POEM: Three Observations, Myrtle Point, Oregon

Sawed-off tree trunk,
Useless washed-up log,
Once you were only beautiful--
Now you form a bridge.

 

THREE OBSERVATIONS
Myrtle Point, Oregon

Waterfall
   combing tresses over ledge-fingers,
  licking dark crevices
  spilling over rock spouts
Restless water,
  beating a pattern on black boulders,
    smooth over smooth
  bursting over obstacles
    pattering
      rippling
        ceaseless cascade.
Slippery stonelets around a bend
  are spattering foam in busy imitation.


Mosses, ferns, lichen
  springing up in every watered niche:
Is there pleasure in eying life
  through splashing lace?
Is there ecstasy in rivulets
  dribbling
    from your saturated chin?


Quiet evening-shadowed wood
  Spellbound by the tumbling water's drone:
Are you dozing
  under leafy fingers--
Or sheltering
  a glint-eyed rattlesnake?

(Written June 5-12, 1966)