The old hipster church in the trees had long gone bad and soured.

It was a long time coming, alot of thought went into the decision,

But, really, you just turned and went,

Staggering down the path to the river bank.

I’d see you standing there, ankle deep in the cool water,

On a hot summer afternoon just as the breeze kicked up the valley.

You couldn’t hear the moaning procession that was soon to follow

From the trees, down the trail, and to the water.

Fortunately, you were long gone then.

The breeze had carried you off: like the last stammering wailings

Of tired parishioners fading into the evening woods,

never to be heard again.

I don’t see you there anymore,

But sometimes, in the morning, I hear the crack of a twig in the woods,

And wonder if you sit there,

waiting.

I walked to that place once, climbing back up to the high place

Where it once stood, and wondered if there were tears,

Did you hold them back?

Or let them fall to the water, to float downstream.

Or maybe you are now the song of birds, the orange of pumpkin,

The splashes made by moving water.

Maybe you are the cackling laughter from the old lady that lives in the shack,

Just around the bend.

Still trying to distill my mental sketches…. a bit redundant from the previous notes, nonetheless a work in progress….

Inland, the river bends broad and wide,

Giving way to a brief valley.

If you are careful, the soul of this place still lingers

Though it is hidden amongst a scattering of dwellings,

The kinds of dwellings that are added on to over the years

And either gather character, or become ramshackle

If you are not careful.

Wonder through here during the middle of May,

What hasn’t been said of Springtime in the valley?

Warm morning rain, light as a whisper,

Painting flowers across fields between the homes,

And sharpening the songs of birds.

But look closer and see an old tractor here and over there,

Rusted fossils of days when things moved here,

In the space between hard work and lazy sunday afternoons,

When the kids would skip stones across the river.

The metal-sided shop, banged, dented and dulled, surrounded in blackberry vines,

Only kept clear near a single door,

An oil stained opening to more rust, stories and passed toils.

Somewhere, in there, sometime,

Things just stopped,

But the smell of grease still lingers over

The tinge of mice and cobweb.

You don’t have to be careful in August,

The valley, it’s soul, is swallowed whole

By days of relentless sun and heat

That wilts blackberries into tangled, thorny masses

Covering once proud fences,

And soil baked into hard, aching sticker-ridden swaths

That will deny any invitation until the first cheating rain

Of late September.

Sun and heat that buckles metal, peels paint

And forgets the 16 days in May

When the soul of this place was able to pause

And exhale the long breath of relief.

The seed of a poem was planted while passing through the small valley flat that borders the river. I was taken by a sense that an old vibrancy still lingers here, but is continually swallowed whole each year. My sketches here aren’t intended to offend anyone, as this is a special place. For several days in May, spring gushes forth dotted with a warm, light rain in the morning that sharpens the calls of birds, brightens flowers in the grass and seems like this is the way it always should be. But today this seems an empty celebration, and echoes of old summers still rattle the metal siding of an old shop, once a celebration of new business, prosperity, hope:

When Friday night beers lasted into the wee hours,

Giving way to a lazy sunday, maybe church and an afternoon alongside the big pool where the trail runs down to the river bar.

Now, tractors, rusted fossil heaps of dreams of better days,

And the old metal shop building that will groan again

in the summer heat soon to follow,

Now blackberry vines reach, before they wilt and tangle their thorny grasp around rusted projects

Along with everything else, on hot, windless afternoons.

All this has gone forgotten, or left for other times and new places, or just stopped.

It’s hard to tell on days like today.

Soon, summer will surely bake the ground into a hard, aching cracked memory

Of the place we see today,

And the old shack at the back of the field, quiet today

Again. The residents might stir once or twice,

But, passing by, we can’t help but wonder if they too lie in tangled heaps

Of the memories of life, family and stories that once filled the valley.

Now, while the river still runs fresh and cool, they haven’t noticed, or woken,

still sleeping hoping that these days are a dream and the 16 days of May

are just the soft pillow to whittle away their time.

The circling song of a Swainson’s thrush

Signals summer’s arrival one drizzly morning,

Painting everything all at once,

Green and lush.

The mockery of their happiness lingered into the years

Long after the places they lived had blown away across the fields

I can’t remember the tree when I visited them then,

But now its heavy branches reach out, holding this place

In mid-summer, when the grass turns golden yellow,

When the old men change topics from weather to iced tea perhaps,

Someone lingers through the field, stopping here and there

And I wonder if they are standing on the places where the lives

Of an old couple passed through, holding hands, laughing,

Bereaving and all the things that get marked in subtle ways

And now cause people to pause in their steps and look across.

When the visitors came back from the field, their eyes are focused

But easy, in the way that walking across time can do.

Long before you turn westwards

To face the coming of storms.

Long before this time.

Lying there, huddled despair,

Curls of innocence,

You silken breath now on edge.

Long before you turn, lingering,

Holding the shadowy forgotten muses

The old exuberance of dreams

From a waking morning

When Spring and sun

Rang eternal promise,

And tingled joy.

Long before all this,

Let me hear your woes, regrets

And all the sinful exhortations.

Before you run pure

Into summer’s long eve.

The hard line of rain is drawn across the sky.

Marking the place where even the restless wake

From a sleep they so patiently waited for.