For Open Link Monday at Real Toads, I decided to re-post this oldie, one of the first I posted on my blog. Stamp Falls is my favorite spot in Port, because it is the wildest. I have walked there so many times through the years. Beyond the narrows, the river opens in full flood with a steep incline that salmon have to leap, against the power of the down-river-traveling water, during the autumnal spawning migration. The huge fish collect in this peaceful channel to rest and wait their turn to attempt the rocky passage. Eagles and bears also gather, to intercept some of the fish. You can look down and imagine one could almost walk across the backs of the fish, they are so plentiful. Our dogs love to swim in this river in warm weather, back a ways, where the river opens in the other direction.
Song of the river wild,
Song of the rapids leaping
Through the chiseled rock-walled chasm
Green with weeping,
A plunging torrent
To the ocean seeping
Song of the sea-green foam
Song of the white froth dancing
Sun-dappled baby wave-tops prancing
In the sunshine, all my dreams
Romancing.
Song of the green rock wall,
A vessel for the river's journey,
Guiding the flow along the channel churning
To the ocean and as it's
Returning.
Song of the tall green trees
Rootbound and stoic in the deep crevasses
Rooted in bedrock holding up the mountain,
Sentinels for every year
that passes
Song of the laughing brook
Below the rapids green, swirling and babbling
Huge salmon leap,
Fall back in shallows dabbling,
Plunge forth to lunge again,
Leaping and scrabbling
Song of the river wild,
You sing my tattered soul a new song,
Bless the silver beauty of this new day,
Make me know the path I'm on
Is not wrong.
Song of the seasoned soul
That knows the underlying message
Of the river:
Flow with me,
Not against me as we journey;
Travel lightly,
Not a taker,
But a giver.
