From Single Drops to Ocean Tides
The tallest mountains, the deepest valleys
Not Everest nor the canyon they call grand;
To find these you must follow the ancient rhythms;
To find these you must leave the land.
========================================================================== Water
single drops dripping
one
at
a
time
then faster
more drops
filling cups
filling pans
filling buckets and basins
overflowing
running downhill
becoming rivulets
then streams
then creeks, digging in
becoming rivers,
rushing
rushing
wider
deeper
faster
finding the edge
and
plunging over
into an ever-widening pool
of calm
then on
in a peaceful meandering
to the sea
joining the greater rhythms
holding up
a ship with billowed sails
sailing
these
waters...
Snowflake
A piece of magic drifting down
Released from Queen of Heaven's crown
First, to be a star dark-night
To bring you peace with its strong light.
Then, when winter days are bold
They say the stars burn out, turn cold
But what the scientists don't know
Is that they come to earth below
As snowflakes, to glisten and delight
As flowers by day
And stars by night.
12/23/98 s.m.chisam
Treasure Hunt
Walking over rocks in the streambed
two hands clasped together
alright alone
stonger together
Discovering treasures
in the waterfalls
Smooth rounded river stones
of gray and white and red
with rich dark obsidian
nestled darkly between
richly grained blue and green shale
with sparkling bits of white
Carrying our treasures home
Our eyes meeting often
discovering more treasures within
amber and dark green and black,
dark green and blue and lighter green and black,
sparkling reflections
of emotions spilling over
Such treasures there
Just to reach out and share
If you take the time
to begin to know
the waterfall.
February 9, 1997
Silver Falls
Birds wheeling and dipping
then hiding
baring their souls with a song
Mosses cool green and dripping
tall trees dressed in summer greens
green mansions, cool emerald hallways
deep granite canyons
framed by staggering waterfalls
and laced with others
winter falls
delicate,
lacy as a snowflake
hidden at the top
spread out at the bottom
like a lace train
for a wedding dress
middle north falls
cascading over the edge,
full front but sides like the trickle over mosses of a Coleman painting
walking behind the falls, reaching out to feel a slow drop,
hiking onwards and feeling like characters in a Tolkein novel
for surely these must be the very falls
where frodo was sheltered just before he met the fair Galadriel
In Lorien, and was witness to so many events,
like the wedding ceremony of Arwen and Aragorn?
Drake Falls
would be a bigger waterfall
if it weren't surrounded by giants
double falls
almost like paradise
falling into an oval bowl, then becoming one of so many creeks
which fill the canyons with their music
north falls
from the overlook
is impossibly beautiful
like a postcard
or a video of some island retreat
yet it is reachable
and lower north falls,
thought to be the lesser,
is equal in its beauty
as it makes rainbows all day
and has room under its falls and liliputian lagoons
for sprites to play
south falls
to sit on the sandbar
and look up up up at the falls
that you just walked behind
and then to let your eyes follow
the frothy white water down down down
into the emerald (really it was that color, I think) water
or to sit on the perfect log
on the far shore
and lean back on its human smoothed surface
where so many must have sat or lain
contemplating leaf and branch and sky and water and rock and sand
and the water music.
summer 1999 smchisam
Bridal Veil Falls
White and silver lace unfurls and cascades down from
Bright misty glowing backlit summit
like cool windblown rain down and across
the rising silver-black layered cliff face
Giving birth to moss and tree lined arches ramps and ridges
Wind-tugged garlands of white water,
rushing down to encounter
at the bride's feet
strangely mammoth lichen-covered boulders
play houses for the children of her many seasons
Then they pause, it seems,
and part the misty veil
before flowing out slow and spreading
in her gracious white silk train
slowing and spreading into broader pools
over sparkling white stones and golden glitter silt,
among thickly rooted and carved islands of earth,
beneath rippling tree shadows and sparkling sunlight...
Then the graceful farewell as they pass beneath stonework bridges,
arching solid and gracefully over the rushing streams
where the gracefully branching arms of the friends
of the bride and groom
toss green and golden good luck leaves
all along the path.
3/2000 smc
Lake in Winter
The lake in winter has many faces...
Furious angry waves
thundergods beating a pattern
Into the sandy shore,
destroying all in their path...
Capricious caplets of waves
dancing in the sun;
earthbound stars
flaunting their sunlit tiaras...
Becalmed
too perfect reflections
a mirror
a looking glass
into another dimension
and our faces
our reflections
in its mirror
looking into depths of green and blue
---------------------------------
The River
I am the river.
I am
wind-rippled
bolts
of shining silk,
unfurled,
tumbling,
coursing,
then smoothly settling
over stone and bark,
catching gleaming sheets
of gold and silver sunlight
on my rolling surface.
The day transforms me!
From white-marbled veins
of pink quartz,
weaving ribbons
through golden
silty depths,
to shifting
swells
of deep indigo
within rich
jade
arabesque,
to scattered layers
of shimmering diamonds,
tossed upon flowing,
dark,
obsidian-ringed fractures.
I feel the great
lumbering
leaps and splashes
of a bear,
fur wet
and hanging heavy ,
dripping from my waters,
black moist muzzle
swaying from side to side,
as a thick paw
wipes up a bright
lashing salmon.
I feel the softer muzzle
of a black tailed deer,
antlers reflected
in the calm waters at my shores
as the amber morning sunrays
spill across his back.
My sparkling blue-green swells
crash and tumble
with white
pluvial
effervescence
over thirsty hot jumbles of granite,
over diverse grasslands
spread beneath bright
cobalt skies,
over canyons
where Brother Hawk
slowly circles,
with his soft downy feathers
the color of thick cream,
with his long wing feathers
the rich colors
of autumn leaves.
Beneath him,
bright yellow Spanish broom
and pale pink tamarisk
grace my shores,
sending their blossoms
along with me
like intrepid explorers
of the riparian woodland.
And in the cooler
shadowy shallows,
my mellifluous layers
whisper and fold
past smooth
stacks
of stone,
Stones
covered by emerald green moss,
Stones
covered by golden amber lichen,
Stones
where the sounds of Cricket and Frog
mix with my own.
Into the quiet,
I pour forth my music,
for the rooted, grassy, muddy bank,
for the melting
riverbed
stones,
for the draping, backlit, shadow green,
thick-limbed, lichen-covered trees.
My fingers lap
and splash
in quiet dripping reverie,
my percussion notes going
down
down
down,
pounding deeply into pools
my reverberating melody.
I play my music for the darting fish,
for the warm rising wind,
for hot canyon walls,
and cool cavern floors.
I play my music for wet fur and claws,
for keen eye and wide wings;
I play it for forested green slopes,
and for mirrored
cerulean skies...
And all these
play their music
for me.
And when I am teeming with life,
my song tumbles and roars,
thundering and stirring the air,
swelling and carrying,
echoing with gratitude
the exuberance of the sky
where raven-winged clouds
rumble
and flash open,
pouring and pouring
their torrential gifts
down to me...
My journey
is from birth to death,
from vernal spring
to emergence
with the sea.
From dripping
curling
banks
of warming ice
and snow...
or from the stillness
of a softly lapping
cradled pool,
I make my first
small
crawling
movements,
learning to slowly rise up
and flow over
and around,
sleeping
to the lullaby
of young
wind-swept
grasses,
singing my first
songs
to Lilliputian
white
star flowers.
Time passes
and the days grow longer.
In the folly
of my willful headstrong youth,
feeling my growing
strength and power,
I etch my signature
onto hillsides,
carve my graffiti
into canyons,
and jubilantly
make my own way.
Time passes --
I join with others,
making a larger mark,
bringing relief from the droughts,
learning the cycle of life,
flooding over
and giving birth
to new rivers.
Larger and larger,
but always a part of the whole,
bearing bits of life,
I plunge in ecstasy,
falling in cascades
over rocks
and into pools,
discovering life's
secret joys.
Time passes --
And I wind my way
back and forth,
meandering now,
broad and lingeringly slow,
expanding my coarse from side to side
over the spreading plain
whose very soil
I have chipped and carried
from the mountains.
I am less hurried now
to reach my destination,
and I seem largest,
and most powerful,
just before I plunge
into the salty waters
of the sea
and finally become one
with all.
Then......
I become mist,
rising...
rising...
rising...
With only a brief glance down
to where I have left
the memory of myself
between the gray stones,
I become cloud:
cirrus, stratus, cumulous,
my raven-winged edges
flashing and crackling,
I tango with the sun
and waltz with the moon,
sending my soft, percussive thunder
rumbling across the heavens
as I join the exuberant celebration of life
and pour my torrential gifts
down...
down...
down...
to the river.
Dream in Blue and Silver
Like a deep blue afghan against the chill of the fog,
The tide comes in, her white fringes tickling the
Sandy rocking chair of the coastal zone.
Back and forth,
Back and forth she rocks,
Memorizing images and sounds in the night:
Silver moonlight reflects on brick red steel cables
Bright enough to cast their shadow on the slow-moving
Chariots on the sturdy span.
The sound of a low boat whistle blows from out past the shore
Unseen by all but the silver eye,
Two lovers walk,
hand in hand, between the dark green of the park
and the edge of the blue darkness
beyond the bridge.
s.m.chisam1999
Thunder on the Hill
I am the hills above the rocky headland
beloved of the sea
and it crashes and twists and turns at my shores,
connecting me and washing over me
sometimes with turbulence
sometimes with a calm placidity
but one night
upon my rocks
when I expected only the calm surging of the water�s white foam
over my toes
there came a storm of such magnificence
that it resonates still
on every hill
in every valley
on each plant and
in each grain of sand
on my slopes.
The storm started way off
In the summer blue sky, in that twilight sky
and the clouds piled high with energy and longing
and cloaked me in their soft gray blanket
and stole with me into the night
and there we danced, the storm and I,
the lightning at first lightly tickling the edges,
dancing along the hills and valleys,
then gaining my peaks and charging every fiber of the tops of the hills
with light and electrical impulses which coursed into my many layers...
the thunder rolled and the ground shook from the intensity as we danced
rolling over the headlands, up the granite cliffs
then down, deep down into the valleys, bringing up the tide,
charging the wave crests with thunder and lightning
until one could not tell the waves from the storm clouds
and they became one guiding force,
filling my crevasses
drowning me with white foam within and without
then finally, finally, that long bolt of lightning
which lifted me and then broke me asunder
and I fell crumbling into the arms of the storm,
surrounded by lightning,
buried by thunder,
weeping for that intensity, for that beauty,
for that powerful surge which...
slowly passed...
the storm�s surges calming, calming...
faint traceries of lightning on the hills,
the trees on my slope sagging with the weight of the torrential downpour...
the tide goes out...
and each time comes in less...
and the clouds rise and look down upon my slopes
and bright stars replace the lightning
as the clouds fade back
leaving mysterious midnight blue.
by Susan M. Chisam 97
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Nature Poetry Directory
fe-smc 2000