This collection of 100 poems by Don Hynes resonate with the rhythms of crashing waves and towering forests from the heart of the Pacific Northwest. Hynes explores the rugged beauty of trees, rocks, and rolling waves through an intimately personal lens.
More than nature poetry, these are soul poems – borne of memory, heartache, and dream visions. They reach transcendentally across time and space to connect with the reader’s own experiences of change and self-discovery.
Poems that reach into lifetimes – past, present and those to be imagined, and in the tradition of America’s most enlightened poets such as Mary Oliver and William Stafford, speak in a quiet voice of your place on earth and the place you are preparing.
Putting faith in what passes I am abandoned, while the earth remains in green face shining. The dark of night and sweep of the tide, the temple of my heart as I care for the quiet. Sweep off my tracks, wipe clean the vessel. Whatever I’ve gathered I leave to
Dawn on a steel gray sea, the rain-cleansed earth breathes; ancient trees and freshened grass share the hallowed space. Quietly I sweep the inner temple where dust gathered and ill feelings linger; the injuries of violence repaired with silence. Windows open to the sea and early light; bells of awareness
Old roots reach deep water, travel through hardpan and stone to the well beneath the earth. There the wealth of many winters, full with light upon the sea, morning quiet and moving tide. Moments that rise again to heal the ache of darkness, and feed the earth as I’ve been
