MoonCat

Falls

February 14, 2025

They are fat during the spring melt, thin when summer wanes.

In winter, snow slows their progress, placing a halo of ice around them.

In autumn, they play with leaves and rain, and an occasional evergreen branch.

There is always mist and a rainbow in its midst when the sun comes calling.

Calm with their frenzy, stoic as they giggle, tender power.

Dippers plunge themselves underneath their crest, unafraid of the current and the long tumble only a couple of feet away

While sparrows and tanagers sing hidden duets and soliloquies to the sky.

The ravens dart above, in ones or twos, preferring a casual conversation about reason and magic, which are indistinguishable. For here is where skeptics and believers meet.

Around them

The forest can be still, quieter than comfortable, with the movement of shadows, the changing of light tucked deep inside.

But you know this is natural and your fear is combined with a sense of calm.

Other times, the forest yells, trees vibrate like vocal cords, rivers force their voice up into the blue and gray sky between the trees and though you’re quiet, your body hums along with their voices.

Some sweet water springs last year ‘round. You drink, even when the water is high, soaking your shoes and socks while you reach for the wildest water you’ve ever tasted. Every sip is your first.

There are still a few old growths standing, with roots, twisting around themselves miles long, like fingers running themselves over the stomach of a lover.

The smell of pine is as thick as syrup…until

You hear one.

As you approach, that pine smell is pushed down into the ground, taken away with the spatter, eventually moving downstream with the creeks.

In each season, you hear small nuances in how their water…falls

The twist of one note, a change in the rhythm of their syncopation. They are full of distortion yet never abandon harmony.

And I think of something silly.

They are like us, you and me.

For I remember when I held your hand…

Here

…Listening…to them

While the heat of summer scorched the world, and the rain of storms washed us away.

I speak these words… softly… so that you might hear.

Lower South Falls in Silver Falls State Park. Complete with someone about to walk underneath it.

39 comments

Green Street Planters

February 3, 2025

Poetry

Underneath the bridge 
Old bricks  
Hold onto streets 
Unaffected by wind 
Weather fronts 
Rolling tires 
  
We walk them as 
Train tracks slice through  
Gazing at high grass 
Growing between the mortar 
During a downpour of days 
And the cold slant of weeks 
 
There are others there 
Tents, rigs, and schizophrenia 
Blue tarps & wagon carts 
Their bikes  
Ride rough 
Over the bricks 
 
Waiting for trains to pass 
We still watch the grass  
Bent by the weight of seeds 
Swaying with the train’s draft 
Raindrops, faces, and reflections 
On Amtrak windows 
 
Further up 
The streets throw away  
Their numbers  
Taking on names 
Of everyone in particular 
Where bricks give way 
To multi-layered pavement 
And rainwater moves easily 
Into green street planters

13 comments

The Tasks of Psyche

January 13, 2025

Poetry

A series of waterfalls 

Too small to be named.   

Here, she seeks the frozen 

Stillness 

Sounds of water 

But it eludes her 

That soothing Wilderness  

Of ruffled current, soft noise, & gentile fear. 

 
She looks behind, for mountain lions 

Who do not appear in solid form 

And the bear who skips winter’s sleep 

Just footprints in snow. 

 
They meet her at water’s edge 

Through snags of rhododendrons 

With lost springs at their feet 

Nothing left except desire 

That sip of the coldest waters 

Hearts exposed  

To cool air & curled wind 

Outside of skin, coat, fur, and claw 

To witness 

The soil stray         among

Hearty leaves, fragile flowers.

Frozen Lake Pamelia in early January 2025

Mt. Jefferson poking its head up into the sun from the dark forested bowl of Lake Pamelia.

Kitty footprints. There were a few tracks near the lake. That’s a big meow.

4 comments

The Mountain

January 12, 2025

Poetry

It’s no wonder I long to get close to her

To understand her vision

To center myself as she is centered.

She can appear clear, majestic

Especially when the sun makes

Its first appearance in early spring.

At other times she hides behind a whirl

Of gray, black, and haze… waiting.

But I know she’s watching.

I’ve travelled upon her paths

From switchback to meadow

From wilderness to timberline

From gorge to plateau.

In these places, she slows time down

Where I carefully step upon boulders and rocks

Slipping at times on a slope

Steadying myself with my hand

For balance

Feeling her moist face, her coolness

A roughness and yet a smooth calm.

I can tell you her rivers are her voice.

They have lulled me into thought

And her streams are part blood, part tears

Joy and pain, yin and yang, like mine

For like her, I will not last forever.

We are built of gravity and sun.

She can scold with wind and howls

And snow that piles upon her forest floors

Into layers like thick frosting, dimming all senses.

Even creeks and the moving stars vanish.

I can lose myself within that space

Attempting to ease my own fierceness

For there is a respect that must be earned

And I’m still learning

With cautious, careful awareness of

My own fragile, sensitive soul

To reach a place upon her shoulders

Where she plays with mist

As if she is unwilling to tell secrets.

But I know it is only the rain and clouds

That seek her embrace, and once gone

Her poetry is lucid and unambiguous.

The eastern face of Mt.Hood on a warm October day. Not the side of Hood usually photographed. You can see the effects of climate change.

Starting my trek, up I go into the mist.

57 comments

A Moment

December 30, 2024

Poetry

The snow is late, and the elk stand  

In pools of rain 

Eating grasses 

 
Bull’s head & antlers 

Silhouette  

On the crest of a hill 

Guarding 

As if he’s art, a still life 

 
Defensive, protective 

Motionless  

Moving away only when  

The last cow disappears  

 
“I am just...,” I thought. 

The trail is flooded 

My hands don’t mean anything 

Drips of rain on top of pools

When it’s raining is my favorite time to be in the wilderness. Things move during a rainstorm, taking the forest out of its stoicism. Replacing that stoic stance is a certain kind of majesty with the clouds flirting with trees and mountains.

32 comments

Before I Reach

December 9, 2024

Poetry

Though I have yet to hear it, I know the small river will have a voice. It will have a voice childish in play, raw in wisdom, soothing in tone. I know this, for I have heard its voice many times.

I bring with me other voices. Our voices. The voices of how we once talked with one another.

These voices, the small river and us, will dart between the sound of current, ravens and hawks, the creaking of tall evergreens as their branches rub against each other. If you were going with me, I would have told you how baby hawks cry when their parents have gone hunting for them. But you don’t need to hear this and you won’t.

I’ve gone missing, right in front of you. I could have told you to never be in the forest when it’s snowing. Not even a small river can tell you the way back. And today, perhaps, I will not want to find my way back. ......But I will. I know this before I reach it.

For a short period of time, when I see the small river, I will no longer miss you, whoever you are, for I know your voice, but I do not know you and you do not know me. I have never felt the bones beneath your skin, the slight roughness of your lips. I have not smelled the scent of your favorite oil. I’ve never heard your song muffled between the walls of our house leaking out into the hallway.

I do know the small river will be strewn with boulders mixed in its current. There will be channels, and miniature rapids will have formed. Even these small rivers have different types of flows.

There will be an occasional chipmunk running into the brush, the distant echo of a bird. The wind will flirt with these sounds. Then, without warning, the wind will drown out all voices. Even those of my quiet steps in the snow where would-be tears make no imprint.

The Salmon River on a cold day. This was the closest I had ever come to a wild bald eagle, who was sitting on one of those branches next to the river. We startled one another as I was coming around a corner. Then, it opened up its huge wingspan and flew off into that sky you see above the river.

14 comments

The Arboretum

November 25, 2024

Poetry

The leaves have all but fallen 

And the trail is a carpet of them. 

The hills and roots remain constant... 

Ridges and bumps between yellows 

Reds, and browns 

Where my feet pass cautiously  

Not wanting to be fooled by  

The softness of the ground below. 

 
The air can be dry and crisp 

Or temperate and soggy in the fall 

And it is during this season  

That the trail appears painted,

Textured, warped, dabbed onto  

Curled around, twisted into 

The unforgiving floor of Earth. 

 
But I am affixed to this rug 

And the colors of fall  

Reflect 

What is inside me, at times. 

For I know what it means to fall, 

To feel the wetness of leaves, 

Peeling them off my palms, 

Their earthy scent inhaled. 

 
A volunteer walks the trail. 

I see her occasionally 

With nametag dangling  

From a shirt pocket. 

She says people sometimes get lost. 

I act surprised, though I understand. 

 
Passion can hit us hard 

On the side of our emotions 

And sometimes all you can do 

Is check for bruises... 

And keep those feet moving... 

Though the ground is covered in leaves.

One of many. One unique individual. (Image is by me. Taken near a place called Ripplebrook.)

28 comments

Winds

November 18, 2024

Poetry

The east wind  
Driven by the river gorge 
Has no trouble in being found  
For it is the one searching for us 
In a scurry, frantic, indeterminate 
Then, in a moment of thought 
Directed, certain, content.
Much like us.
 
The wind etches the river below it.
An artist’s symmetry, capillary waves 
Hides the river’s speed 
Slowed by the dam above 
From rapids once free, where 
Many have sunk beneath 
Its undertows and swirls. Yet 
Branches, trees, and debris bob 
Appearing happy in its current. 
Death is the happy wader  
Within the sad body 
Who still desires to see the ocean 
Resurfacing upon drifts and beaches 
 
Heading west, this wind
Arrives at valley views 
To play with city & street 
Roaming around the deciduous  
Deciding to spread & sprawl out 
Over fields of strawberries and grapes 
Long past their harvest 
Knocking on our windows 
With the help of rain and sleet 
Peering at us with a shake and rattle 
While we hold our mixtures of 
Sweets & wine, love & despair 
Much like the wind holds fast onto the air.

A tree that has been shaped by the wind.

14 comments

Two Works of Art

November 11, 2024

Art

As always, all art on my blog is created by me.

36 comments

Old Fields

November 4, 2024

Poetry

November stilled. 
Air hangs like ether  
Carrying the distant sleepy 
Songs of circular saws 
Counterpoint of cars, and the 
Periodic rise of a child’s laughter.
 
This sound seeps 
Between definition and opaque 
Holding fast to forgotten fields  
Lost............In............Words 
Found in wind-frayed books of years 
Settled in greys and grasses 
Ruffled by the hum of eyes.
 
Fall is a field of words.

The eastern part of the Columbia River Gorge.

6 comments