Appreciating a Poet whose eye fixed on my own stomping grounds . . .

The poet is my friend - in the army together - roommates for a time in Seattle . . .
(I like personal poetry just fine . . . don’t saddle up unless you want a ride . . .)

He comes in like a tourist. He is not a stenographer and not a whirlwind,
but more s tourist who has walked the world
(where? - North Africa with Voorhies; Greece with Efferding . . .)
and talked (12-string guitar) over much of the Pacific Northwest
displaying licks of influences from Houston’s Beau De Glen Lipscomb and
other, more desultory artists (Berkeley, etc. perhaps - I am not versed in his biography) . . .

But, I am honored to be among those who can welcome his voice into my house as a guest.
And guest, while not quite right . . . interpreter . . . picture-taker . . . sage . . . maybe more apt.

Though he may have arrived as tourist, as guest, he has also flung his arms in a magic circle,
almost nostalgic, of recognition and acceptance . . .
like a hobo looking for remembered sustenance who finds instead
a feast, beyond the ken of mere memory, and sits with candor and care at the table of the host . . .
the perfect guest.

Peter may remain, more a guest than a citizen of the worlds he explores, but, if so, this speaks
more to the capacity of a human mind than to the temper of his poetry. He is a welcome guest,
at home . . . in the larger world.


Postlude: like Tocqueville, he may see us clearly, but not always with the same curved mirror
in which we see ourselves . . . though his view invites an expanding horizon,
a wider world than we most times expect to see . . .
he does not always see what we think we can almost see.