul, who is well known in these parts as our mountain bard, has had works printed in auspicious literary journals but there are no collections of his work. Thus, chances to experience these rich words, evocative of our mountain land, its four-leggeds, its winged ones, are rare gifts enhanced when read by the artist.

This was my first experience of Will Frank’s voice and guitar accompaniment. The songs were folk/country with a little blues and one joyful piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. Most used verse and humor to celebrate living this mountain life and the magic of our corner on this earth. Several were original. Frank’s full voice and flair with acoustic guitar were captivating.

                                                                       Paul Keller

Keller and Frank planned and delivered an evening that celebrated Mount Hood and the human and creature communities that populate its western slope. Year round mountain dwellers with roots at least forty years deep made up most of the audience. At one point Frank mentioned that some of his songs would seem utterly different, perhaps meaningless, to non-residents.

                                                                   Will Frank

I understood most references in Paul’s poems and Will’s songs, although by mountain standards, I am a flatlander transplant. I first visited this area in 1967, which is when my unrequited love affair with this place began. In 2001, I joined this beloved point on earth as a full time resident.

There was an unspeakable power that occurred in that room on September 15. And here I charge on in and try to describe that which words cannot possibly convey. That room was filled with people who know this mountain and its valleys and rivers, big cats and coyotes, ravens and stellar jays, old growth and peckerpoles, its very bones and stones. We know it, hold it, and love it in ways fierce and soft with all the in betweens.

Last night the "Vous’s" Tap Room was filled with people whose love was requited. The room held silent magic. Ignited by Paul’s verse and Will’s tunes, we became a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.

(This event was sponsored by Tom Anderson and Kathryn Bliss, who own the Rendezvous, and conceived of and organized by Sandra Palmer, co-owner of Wy’east Book Shoppe and Art Gallery, located next door to the "Vous." Our community has got fingers and toes crossed that the event benefitted both businesses and so there will be many more).