they are small streams now
that cut these deep valleys –
rock slip moist moss
where light can hardly touch
but here shaft
beam drift light
through tall trees and air
hung with water droplets
and spore,
touching bracket or fern leaf
or foot.
small streams now
that roar with the rain
tumbling debris,
hanging upriver grass
in the trees with the floodline.
small streams that
speak gentle over
rock shelves
still jagged with time.
he sought these deep valley streams.
asked if it was unusual,
new resident ecologist
burning bright with the beauty
of all that is,
he asked if it was unusual
to find the tooth of an elephant
in the deep valley small stream
scramble through the undergrowth
until the light changes
below his house –
and what could i say
i knew all these years
that they must have lived here –
felt the slow quiet of their being –
the path shaping wonder
of their giant presence
on steep slopes.
hoped beyond the reach of my ears
in the quiet of night
listening for branch crack
or tree fall in the dark.
formed my longing
into grey shadows
in the mist.
hoped beyond reason
that the last of them
sometimes walked here still.
and i know
i know
this tooth,
gnarled tree root unusual,
bigger than his hand,
is older than the elephant that lived
but like the forest
i smile this knowing, long held
by small streams in deep valleys
and remember the deep rumble hum
of their voices in my bones.
Linking to Earthweal’s open link weekend.
https://earthweal.com/2021/05/07/earthweal-open-link-weekend-68/
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