Wandering up Yuba Canyon

Mid September rain
	Dark fetid cups now
In hollows of blue-black rock shelves
	Angular metamorphics
smoothed by old river surges
	Holding perched granite cobbles 
White on sand-strewn balconies above stream
Flat as table cloths

The forest
	Oak, ponderosa, maple, alder
It leans in from both sides
Ready to hear river’s long rap and rant
	Catching moisture
Standing back just enough from its floods

And we, much like kingfisher and ousel
That chatter up and back
We wander into the living narrow of earth
	Its rock gods
	Wood and water goddesses
Showing mute faces that choose not to reveal
	Unless we linger

Linger then
	Footsteps
Rest long your glances
	Restless eyes
Thoughts thrown up each moment with worries, plans and cares
They too can be washed down by river voice
Until naked 
	Of thought, armorless
	Downstream wind becomes new fabric

River 
	It likes that humility
That stillness well learned in the matter of turning rock 
Into cobble, cobble into skein of sand

And I 
less smoothed, rounded and perfect than river rock
None the less am more round for lingering here
Student to the flow of things 
	That turns and carries 
us all

21
IX
21


South Fork Yuba River
Clear morning
1,980’