by admin » Tue Sep 24, 2013 4:07 am
Love Letter to Cottonwood Creek (West Fork), by Charles Carreon
Gathering of many smaller flows,
of trickles and drips,
all proceeding from somewhere above,
from the peak of sloping granite
we call Mount Ashland --
Down in Hornbrook they depend on you
for all their water --
Up here we splash in hollow bowls
of rough, rust colored rock.
Nearby the flow's exposed seams of grey
clay that crumbles to make a nice,
rough soap or body paint, or just lies
there getting soft on the bank.
There's seats of sculpted sandstone
and a bathtub for children, and a short,
rough slide, all literally a stone's
throw from a logging road: for naked
hippies only; we know your secrets,
Cottonwood, you can't hide them.
I've found the cool, fresh spots where
deer make the damp earth smooth, resting
intimate with you in a narrow, steep
ravine shaded with willows.
I've sat next to where two flows meet
to make you, and listened to the sound
of their union.
I've walked further up and seen
your tributaries blocked with logs
and also the shade stripped off where forty-foot
pines and cedars stood, protecting from the sun's
heat the tiny, vital flow that is yours by right.
I've looked at the skidder tracks
where tall, slender trees
were dragged away in chains.
Only the crooked ones, the twisted ones,
the dwarfed and gnarled ones are left,
proving the truth of the Taoist's argument.
Oh, Cottonwood, I know you're all right,
and you'll make it even though you dried
up altogether this summer for the first
time in years,
You're running now at least eighty gallons
a minute,
And I love you and all your rocks and boulders
lying bare in the steep ravines;
I love how you make dams and pools out of
rotten old snags;
I love you and your oaks and alders that
grow so close to the crumbling bank that
in rainy times they sometimes fall into you
or perhaps clean across, making bridges
across the muddy torrent that is you in midwinter.
Further down, where you earn your name
giving life to white-barked cottonwoods
with leaves that whisper, exposing
silver-dollar undersides, down there
you're some else's,
But here at the West Fork I know your ways;
I've spoken intimately with you
by means of cups and buckets,
We've held long-distance conversations
through the hose of the waterpump;
You've washed my dishes and my body
and those of my children innumerable times
with your pure, clear hands,
And in the midst of summer heat
I can lay my head in your lap
while you pour a stream of water over it,
washing out the heat and the thoughts
with a roaring of bubbles and wet sound
The cold wrings me out and pulls me
together, clears my eye and washes
the dust from my ears; I can hear
you then and I listen for true words
that no one understands.
I think perhaps that love is like this,
that I give myself to you walking barefoot
up your long, straight shallow stretches,
slipping on the smooth rocks, and
I won't think about how I heard
there once were trout in you before
Fruitgrowers built a dam they needed
to use you --
I won't think about it, Cottonwood,
as if it meant that you were losing ground:
I'll remember the petrified branches
scattered on your banks,
And the ancient whispers I heard
among the alders when I touched them,
As if I'd been stirring Grandmother's bones,
and I'll remember then that your young face
is ancient. I won't cry for your wounds:
I won't disturb the spirits
with my foolish crying, Cottonwood;
I'll just be quiet, Cottonwood,
I who breathe briefly, here with you
who will be flowing
long after I am gone.