Rafting Down the Trinity
The river said go easy, so we pushed off,
letting the raft find its own argument.
The current kept offering us opportunities:
a bend, a hush, a Class 3 rapid, a sudden lift.
We followed, not knowing how far trust
could carry us, only that it kept saying "Yes!"
The rubber raft slipped into its thoughts, a quiet logic...
Twisted by river stones, paddles, muscles, and wind
and the long drag of downhill cold water.
Sunlight leaned into the canyon,
finding us still where the current slowed.
There the catfish waited without hurry on the bottom.
We felt the day open, wide as the bend ahead.
Morning slid down the canyon
and the river took it all in, cool and certain.
Our paddles touched the old stories---
eddies of lore that encircled everyone.
We rafted the long remembering. Grateful to be included.
Later, the wind arrived, ruffling the surface
into small disagreements.
We answered with strokes that tried to match
the river’s impatience.
Even the banks seemed to listen, cottonwoods
leaning in as if our passing mattered,
though we knew it did not.
The water shook us and we were fully ready,
paddling the raft past the damp bark of the alders.
We let the river tumble us over the large boulders,
bouncing us with a sudden, breathless glee.
Everything we meant to say stayed up on the shore;
only the wordless water mattered, and the joy and laughter.
Paddles touched the hush, the canyon walls held their breath.
Water knows the way.
We follow its old thinking, grateful for the hints it keeps.
Toward evening the canyon settled in dim shadows.
The water gathered its memories.
We followed, quieter now, trusting the way it carried us---
not toward any lesson, but simply forward-down,
the river doing what it always does,
and us grateful to be allowed along.
We stopped, made camp, ate French bread and cheese,
drank wine, talked by the fire...
The River moved on in the darkness.
We dreamed of being tossed off the raft.
Water Falls Into the Gorge
We drove out to Dougan Falls in the Spring,
like salmon moving, drawn in by obscure passions.
I followed the ear-opening sacredness that keeps
coming back to me in the rain of memories.
The stream doesn't care about a trillion rocks.
It goes because it's been blind for many millenniums;
unlike what the lanky Douglas Firs discovered
when standing still for decades in the Gorge winds.
My niece never said much about beauty.
I parked the car, we joined the crowds,
walked up to Dougan Falls.
We both looked up and didn't speak.
The noisy songs of Cascadian waterfalls:
from high to low, young to old,
flowing down, colder to cold,
into the Columbia River flowing bold;
till it becomes the salty blood
in the arteries of Oceanus
beyond the south jetty of Living Time.
Excerpts from:
Watching, Language and Time
Selected Works: 2016 - 2026
By Mike Garofalo
A Free WebBook, 70 Pages
