The Water and Air Around Mike’s Cabin
(my first two poems, by JP)
We escape the minimalls and are finally
Up North, at a lodge deep in the woods down old two-tracks,
the remnant spread of an old family ranch.
A large old cement-walled spring-fed swimming pool is built into a hillside covered with wildflowers near the cabin, on one side.
A lush creek, in a valley, on the other.
Everything is surrounded by hemlock, cedar, maples and pine…and quiet.
In the morning, the sun lights up the creek.
The water curls over sunken birch logs, white under the tea-stained flow, gold in the hidden pockets, green in the pools.
The sun hits a bridge over the creek behind the cabin with full on solar power.
If you hang out on that wooden bridge a while, doing a few stretches, some yoga, getting a bit less stiff, a bit more ready, you heat up with a shiny sweat.
The water pulls me and I hike through meadow grass to a pool below a logjam.
Kneedeep stream, grass hanging off chest-high banks.
A little spring cuts in from the side, noisily dropping down under ferns to join us.
I strip and glop through mud into a sandy riffle.
Caribbean sand between my toes. Shadows waver and fold in the pool I’m peering into.
The water flowing past my legs is so cold it feels like hot saplings whipping my shins.
Old childhood scratches seem to be coming back to haunt me through my thin skin.
I can’t take it any more, so I dive in, aching to get in that water, now or never.
Shock!
I open my eyes.
Water rushes against my face. I see pebbles and sand bouncing along, leaves tumbling in an eddy. A couple blurry little brook trout lined up, ignoring me.
It’s stunning, the scenes under there, frozen.
Yet it’s also homey.
I can’t stand it! I jump up in a whoosh.
My chest is streaming water like droplets bouncing off a sizzling frying pan.
I wouldn’t call it cold.
I’m finally warm. Now the day can start.
Later on, the sun moves over the hill, lighting the swimming pool in dancing shades of green, with its natural sand floor, seaweed and roots.
I sit on the hillside and soak in more hot spicy pine air.
It’s time for the full range of motion.
I go for a run on a soft, sandy two-track, past a huge, virgin pine named Tornado and through a hot clearcut, full of ferns, with big bright sky.
I gulp in solar heat, heartbeat blending in with my progress through the forest.
Now I’m back and ready for another dip, drenched in sweat and soaked in air.
I strip again and climb up onto the cedar diving board and hover over the pool.
Trout swirl down far below my toes.
The glowing green hemlocks wave all around
the clearing.
I windmill my arms and flap them and breathe in.
I plunge down into the pale green world.
I open my eyes to a familiar view. Blurry. Dapples of light. Trout swimming around. No bone chill this time, just refreshment. Drinkable relief.
My aching legs come back to life and I glide along, looking up at the blue, blue sky.
Explanation of Up North Water Poem
Mike’s ranch anchors the freeways, parking lots and computers to reality.
Up North, away from the office, I can see the levels of life more clearly.
More dimensions are added, making a more complete picture.
There’s the sky, right up there, solid blue.
The stunning green treetops just past where you can reach.
Then there’s the mid range,
for me full of books and children, people walking around, trying not to bump into each other-up here this gets improved mainly by the spicy pine air.
Then there’s what’s below the horizon.
And the surface of water.
Shimmering shapes down in the water,
The homey world under the water
The liquid floor of the creek, always the same, ever changing.
Green against blue over top of a shimmery flow.
Can’t improve on that.
We can just try to fit in with it, with what we do.
We need it all to live.
I need to touch it all to remember.
I almost have to have it in an unbroken view to know what to do next.
When you’re stuck among people and desks-in the mid range-how can you decide anything?
I don’t mean to be prejudiced.
Nature is everything that is. No river is better than another. We’re only limited by how well we can see.
And yet some seem to be more beautiful.
Is this only when we’re weaker, more needy, more desperate?
Is it imperceptive of me to need to see a stream curling over a logjam?
To need to have sandy shallows drop into a green pool near me?
I’ve made do long enough.
Time has run out for the ditch rivulet running between parking lots.
It’s only human.
We take our lessons where we can.
I need to see the big picture
where we haven’t ruined it yet,
to see how things really are.
Stream, cold water, watcher, swimmer, wet heat, new day.
