The River Chanting All Night

chanting canyon streams
by Mike Garofalo

Opening bell
echoes from the canyon walls —
raindrops on the river.

The sounds of rocks bouncing off rocks;
the shadows of trees traced on trees.

I sit, still.
The canyon river chants,
moving mountains.

The sermon spun on the still point:
dropping off eternity, picking up time;
letting go of self, awakened to Mind.

Found in "Above the Fog" by Mike Garofalo
Composed while camping along the Trinity River, California, 2010

A Repost from Cloud Hands Blog post in 2017:

A few weeks ago, I read a 2016 article written by Esther M. Sternberg, M.D., titled Sidewalk Poem.  She relates how she was sitting at an auto repair shop in Tuscon, Arizona.  She took a walk and noticed a short poem carved into the sidewalk:

I sit, still.
The canyon river chants,
moving mountains.
M. P. Garofalo

She says, "I came upon this poem, carved into the sidewalk in the most unlikely place – along a six-lane thoroughfare in the Tucson Foothills, overlooking the city and Tucson Mountains to the south, flanked by the Santa Catalina Mountains to the North."

"What clever person thought to actually impress Garofalo’s poem into concrete, in this completely unlikely spot! The image-shape in that setting did make one sit still – the words took on a whole new meaning, greater than the words would have just on a printed page or screen. It made me look at those mountains, looming above me, to 5000 feet, and think how when the monsoons come, the water courses down these streets, and could take with it some of the mountain’s slopes. It could move mountains, and did, long before the street and shopping malls and bank were built. And it will continue to do so long after they are gone."

Yes, this is what I also have thought before, while camping along the noisy Trinity River in late Spring.  

My hypertext notebooks on Concrete Poetry are unrelated, but coincidentally concrete (in or on) related "art."