A Body of Water

16

The Weeds

My life has been a series of losses Like the loss of water from a cove at low tide That leaves behind certain things on the flat That couldn’t be seen under the water

~A rock path to an island ~A sand route to a beach

And when the tide comes in, I always notice How the seaweeds lift and sway

My life has shown me mostly how to watch things How to marvel at weeds At the way they grow anywhere At how they heal you And how they taste good

Māra

My friend PJ is sitting on the deck of a closed down cabin with me, looking out to sea The deck boards grey and flaking, carpenter ants coming out, an osprey overhead with a fish oriented straight into the wind, as they know how to do— PJ pulls up his shirt easily Like the college athlete he was Green eyes, freckles on his back, long hair, a calm gaze, some sadness He shows a tattoo about his dead father Who drank himself to death

The osprey circles And a plane carrying a rich islander across the sun shades us for a moment— And the waves come in And we talk about relationships, how they are like water— all around us, but we don’t think about them, they shape our life, and we shape them, like water and they are something that will always be there until they aren't, like water. But you can’t go long without water And you can’t see the water for the water And the waves come in.

The edge of a few broken off spruces breaks off where the water meets the edge of a hill, but farther down

The edge of the water that slowly turns this island into rocks, into stones, into pebbles, into sand is lower down

The black ducks, the shearwaters, the loons, the eiders, cormorants and guillemots all laugh and sing Out on the cove below they dive, following fish The ferry goes back and forth, ferrying people and rigs over the crossing And in the sea-distance, two rocks rise: “the sugarloafs”

Everything is named and known But the horizon still glows The air warms, and light refracts And comes down to eye level

The heat of the rough deck The scent of salty air The sound of the waves— We were that day Two people breathing, talking talking about water.

Salmon River, south of Mt Hood. 2016.

18

Forgetting

I walked down to the pond I called into the woods A spruce in the dark! Topped with an owl Who flew into the distance

The water did not move The air stayed still My voice echoed back From deep in the trees Between call and echo I sat on a rock I forgot who I was

19

Thirty Years II

A storm blows in Rain begins to rap The metal roof above head Turning on the stove In the midsummer storm To make boiling water To pour on old dried roots To make the water A little better

20

For the rest of summer

I burned a mullein stalk on a fire for a pagan torch. Waves came in, then stopped. Pine bough, bough of cedar. Wild rose flowers bog of black water.

Sat on shore, like other people have for a very long time. Walked back in the moonlight with no light wild with evening calmness.

21

Goose River

From the cove I found a trail inland Scared up a wild guillemot who’d been sleeping on a sandbar. Walked slick rocks, ducked fallen trees Climbed a chalk cliff Made my own switchbacks— Legs covered in white dust.

There’s always a trail on into trees, spruce birch keep going it only gets better.

Further down trail broke following the deer through wet ground to the stream Water flowing through narrow splits in the rock. And this old life more than a quarter gone— it makes me laugh!

A bag of bones; a pile of stones —sat for a while on the white pine root-arm at waters edge.

There’s always a trail on into trees, or grass spruce, birch, or oak

Where are you? Where you are.

Keep going it only gets better.

22

Hands of Mind

What I’ve written so far is writing Even if nothing else, it’s writing I’ve written I’ve written about it here, about life and other things I’ve thought and seen About what I’m trying to figure out, about staying alive, not giving up I’ve written it because if I don’t it only exists in my head And I would like it to exist in the world Because I have thought a lot about the things I’ve written and I’ve had time to think about them because I have given myself time, above everything else And the money-work I do doesn’t require my mind Just tuning my hands once in a while, a kind of relaxed attention And the mind can wander and look around Smell and taste from memory Finding old things Turning up interesting stuff And then use the hands to write it out, because that’s what matters Not that it stays inside, but that these thoughts escape into the world where they can live in the wild Take root in other minds, move other hands in other ways Make bodies go outside, dig in dirt, smell soil, make tea from plants Live in the woods Make hands and bodies dance together, hold each other, realize their beauty Realize their beauty Realize their beauty and their simple truth

23

Loss

Three coves Breaking water Low tide Nothing left Tide rhythm starts Flows and sways A sail dips Below low rocks exposed By lack of water No kingfisher today Fall asleep under an aspen While noseeums bite the blood out of me Spiders crawl across my arms Whatever happens, happens

24

Gybe

To change from one tack to the other away from the wind, with the stern of the vessel turning through the wind.

I saw a seagull Drifting above the water I watched a dragonfly hunting mosquitoes Picked a strand of grass, picked my teeth with it Watched the wind change by the color of the waves Felt the fear and pain I'd held for so long Lift

Saw a boat headed straight out to the farthest island gybeing into the wind past shoals Ankle deep in the water, I had climbed down on the rocks How did I even get there Where am I where I am?