Poem stones on the waterfront of Bellingham's Marine Park "Here is sky! Here is ocean! Here is life! Listen." by Rick Hermann
While on one of my daily bicycle adventures through the vast network of Whatcom Parks, I happened on these thoughtful lines from a poem inscribed on cement blocks on the waterfront in Marine Park at Post Point in Fairhaven next to the Amtrak station and the Port Terminal building. It caught my soul with its message since this place has had a deeply spiritual/meaningful place in my life. It was written by someone I didn’t know that I knew who was connected to someone I did know.
Contemplation on the stones
Jumping the stones
The circle I’m thinking about comes to me from the poet whose lines are on the stones as a love tribute from his wife. I’ve always been intrigued by the stones and more lately their message. Rick Hermann and I had met years before in a bicycling program at the Y, but I didn’t know who he was until recently when his widow, our tai chi/qigong teacher, and I exchanged photos of the stones and our grieved loved ones; in her case her husband and in my case my parents. We got into quite a conversation about the meaning of things like that.
The moral to me in all this is that engaging with Rick in that cycling class would have gained us both a wonderful friendship - we had a lot in common, from surfing as kids to writing books as adults. Instead, we were like ships passing in the night.
I’ve taken photos of the stones for years, always looking for a new context for them - like the time my family put my recently deceased mother’s entire shell collection on the stones for anyone to take. That same day we sprinkled her ashes in the waters below.
My mother's shell collection left on a stone
Sprinkling my mother's ashes
The stones for us and for the poet’s widow became a means for celebrating lives before us and life itself.
To honor my mother, I had laid a lei I had just brought home from Fiji in the water about a quarter mile south down the railroad tracks near where my father had caught his “big fish.” As I knelt to place the lei, a seal appeared a few yards out. It stayed motionless and we stared at each other. I stood up and walked back to the park and the seal accompanied me the whole way.
Seal pops up behind rock.
Three years later when my father died, as per his wishes, we set out in a canoe to sprinkle his ashes at the spot where he caught the big salmon just down the RR tracks from the stones. But around the bend the water roiled, causing us to have second thoughts. As some of us turned the canoe around, those without paddles hastily sprinkled the ashes. Close enough for a December effort...
Family heading to Dad's fishing site
Warning to stay ashore that day
Heading back to shore, the best idea of the day...
The poet, Rick Hermann, was memorialized forever by his widow, Lee Willis, who convinced the Port of Bellingham to carve his words into the stones. He was a poet of note in Bellingham with several books to his credit, both poetry and prose.
Rick Hermann's story by Lee Willis:
About 10 years into Parkinson’s, Rick had to retire from his work in publishing at SPIE (Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers in Bellingham, WA) but his creative self didn’t retire. He continued to play music, write songs and he wrote five books. They were mostly poetry but also humor, short stories and a book about his journey with Parkinson’s.
Covers of Rick Hermann's books
In his last year or so he said that he wanted to go to the beach every day ~ he grew up surfing in southern California, his parents moved to Whidbey Island where he graduated from Langley high school. He swore he occasionally found “surfable” waves at Fort Ebey.
We went to the beach a lot, at least four or five days a week in those last months. He loved watching the evolution of the beach at Little Squalicum.
After he died, I wanted to put a bench there to honor him. It was not an option at the time. The last beach we went to (January of ‘23) was Marine Park and we both loved seeing that beach evolve as well.
I asked for a bench there and that was not an option either.
Then I looked at those cement blocks, and I thought about his last small collection of poems titled “ I want you to listen” ~ that title poem, written just a few months before he died was, to me, a celebration of his spirit and the way he strove (not always successfully) to keep gratitude at the top of a cup full of despair and sorrow.
Rick Hermann walking to the stones in 2022
It occurred to me one day that if I couldn’t have a bench, maybe I could have words from that poem etched into those blocks. I heard the answer “NO“ several times before (after uncharacteristic persistence on my part) I got a beautiful letter from the Port of Bellingham's Mike Hogan saying what a great idea it was.
Stephanie Wiley at the Port and I collaborated on details.
On October 22, 2024 it was completed and it just so happened (serendipitously!) that I was there.
I brought a copy of the whole poem, printed by Bayside engraving, to the Port office, asking if I could put it up in the picnic shelter - they did it themselves.
I am deeply grateful to the Port of Bellingham and I’m pretty sure I felt a fist bump and a high five from heaven.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Lee Willis and Rick Hermann were married for 40 years. They raised an awesome son and did pretty well with cats and dogs too. They shared a love of wilderness, music and poetry and truly appreciated each other’s passions: Rick’s of guitars and bikes, Lee’s of tai chi and qigong. Lee teaches qigong at the Bellingham Senior Center.
Lee Willis and Rick Hermann
Web manager Steve Giordano, past president of the Society of American Travel Writers, is a veteran ski and travel journalist & photographer whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television and many places around the Internet. He's written numerous travel books. Steve is the designer and technologist of HighOnAdventure.com and was the online and guidebook editor of SkiSnowboard.com. He can be reached at rsgiordano@gmail.com.
