The River Wild

 

Stamp Falls
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.