River Love
After yearning for decades
to say I love you and mean it, today
on my practised water’s-edge path
I blurted I love you to rushing river,
pines and sky, and booming back
came the chorus We love you too! from hosts
of spirits whose celebration echoed
till I sat and sobbed in surrender.
And when I was done they asked:
Did you think this refreshing stream of existence
would not receive your riverbank tears, though
all of them together haven’t altered its course
an inch? Effortlessly our galloping galaxies
of droplets absorb your longing, and in return,
gladly love you we do—long as this river runs
. . . and longer too.
You Mountains There!
You mountains there—high blue ridges
stepped back into mists, embracing
the valley floor: Hear me: I am lost, empty
and always flying away to Cloudland.
You mountains there—brothers. Embrace me!
Under evening’s soft, drifting ceiling, ground
my migrant essence; evoke tears—any feeling!
Hold me till I have to leave you; till I’m filled
with your inexhaustible
earthbound
eternity!
Hold me till I have to leave you; till I’m filled
with your inexhaustible
earthbound
eternity!
“River Love” and “You Mountains There!” first appeared in the book Vistas of the West: Poems and Visuals of Nature (Calgary: Durvile, 2019).
