Sandy McRuer photo
Sing to me with Raven's gobble-cry,
with krak! of heron, hoot of sleepy owl.
Sing with the current slipping fast away,
the traveler's path, high heart and wolfish howl.
Bear walks into the river, palms a salmon,
sits in the water, eats from his mighty paw.
Eagle, fierce of eye, in topmost tree,
waits for the leavings, as I watch in awe.
Such is nature as she's meant to be:
a cyclical return: salmon through bear
and back to nurture earth.
Sing me misty riverbank, and green,
a wealth of beauty ours 'tween death and birth.
Sing me a song of rivers flowing to the sea,
wolf howls at midnight under the full moon.
Sing its song of homecoming to me,
for, like the river, I'll be returning soon.
I found this in drafts, written in 2016. I can read it two ways: in 2016, I was still waiting to return to Tofino. Checked that one off my bucket list! Also, at my age, there is the natural returning of bodies to the earth to contemplate. The photo is of the foot of the river at Stamp Falls, where bears often come, as it is on the salmon migratory route. I went there often when I lived in Port Alberni, and sometimes saw bears and eagles there.
Sharing with the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads.
I so admire your nature poems, Sherry!💖 Especially like: "Eagle, fierce of eye, in topmost tree, waits for the leavings, as I watch in awe."😊
ReplyDeleteA beautiful homecoming song! I'm so visiting a water body tomorrow xo
ReplyDeleteOh Sherry, I love reading your poems, in love with Nature. This one for some reason is a bit sad to me. Several times I've seen your Moma Black Bear, sitting upright in the rushing water, snagging a salmon coming down. Or jumping up a falls. They are much more exciting than the larger birds fishing, either from on the bank or swooping down from flight.
ReplyDeleteDepending on your health, I wouldn't worry too much about getting. Doctors have kept me alive or on my feet more as many times as I have toes. People say to me, "You don't look that old" quite often. A lady asked me to help her write her obituary just this week, last week a granddaughter who keeps me young, she's ten, and I have started writing a play. I feel I am older than you. well OBE, Aussie talk.
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I hope I can see the salmon migration route and the bears someday!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the sounds of nature in your poem, Sherry: all the wonderful bird sounds, and the portrait of nature’s cycle.
ReplyDeleteThe sounds here are just glorious--lovely aural exclamation points in nature's song.
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