Chrysemys picta

I disturb them, 

they know me first, boots squelching mud, winter twig and fern. 

How many pass this way unseeing 

as shell bellies and sun-bathed backs dissolve into empty log-in-river, 

no trace but a ripple now fading. 

I regret my trespass, 

my clumsy unskilled gait. 

Like a child out here, 

so much I don't know 

all feelings 

all scent and sight and sound— 

but thought, what use is thought in a place like this? 

This place is what it is, 

speckled foam passing and passing forever. 

From this promontory overlooking the river, 

I see I am what I am 

more bird and granite, pin oak and painted turtle 

than any law or creed. 

I sit surrounded by web, 

the chickadee chuckling at my predicament. 

He announces my place amidst dead beakrush stalk, 

igneous rock, 

river oak and river oats, sycamore and ground ivy. 

At first, I cannot see the web, and then it’s there, 

all around, sticking to me and I’m caught 

caught in the woven filaments of mind, 

invisible except by awareness' shimmer. 

But I won’t break the web. 

There’s room enough for mind out here. 

I simply let it be, let it shimmer in the wind as I sit, 

silent 

watching ripples and shadow, half light turned soft, 

as my dark reptilian self re-emerges to bask in late day sun. 

  

  

Eno River Walking: Visual Verse

Please click on the image above to enjoy a ~10 minute "visual verse video" I've put together which includes my own photography of the Eno River and local area, as well as myself reading my "Eno River Walking" poem. Enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

    

Following Bouyancy

floating in the Eno on a hot day ... ahhh

Naked in the Eno,
    hot day,
sun beating sideways on
silver ripples,
pale green leaves,
turtles toasting their shells
while I toast my pale skin
beneath the yellow eye.

Tufted titmouse and chickadee calling,
the slightest breeze soft kissing
my vulnerability.

Skeeter bugs skate on the river surface,
purple violets and spring beauty blossoms
crowd the river's edge.

Oh–

“Follow your bliss,” the wise men say.
      My bliss is out here,
squidging toes into riverbed sand,
as a slow slow tide washes over my body,
                          only me
                    only me here
with the rest of the world,
                           the wild,
the world far from any well-marked track.

I sink back into the current
legs lifting, belly to the sky,
hair drinking in brown water,
grown heavy

floating
breeze and river

my soul a dogwood blossom
caught in the wind,
carried away by this hot sunny day
and the cool relief of giving in
to the riverway

the river’s way of
       drifting
             ebbing
rapids here and there
but rare,
               wide, deep course
finding the down-hill path
                            down …
                down …
down

following
perfection

mind gone buoyant
soft in the current
where-ever gravity leads.

 

Carolina Spring

dogwood and chinese wisteria along the Eno

Four years
since I saw a Carolina spring,

Four years
since I saw the dogwood in bridal white
next to the redbud tree or woodland drifts of
daffodils perfuming the air with honey while
wild wisteria hangs like Dionysian fruit,
intoxicating the senses, heaven-on-earth.

Four years
since I kissed the faces of field pansies,
fingers aroused by mouse tail buds and silky
river flags, lady’s slipper and pussy-toes,
tasting the tingly tang of winter-cress,
cherry birch and woodland sorrel.

Four years
since I walked through a Carolina spring,
everything so … green!
greener than all earthly memory,
wanting to spend every moment out in the woods
or meadows along the Eno, or on Occoneechee Mountain,
staring as pine trees turn the world yellow with pollen.

Four years
since I heard the cadence of tree frogs
and birds gone mad with springtime–
robins vying for love,
eastern blue bird warbling out his relief that winter is past
as the Carolina chickadee cries in fast succession
“chick-a-dee-dee-dee!”
nuthatches stealing old woodpecker holes for homes
while blue-black grackles and crows argue for limb space.

This is the season for sparrow song and goldfinch,
tufted titmouse, red bird, and the meadowlark’s
“Spring-is-here! Spring-is-here!”
Oh there are birds, more birds than I could name,
birds in search of nests and safe havens,
who know their voice in the greater song of things.

My heart is like the sweet spring birds,
opening forth into full-throated rapture,
mind abandoning winter’s house,
gone feral, naked in the sunshine,
lapping up penumbral rain until
I am drunk, soul splayed out like
apple blossoms before the bee.

Four years,
and I’ve awoken as
Carolina spring.

  

 

Eno River Walking

Eno River in Durham, NC

 

This place with birds calling to one another,

the slow whir of river walking upon

age-worn rocks from another life,

red clay sinks down, accepts, slides,

green thorns covered with promises of spring,

snow like winter’s ghost melts into the earth.

The river runs and walks, then runs again,

as quiet eyes of trees observe

passing of time

passing of years

dropping their leaves down

sap rising

budding

shooting forth into fullness

the color and splendor of death

as falling leaves come anew.

But now, now their blood,

their heartbeat pumps stronger

after long, unconscious sleep.

The deer have eaten at bark and branch

during winter’s starving bite,

but now, now from roots

spread forth green blades,

speared desires for sun and air.

This place is open

and intimate

the pebbles and small shells

mingle together like brothers and sisters

at the river edge,

each stone a story past, each shell a life long gone.

This place with its tall trees,

buckeye and oak: white, blackjack and laurel.

This place with holly, rhododendron, sycamore,

white ash, maple and beech, the trembling beech,

walnut, pecan, wild thorn, alder and dogwood,

sourwood and ironwood, honeysuckle,

a thick array of river birch, cedar and hemlock.

This place with grasses, grasses and grasses,

moss and lichen, ivy, sumac and creepers,

shooting bulbs wild with spring’s coming day.

And pine trees, who could not mention the pine trees,

short-leafed pine in bunches with loblolly pine drooping down,

long-leaf pine that needs fire to seed, fire to be freed,

ancient giants that covered this place long ago,

pine-cones everywhere before deciduous trees took root.

A sparrow peers at me now,

querying my intentions in this place,

then carries on, moves along feeding off the ground,

dancing with a hop in his step,

his lover nearby,

their white breasts glimmering

beneath brown wings and

gleaming eyes.

I am breathless,

breathless

at this place,

at its rolling sides rising up into blue sky,

this valley, this river course,

this place of cosmic lineage,

about to awaken to Spring again

like all other years — yet unlike ever before.

The joy that fills me

reminds me of home,

tells me I’m home,

tells me to walk softly on this clay,

to slip with it and slide with it,

to feel the leaves, the bark, the dead grass, new grass,

smooth stone, volcanic etrusions,

woodpecker in the distance amidst creaking trunks.

I know this place in my dreams,

have known it for many years,

but this place is real,

this place breathes,

it lives,

carries with it memories

sinking in,

sinking into me,

seeping in like blood and breath,

like scent on the wind.

In this moment,

there is no me.

Woods, river, birds, shore,

the silent white-footed mouse staring at me from his hole

as he melts into grey rock light,

blurring his edges,

not mouse, but stone,

not stone, but mouse.

So too I melt

dissolve

blend into hues of green and brown.

I am earth and wind,

murmur of water as it kisses stones,

tree-creeper hopping, moving up bark paths,

wren in the distance shrieking his warning,

rising rocks emerge from the hillside,

winding their way along a river’s long walk

all this I am,

all this flows in me and through me,

the Eno River walking and running, then walking again,

part and whole,

whole and part.

This place is real.

This place is home.

Note: The Eno River is my native North Carolina watershed … the rocks here stretch back 600 million years and are very deep, not only in my mind, but in this place's psyche too.