A golden maple leaf
While falling
Tells the story
Of Spring, Summer, Autumn.
Dropping on yesterday’s wind,
Beneath clouds hanging low
Clouds hiding more mountains behind.
Soft hiss of light rain on water,
This river now whispers winter.
Down here
A quiet singing surrounds
Sounding like
Emerald velvet sliding
Over little slate pebbles.
Always afterwards.
And, with a pause,
A recognition,
Smack dab in the middle.
This is it!
Then returning,
Ascending maybe,
Into this intensely focused moment.
All around,
Quiet work takes place.
All these things, for now,
Hushed and hurried
In a purposeful way.
Everywhere there is movement.
And it’s just a moment
Passing too soon.
Breakfast with a side of grace, please
These things would have blackened
Like little drops of blood
Sprinkled in a flowerpot.
Becoming festering blisters
Across a life already too beautiful.
I would not have walked away happy.
Because you explained to me, gently,
In the most gracious way you could.
And I want to hear “Not yet”
And I cradle this idea in deep satisfaction.
As if something was won.
Because I know how to play it well.
Maybe I should think “never”
And hold this idea.
Because I do not understand
The full beauty of this life.
Not now. Not yet. Maybe never.
And in all of this,
I wandered upon something that I lost a long time ago.
Something forgotten almost, but still hoped for.
A friend tells me this is success.
And across a thousand years this is what I wanted.
This is what was forgotten.
Just that chance to be true.
No more than that.
Just that chance to be beautiful.
To shine on those flowers
In the only way I knew.
Yes that’s what I hoped for.
Outside,
The wind stirs the sand, uncovering those old dreams.
Those simple dreams buried deep in the flower pot.
The flowers there, now blooming so bright,
As the flowers gently sway in the wind,
How was I to know
That I would walk away fulfilled?
Can I hold your gaze a moment longer?
So I can fall into that place
Of your soft light.
Might I hold your gaze?
Then would you laugh
If you knew my thinking?
Would I find you there,
All of this
So close to me?
Just let me hold your gaze
And tell me what you see
[notes – trying to convey the notion that salmon and steelhead in the Pacific have largely evolved alongside the earth’s most dynamic landscapes – the Pacific Rim – this country beaten, shaken and falling apart is home to these great fish – I just wanted to get some preliminary thoughts down and work through it for awhile – much better reading than a journal article!]
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All along the coast
Great mountains rise
Up from Oceans
Falling from volcanoes
Rainier, Hood, Shasta
Just a few
And all those little creeks
Collecting water from the ocean
Pushing mountains back to the sea
Returned to their birthplace
Atop mountains carved by glaciers
Covered in lava
Shaken by earthquakes
Landslides, floods and droughts
Such a brittle country
Who would ever find a home
Here?
That little creek,
Here today
Going away with the mountain
Some great geologic clock
Returning all to the sea
Then upheaved, scraped and shaken again
And again from before our time
To well past our place
Who would ever be here?
By day
Her soft voice finds me
Leaving me craving
More.
Somewhere I remember this.
At night
Her soul breathing to me
Over a hundred lifetimes.
Again.
I think I knew you once
Unrecognized at first
Reminded
By her.
All this we played before
Between us.
She tells this story
And I wonder where I went.
DRAFT In progress………
In August,
we thought we had forgotten.
And upon arrival,
We realized we had to just continue.
“I will never leave you.”
Whispers old lady summer.
By September, a rhythm
Only upset by a single cold morning.
“Aren’t I beautiful?”
In October a hope arises,
None of this will end.
“Stand by me, my sweets.”
By November,
Moments can be perfect, fragile, then lost.
“Please, not now… Why?”
In December,
The last leaf falls
On a rising wind
And we hope we will never forget.
“Because we will meet again.”
Shaken Rain 