If I could take the whole forest into my hand,
Tanoak, madrone, and the spicy essence
Of a lone fir tree,
And squeeze it out into a single drop:
The liquor of dark, damp soil,
Moss and rocks.
Then let this droplet flow carelessly
Down some small trickle of winter’s remains,
Gather it up,
Warm it gently,
And partake of the world,
This place,
A moment captured.
Suddenly, the leaves are all gone.
The storms gave ample notice:
Ignored.
.
The alders will now paint the day’s luster,
On a rare afternoon, posing
As a cruel cheat of Autumn,
Dripping spoonfuls of honey,
Across the big bends of a fresh river.
.
Evenings are still two months out.
.
Here, morning’s curfew still remains
As some lame excuse for the wind
Spoiling the silty corners
After the flood.
.
The easy drips from mossy rocks,
The rare percussion:
The work of silent, green water.
.
I’m trying so desperately
To soak this winter into my bones,
As the water draws lines,
And curves,
And the circles hide things.
.
I know the kids still lean over the bridge,
Peering,
Into the green water mystery,
Waiting to see the ghosts
Brushing against the emerald velvet
Of winter’s passing.
Outstretched into a warm, fetching wind that will define this winter.
Your arms,
Frustration and reaching,
One more time.
Your arms,
Grasping my lumbering, cold body
Shaking,
Pulled from a creek,
Thundering in flood.
.
Your arms,
Will soon hold me, bedridden and tired of the years,
Finally.
Your arms,
In April, as the sun’s hope returned
And I slipped easily into the familiar light,
Cast across us both in one last embrace.
There, at the far end of the long, ramshackle yard,
Where grandpa’s garden starts,
And the apricot tree:
Pilfered Mockingbird delights,
For us, the watch from a circle of chairs
Some Sunday afternoon.
.
But that was before the rain,
And the wind, and shuttered windows,
Only to peek, to scratch its belly,
We knew when to stay in
And dash out,
Before the water came
Or in between.
.
Then we were graced with the long showery spring,
Great stories I was since told, in thunder and sun,
While I huddled in fear of night and flashing sounds,
In the time of peas,
And chicken manured spring gardens.
.
The San Joaquin would run high that spring
Into the summer
When the first zucchini bloomed,
And we rinsed the last of the mud from our socks.
Like it always was,
Back there, where the water still was.
All these days start with hope,
Optimism,
And some serpentine skepticism
That stays put
While the water lies flat and glassy.
.
This valley fog,
Soured and pressing,
will harken feelings of home,
Summoning some seasonal, familial promise.
.
This is a cold morning:
River hosting winter,
Almost a thing of the past,
On the shortest day of the year,
Defining the deepest place of then,
Like the hottest sequestered August afternoon:
When, as kids,
We were shut in,
And left wanting for a calling evening breeze
Never to come.
Or, now, just a brief parting sky:
A blue never seen.
.
This is the Great Valley: Tethered in the cliche
Of fog
And heat.
.
In both:
Rain is forgotten,
In the wretched gossip,
That orchards will tell.
.
But here,
When the gentle boils of this big river
Still breathe steady,
The scope of years, lives and old people:
No matter how unreal,
Or long,
Turns, now, slowly into view.
They lived this,
And danced to the sound.
.
Hunker down, into this patient water,
Fish, sands and winter bugs still crawl.
Feel this breeze:
What should be gentle and pleasant,
Is biting,
Up along the fetch of a journey,
That is not ours,
But must be.
This chill is almost enough,
We should turn away.
.
Ultimately, though, this grey sky grabs me
Takes me,
Stretches me,
Into the fading call,
Of a day that just got started.
.
Postnote: this could be the San Joaquin, the Merced, the Tuolomne, the Mokelumne, the Feather, the Sacramento, or a whole host of small streams that drain the west slope of the Sierra Nevada. All these rivers regain their magic during magnificent California winters and were once home to people that lived in a truly splendid place now fading into a soon-to-be-forgotten glorious past.
Home is where the water runs from the hills.
Across the low, grassy plain lies a river,
Some great promise,
Wandering easy,
While storms pass over.
.
I remember this,
Scrambling through the intricacies
Of sculpted earth:
A dinosaur sailor,
Piloted by the distant empty,
Blind to the piercing stillness.
.
This river goes to where it came from,
And back again.
Watching from the hill,
Or floating through the soft boils,
The sun always casts the morning,
The creases,
Breaths,
Shadows,
Stones,
Mud, squeezing between toes,
Drying into the dust
That will soon color the sky gold.
.
Gosh,
How the hydrology seeps back out of our bones,
Pouring across landscapes gone silent,
And waiting.
.
This is the way way it used to be,
Like some song playing in the corner juke,
When bars crowded early
And left well before closing.
.
This storm won’t give you resolution
Not yet,
Years will go by
Until the sun sets on a foggy bottom land
In the stalest of latest possible summers
When water is again a pastime,
As the next wind blows:
Turning heads, and raising the mutterings
Of those who still live out there.
A bathtub faucet buys time
With a drip, into an undrained tub.
A sound that will dapple the other room,
For those who have the patience to hear.
.
Like old days come to visit again,
Now the dampness will live here,
For a good long while, Defining
Hopefully
This place and this time.
Soon, the waves of hungry cold
Will take the leaves,
Peaches, pears, finally the apples.
Always the last apple.
.
Released, now
To a brief ease of playing in a fickle sun
Soon covered by the gauze of quick rains.
Rains that sneak through,
Leaving grand dripping choirs
And the late night sounds of wet soil.
.
The day opens to waters passing,
And the joy of new light.
The world tilts far enough now
Where summer is almost a secret,
And lifetimes can easily pass in the still air.
.
During our walks, then,
Over brilliant orange, gold and new sky,
Her sadness came to be:
Neatly placed
Into the yielding grasp
Of a freshly fallen maple leaf.
Then, sealed into a shiny blue envelope:
Scribbled on,
When short notes were a thing
Of long Sunday afternoons.
.
Moving water is still great at counting time now,
And will soon lap at the stone steps
Of a clapboard church out there,
Hosting the wailing choirs
Of straggled people turned sane again.
Shaken Rain 