In the slickened shadows,
The sweet, green sugar
Candy-coated secrets
Of silent stone ghosts:
Hidden,
Patient.
.
In the soft, watery hiss
The fabulous eternities
Of sand and sky:
Returning,
Again.
Tag: rivers
A Solstice Remembered
I thought October would take the edge off.
After all, there’s no way this fickle light
and a few chance rains
Could turn my head any further.
.
Now the garden is all dead,
The light,
All left to morning now,
Just like yesterday,
And then again.
Please give me this solace,
Wanted and waited for,
Just this day.
.
Until you visit me in December,
With your gauze of reckoning
Perched overhead.
.
Then, I’ll remember the river,
All fog bound and sullen,
Bit by bit,
Tearing to pieces
The lives of nothing.
.
I hope your storms will roar,
Dark, dripping days,
Left with just a little ray of light,
Catching one more leaf,
Falling,
Into some forgotten cradle.
If you go down that way
The slick waters will hold you there.
.
Time will become afternoon’s fast,
Before it curses the evening.
.
There is nothing moving water cannot cure.
Slipping gently downhill.
.
I just love swinging that fly through water I know.
.
One fish took me five years.
The others came back-to-back.
On a warm October afternoon.
The next will be my life.
Daring to dream a death amongst cobbles
On a liquored blackberry evening,
When the wind disappeared.
.
Fodder for caddis,
And winter’s green water to come.
Winter on the Eel
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.
Visiting
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.
Central Valley River
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.
The Infinity of Real Numbers
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.
.
Rivers and Funerals
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.
Week of Dry Flies
When the weather watchers start to confer,
Be wary,
…..Be wary of day jobs, partners,
And farm animals needing attention.
The caddis only happen once
And this might be your best
Or last:
Should you be the fatalistic type.
Sketching the Klamath in November
The River is now a great bridge:
The one constant stretching morning
Across the entire day
All the while folding it,
Neatly
Gently,
Back into night.
.
In between:
Freshly poured green water,
Water of life,
Calling water.
Water that hides things
And
rarely reveals them.
.
Even the rocks revel in their newfound tones
Shining on their neighbors with the latest
Deepest
Hue of translucent
stained
Distant
blue.
.
Born of morning,
All the shadowed eddys,
Boxes,
And dark watching spots,
curiously,
Slowly,
Lengthen day’s best work,
In their icy stillness.
.
Dinner is jars of old elderberries,
And struggling greens, lost
Between the miseries of heat
And bugs and thirst
nearly quenched,
While seeing the path ahead,
Pitted, dense,
Still tough..
To where winter will set stride.
.
Cravings of sweets
in the soft, cloying dampness.
Chilled, but
cleansing.
All this:
From vistas of feet
on velvet landscapes,
To the endless jostlings,
Riding across this great bridge.
Shaken Rain 