Category: Poetry Page 4 of 9

Dragonflies dangle above the shoreline
An osprey is silhouetted near its’ island nest
 
A nearly full moon pushes over the tree line
Two bull frogs duet nearby
Adult loon leads her young
On a mat of fog suspended over the water
 
I sit on the bank surrounded by silence
At Moss Lake in the Adirondacks

Be surrounded
With tolerable information

White interior of a cloud
Insulated from news broadcasts,
Cell phone interruptions,
Instant messages on i-pad

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Sprawled on a rock

In West Canada Creek

In the Southern Adirondacks

Rapids rush, rapids gush

Hands and feet in current

I drift in and out of ecstasy

Time seems suspended

I wait for a vision

The water sings to me

“Embrace your faults.

Accept them.

They are part of you.”

On this turtle-back rock

I revel in this healing gesture

A stream washes and cleanses

A man shouts from his truck

“Are you all right?”

I assure him with an arm gesture

The sunlight

Clouds barge across

I’m in paradise

If it’s wilderness we’re after

At least the sound of it,

Play the loon tape.

A forest and lake in the foreground

Hides a shopping center

Play the loon tape

Thick woods a’yonder

Vapor trails a’skyward

Play the loon tape

Starry moonless night.

Amusement park light pollution

Play the loon tape

Waterfalls in the Five Pond Wilderness

Acid rain, overflowing landfills

Play the loon tape

With every watery scene,

When wild sounds are needed

Filmmakers play the loon tape.

Having stood on shore

I watched the flow

It was time

To let go of my anger

Stepped into a river

To swim and float the current

I let go

Swept along

Tread, scull,

Bob into an eddy

I drift back into the main channel

Anger lifted

The landscape reminds us.

On a low Long Island,

A hilly moraine east to west

.

It inched forward, inched back,

Melted and evaporated in slow recession,

Leaving marks

Beaches, cobbles, clay, and sand.

In the North Country

Rounded mountains and gravel deposits

It scraped, scoured, scratched

Carried plucked boulders south.

Mid-state, long fingers

In gouged valleys,

Eskers and drumlins

Are all that remains of

Old Man Glacier.

There was the potential for water

In the chemistry of nuclei

Positive hydrogen; negative oxygen

Floating around in early universe

Obeying physical laws

Of the very beginning of

A primordial bang that started it all

The randomness, creativity, and diversity

A communion of two hydrogen and an oxygen nuclei

The electronic joining, the first water molecule

The instantaneous creation of WATER

The universe was ready for this.

Within the confines of the molten Earth

A steam cloud enveloped this new world

Cooling led to rain, to lakes, then oceans,

Life.

Across from the library

A noble beech tenaciously grips earth

Its wide base two yards across

The gray bark a frozen lava flow

Of wrinkled, aged flesh

Century old tree

Better than the books inside

Its inner self presses against smooth bark

One limb a tight tourniquet against

A strangled, muscular arm

A mighty, strong thing

Massive will power

Clean of carvings

On a late November’s early afternoon

It’s a stocky weight lifter

Hoisting itself skyward

A clean and jerk against gravity

A ready to launch rocket

For a space journey

I wish to be this tree

Silent, confident, successful

Its elephant eye branch mark

Staring at me

It glances at a passerby

Head down on their screened devise

The hills in Manorville

primitive and isolated

contain certain peace

if you go, you’ll feel it

a few minutes after

leaving the parking lot

profound calm

not easy to find

places like this

easy to get lost

and find yourself

a peace that’s always available

waits for you

carries stress aloft

oak trees still as stone

gray lichen-covered boulders

here and there

waxy striped wintergreen flowers

and huge swaths of bracken fern

guaranteed