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Sunday, September 28, 2014

We're Not Waterfalls


In the woods we call home
walking feels like a  simple proposition, sturdy shoes,  light jacket, a well-beaten path
through dark and ancient growths, and down the path a safe place
where Grandma lives
by a creek
a big stone
and an inviting fire around which to dry our wet bones.

We only have to stay on the marked path and not be lured by strange
shadings, bubbles of color, a mushroom, a flower
a deer looking straight up.
All the reasons we need
to dilly-dally, here and there would take us off our beaten path.

Long-limbed shadows hiding sun and direction
bodies and tails scurrying left and right
under our noses,
can distract us easily as we attempt a steady landing
remaining
grounded in the present.

When last moments come, they
are a gentle slip of the foot
a moment in the high wire act
we call life.

Not at all like waterfalls free-falling toward unknown landings.

18 comments:

Helen said...

Beautiful poetry, Rosaria.
Happy Sunday.

Maggie May said...

That was really lovely!
Maggie x

Nuts in May

Tom said...

Nice photo; evocative poetry.

Unknown said...

Lovely!

MunirGhiasuddin said...

Lovely !
Please do not feel like you are on a high wire. Those were the days when we all were younger and crazier. Now we are wiser and strong. Enjoy without hesitation.

Brian Miller said...

i hope your footing is a bit more sure than this leads us to believe...or maybe that is the metaphor as well...not a slip to fall...but a slip into meandering and taking it all in...

rjerdee said...

Stunning! You've caught the feeling exactly...

Lydia said...

I love your poem, that is, even at this length, really epic.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Rosaria ... lovely to read about the water falling in the woods ... and yes light does figure hugely when we walk in the woods ...

Waterfalls free fall ... cheers Hilary

the walking man said...

I loved reading this and when the last moments come. I will be aware that they have passed before I knew.

Amanda Summer said...

Exquisite Rosaria.

I wonder if in fact we are waterfalls...it is just that we are aware only of the droplets themselves and unable to comprehend the powerful flow of the river that is us?

troutbirder said...

Perfect. Hmmm. I do love wooded paths and maybe there is a hint here why I live in a county without a single waterfall over about six feet....:)

troutbirder said...

Perfect. Hmmm. I do love wooded paths and maybe there is a hint here why I live in a county without a single waterfall over about six feet....:)

Vagabonde said...

I enjoyed reading this, Rosaria, and taking the walk with you.

ds said...

Lovely poem, Rosaria. Thank you.

kj said...

i tend to lean toward the foreign unknown path and of course that's how i get lost. thank you for the reminder that slow and steady holds all beauty offered, all beauty needed.


as for the high wire: well, every once in a while, don't you think?

love
kj

erin said...

so much to discuss... about this and about consciousness, but for now this poem which i just came across (although there are many others to round out the discussion:)-



Observe your own body. It breathes.

You breathe when you are asleep, when you are no longer conscious of your own ideas of self-identity.
Who, then, is breathing?

The collection of information that you mistakenly think is you is not the protagonist in this drama called the breath. In fact, you are not breathing; breath is naturally happening to you.

You can purposely end your own life, but you cannot purposely keep your own life going. The expression, 'my life' is actually an oxymoron, a result of ignorance and mistaken assumption.

You don't possess life; life expresses itself through you.
Your body is a flower that life let bloom, a phenomenon created by life.


–Ilchi Lee

have beautiful days)))

xo
erin

Nib's End said...

Poetry can lead us off the beaten path. When I reached the line: "a deer looking straight up" I felt the change. I was pulled off the path of the present and into the woods of possibility.