Stamp Falls
by Dan Aman, The Heart of Vancouver Island
by Dan Aman, The Heart of Vancouver Island
In the piney-woods,
the path is scattered with pine cones
and fallen branches,
ground soft and springy underfoot,
smell of canopy and trees,
song of the river
wild in winter flood.
The rough bark of Grandfather Cedar
tells the story of a thousand years
of standing in one place.
When you look up,
when you lay your hand
against his trunk,
when you listen,
you can feel and hear his message:
Endurance.
Look into this little pocket of forest,
draped in moss and old man's beard,
salal springing up everywhere,
ferns and fiddleheads,
small white winter berries,
rosehips,
toadstools and wild morel,
every inch alive with myriad life forms,
an entire ecosystem can exist here,
in a patch
no bigger than
your hand.
Listen to the silence,
alive with the forest's breathing,
and the secrets
only the forest knows.
If you take the time,
this old tree
will share with you
his wisdom.
The river is wild in winter.
It expends its force
tumbling and crashing over rocks,
rushing the banks
and frothing white and foamy
through the canyon.
Sit a spell.
Just Be.
Breathe the river in,
breathe your worries out.
The word I'm looking for, here,
is reverence.
From 2012 for earthweal's open link. When I lived inland, Stamp Falls and its river was the wildest place I could find. Pup and I went there often.
Oh Sherry, you make me want to be there, if only for a few hours. Thanks for your beautiful images.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth
Beautiful. Sometimes we have to sit a while and just be. There is so much beauty.
ReplyDeleteI love wild rivers, Sherry, and it’s wonderful that you and Pup enjoyed this one together. I enjoyed the scents and sounds from those ‘piney-woods and imagining Grandfather Cedar. These lines are especially evocative:
ReplyDelete‘Listen to the silence,
alive with the forest's breathing’
and
‘The river is wild in winter
…
tumbling and crashing over rocks,
rushing the banks
and frothing white and foamy
through the canyon’.
a beautiful reminiscence, Sherry~
ReplyDeleteReverently set and shared, Sherry. All of it a wild cathedral. A shrink once told me about recovery from old bad damage, "every access is a reframe," meaning it is possible to change one's past by reframing the memories, recalling them without the shame and damage we shielded them with: Every walk in woods like this reframes the relation as a loving ecological adult. This one's a classic example and a chalice for the altar ...
ReplyDeleteSounds like a beautiful place! I especially loved, "Sit a spell./Just Be./Breathe the river in,/breathe your worries out."
ReplyDelete