Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Poem for Tuesday and Evans Creek Wilderness

The End of the Ocean 
By Tim McNulty

High clouds at dawn
and finger tracings of moisture
in the eastern sky.
 
From beyond the western rim
of mountains,
ocean’s breath floods the valley.
 
Mist spills over high ridges.
 
One by one, the peaks
wink out.  Soon, the lookout
is wrapped in blowing cloud.
 
Wetness drips from propped shutters.
The visible world
beyond misted windows,
an isthmus of rock and heather.
 
“I stood as one stupefied,”
wrote Petrarch.
“I looked down and saw
the clouds lay beneath my feet.
I felt as if
another.”
 
Clark’s nutcracker dips from a cloud,
lights on a hemlock limb
and calls: once, twice…
 
“No bird who flies
knows the limits of the sky,”
says Dogen,
“no fish who swims, the end
of the ocean.”
 
Taste of raincloud moving past,
streams and rivers
beginning again.
 
At the near edge of ocean’s reach,
traces of older cycles:
weathered rock / wandering seas,
 
century-old hemlock scrub
in blowing mist, black wings
 
…flaps off & disappears. 

-------- 

My Tuesday was mostly chores -- old laundry folded, new laundry washed, CVS called twice and still has not straightened out my account, etc. It was another gorgeous sunny day, and one of the eagles was in one of the trees at the beach that still has golden leaves. My group watched "The Voyager Conspiracy" which is, well, bad. 

We finally started the new season of For All Mankind -- I miss Molly so much, at least we still have Danielle -- and now we're watching Lessons in Chemistry, which I'd been told was a dark comedy with a talking dog but so far is making me want to murder lots of men. From the forest to the mountains in Evans Creek Park:

2023-11-12 13.38.59

2023-11-12 14.07.11

2023-11-12 14.03.21

2023-11-12 13.51.47

2023-11-12 14.23.35

2023-11-12 13.20.24

2023-11-12 14.16.43

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