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.
Unburdened by the night, freed of phantoms, I wake in gray dawn to the river-sound of traffic. Earth muted in descent, quietly I spread like snow the silence of my heart, and discover this day how deeply I belong.
Stirred by inner fire dark does not frighten, nor gray light of winter. Carry me down to the deepest root, upend every truth. Flood of spirit scour my heart. I’m not too old to live. Reading of “Solstice”
Night winds rouse the old earth gods— rivers don’t sleep, dark forests rise, sodden roots shatter the concrete prison. Reading of “Uprising” with music by Tyler Childers
