Here we are,my head rocked back,your hands gently unfolded,soft and creped, andlit by the sunlike paper lanterns. Here we are,combing spider websfrom our hair,like strings of silt,like the baleen of whales. Here we are,watching the osprey drift,wings rocking like the mast of a ship,our own feet sweetly stuck here,bathed in earth, in moss, in…
Tree spark,watching the red-winged blackbirdsail to the east,its warbling song like a raven I once heard in the desert.Tree spark,do you see me? Holding my hands up to you,stringing down your spirit the way rain falls into a river,the way moonlight falls in cupped palmsand is drunklike springwater?
Oak treesspread like coral inthe long danceas the crowswatch the edges, as theypaint shadowsover the riverwith their wings,and perch on branches sponged with lichen,calling the sun forthto their feathers.
River lighttuned to the sunstretchedlike pieces of spider silk, white over the blue shallow waterand glacial pools,the stones unraveled and caught in the duck’s beak,the heron,the osprey,the scrape of wings,the lines on the water,the intersection of bug and currentand fallen alder leavestumbling the waysnow catches on a hill,pumping along the threadthat ties mountain to…
Half-light,pulled close around the ferns,as I wade through dusk swamps of ivy,walking, rushing,swatting lace-webbed kingdomsdrawn between cedar tendrils, down to the base of the creek,the silver rush of mud and fallen leaveswhere the owl watches,her wings two striped archesunfolding silently into the air,an arrow bound for the soil,for the slick white back,wet with dew,of…
We chased the sun, its red hulked glow dipping into the mountains,the river running high, and overcast,spanning out at the place where the hills drift apart, and we caught the sun, up on the dark curve of a hill, over a field grown feral with winter stalks of queen-anne’s-lace, just as the clouds burned…
There you are,the feathered edge of the cedar, black and purplein this bloom of dark water. Together we hearthe rush of far-off wind,the trembling leaves,the gathered rain,flowing in small canyonson the bark,and with each gust I worry you might slip over my head that the flow of water might loosen your roots,and there is…
I walk through the foreston a drifting afternoon, and the near-solstice lightcuts through the ferns, painting them gold, painting the air silver,and I stop to listen to the single warble of a hummingbird,and to breathethe sun-touched air, when all at once the trees sway,the tilting dance, the pre-wind brush back,before the gust rolls through,and…
There is a cedar treewho I visit on each hike,and when it rains,the water hangsin its fine-woven branches,as though in a spider web–in small, clear globes,that reflect dark green fog,and licorice fern,and youth-on-age, and my own face, too, and the water running heavy through the creek,and the little brown birds jumping from one branch…
The clouds cling to the hillside,worn pink-redby the growing storm and the softness of sunset,and behind me the mountain hides beneath the riverin the sharp light of early duskin the clear, swirling air,as the first drops of rain drum and join the water.