Peter Walks for Democracy

I wrote this poem for my sister’s ordination two year’s ago. She is so in my thoughts and heart today.

FUGUE

Downstream two sandstone pillars,

collapsed legs of an argonath

who shouldered raucous trains:

people, lumber, coal, steel, gas, and oil.

Time brought him down.

Those pillared feet sprout knotweed and reeds.

A bleached sycamore reaches for clouds.

A stern-backed bald eagle alights,

hunger fortspinnung, thirsty for her

     life swimming in the

          river.

The constant stream carves a runnel near my toes,

rushing over this sandstone sheet’s lip.

In a millennia the runnel will crack

     this rock

          into being

     a new rock

          into those rocks and then

     some other rocks

          on the bed of the river

     worn to be grit surrounding the eel grass

          in the bay

     taken in to grind fish

          in the gut

     of a

          crab.

Upstream a creek bends beneath black willow digits,

bringing its countertheme where it becomes river,

     undulations, ripples,

          trout scales,

     eagle’s claws,

          the river anew

     beating

          to the sky,

     to the

          sea.