Eno River Walking

This place with the birds calling to one another,
the slow whir of river walking upon
age-worn rocks from another life,
red clay sinks down, accepts, slides,
green thorns covered with promises of spring,
snow like winter’s ghost melts into the earth.

The river runs and walks, then runs again,
the quiet eyes of trees observe
passing of time
passing of years
dropping their leaves down
sap rising
budding
shooting forth into fullness
the colour and splendour of death
as the fall of leaves comes anew.

But now, now their blood,
their heartbeat pumps stronger
after long, unconscious sleep.
The deer have eaten at bark and branch
during winter’s starving bite,
but now, now from roots
spread forth green blades,
each a speared desire for sun and air.

This place is open
and intimate
the pebbles and small shells
mingle together like brothers and sisters
at the riverbed,
each stone a story past, each shell a life long gone.

This place with its tall trees,
buckeye and oak: white, blackjack and laurel.
This place with holly, rhododendron, sycamore,
white ash, maple and beech, the trembling beech,
walnut, pecan, wild thorn, alder and dogwood,
sourwood and ironwood, honeysuckle,
a thick array of river birch, cedar and hemlock.
This place with grasses, grasses and grasses,
moss and lichen, ivy, sumac and creepers,
shooting bulbs wild with spring’s coming day.

And pine trees, who could not mention the pine trees,
the short-leafed pine in bunches with the loblolly pine drooping down,
long-leaf pine that needs fire to seed, fire to be freed,
ancient giants that covered this place long ago,
pine-cones everywhere before deciduous trees took root.

A sparrow peers at me now,
querying my intentions in this place,
then carries on, moves along feeding off the ground,
dancing with a hop in his step,
his lover nearby,
their white breasts glimmering
beneath brown wings and
gleaming eyes.

I am breathless,
breathless
at this place,
at its rolling sides rising up to blue skies,
this valley, this river course,
this place of cosmic lineage,
about to awaken to Spring again
like all other years — yet unlike ever before.

The joy that fills me
reminds me of home,
tells me I’m home,
tells me to walk softly on this clay,
to slip with it and slide with it,
to feel the leaves, the bark, the dead grass, the new grass,
the smooth stone, volcanic etrusions,
the woodpecker in the distance amidst creaking trunks.

I know this place in my dreams,
have known it for many years,
but this place is real,
this place breathes,
it lives,
carries with it memories
sinking in,
sinking into me,
seeping in like blood and breath,
like scent on the wind.

In this moment,
there is no me.
The woods, the river, the birds, the shore,
the silent white-footed mouse staring at me from his hole
as he melts into grey rock light,
blurring his edges,
not mouse, but stone,
not stone, but mouse.

So too I melt
dissolve
blend into the hues of green and brown.
I am earth and wind,
murmur of water as it kisses stones,
tree-creeper hopping, moving up bark paths,
wren in the distance shrieking his warning,
rising rocks emerging from the hillside,
winding way along a river’s long walk

all this I am,
all this flows in me and through me,
the Eno River walking and running, then walking again,
part and whole,
whole and part.

This place is real,
this place is home.

Note: The Eno River is my native NC watershed … the rocks here stretch back 600 million years and are very deep into the psyche of this area.