Chapter 7
A New Dawn
The last chapter is exclusively about how we view and experience the natural world in the widest sense. We look at our emotions, visual beauty, loss, the power of Nature, and in some cases embrace a sense of completion.
Sample poems from chapter 7:
Eternal Source, published in Pivot 57, 2004, and The Neovictorian/Cochlea, 2005.
Distant Mountains, published in Candelabrum Poetry Magazine, 2005
Eternal Source
1
Bubble up, eternal source –
follow your recurring course – slither down from mountain slopes
gather into rivulets – sweep the valleys – pass the hills.
Make a turn and broaden here –
overflow with cataracts – fill the rivers – form the lakes –
mirror all the sky and swell, and flow into the ocean.
Bubble up – evaporate –
disappear into the air – make tornados, thunderheads –
sail away on tumbling winds – float and rest among the clouds . . .
2
Turn around and look below –
pour if you are inclined to – hit the ocean – beat the land –
leap the breakers – lap the shore – stretch across the open sea.
And now enjoy your being
like the ocean does all day – roll and play and live and dream –
heave with billows to the main, and reach to each horizon.
Rise and fall with tidal waves –
spin below in vortices – mix with hidden undercurrents –
touch the silent ocean floor – join the essence of it all . . .
3
Roll on, ocean – find the coast –
do not tarry in the gulf – meet the rivers – leave the bay –
cross the pools, lagoons and lakes – revel with the waterfalls.
Bubble up and undulate –
spread the message of the deep – enter grottos, clefts and pores
connect to water everywhere – soak the thirsty, waiting soil . . .
Hear the trickle of the spring –
ripple over creek and rill – run with rapids down the stream –
let no stagnant water be – follow your recurring course –
Bubble up, eternal source.
Chapter 7
142 Eternal Source
144 The Doe
145 Awestruck at Niagara Falls
148 A New Dawn
149 Shell Song
152 A Reluctant, Little Ode to Snow
154 Ocean Song
157 Almost Summer (See video)
159 Flying to Miami
161 Pine Needle – Metamorphosis
162 Spring Is Like a Young, Wonderful Woman
164 The Quiet Way of Unforgotten Trees
165 Giant Sequoia – A Hymn
168 The Tree of My Childhood
169 The Language of Trees (See video)
171 Leafless Tree
172 White Blossoms
173 Distant Mountains
174 The Holy Mountain
175 Waiting Near the Throne
176 A Summer Dream
181 A Brighter Side
Distant Mountains
Clouds on certain days resemble distant mountains.
I’m watching such a mountain now, and far below
Could be the perfect, crystal lake of dream.
On days like these when lakes reflect a silver heaven,
The air will shimmer mirrored like on shining glass,
And over distant clouds the sun will cross the lake.
But when the light is bound to sink behind the mountains,
Glimmering through the clouds as if there was the moon,
The night appears and slowly gathers round your quiet face.
On nights like these, your eyes turn monochrome and inward,
And when you close them, darkness covers earth and sky,
And yet I’ve seen the perfect dawn you dare to dream,
For on a certain night you turned to me to find my eyes,
And when you did, I saw a bright and crystal day
With mountains in a lake, and every cloud was gone.