Tag: rivers

A Solstice Remembered

~ SamF

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

~ SamF

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

~ SamF

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

~ SamF

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

~ SamF

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

~ SamF

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

~ SamF

 

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

~ SamF

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

~ SamF

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.

The Elusive 5th Dimension

~ SamF

.

.

.

That threads it all together

.

.

.

Can words match it?

The way letters are cast into thoughts

And they grow from there

Spiraling into new places

If thoughts could occupy space.

And maybe time can bring us closer?

Like visiting our birthplace

Where the vistas remain

But the ground is changed.

.

Help us all

All of us help

Forge letters into

Ideas

That are rivers

And life and movement.