The journey to their new world
mired step by slogging step
in the rain-soaked bog,
feeding ground and sanctuary
to countless birds and fish,
to them a sucking pool
of unforgiving mud.
Remembering the defeat,
they would later drain
this memory of inadequacy,
the empire of machines
paving the water course
to be rid of the hindrance.
There are trails to the river
where sand is piled against stone,
and the powerful river eddies
in a dark pool of aquamarine.
We carve our names in the sand,
knowing the next hard rain will erase us,
the hope we seek yet upstream,
and if we are to find ourselves
we must learn the way of water.
(my Thai friendship circle named me “pi Chay” – elder brother.
In the dry zone of the Rockies we had wild water from Spring melt until…maybe 4th of July. My dad taught me to swim in these waters, they still tingling and bristling with memory of a long, frozen Winter. My cousins and I were the swim season pioneers; we did not wait for comfort to find ourselves. A life journey doesn’t begin when “it’s just right” for a nice experience. One must enter the Way of water when the calling is heard, creature comforts be damned.
Don…this one is special to me……………..very intense, almost foreboding……..yet hopeful………it wrings me out emotionally……way to go!
After 15 years of desert life, it is so good to return to the waters of the northwest. I relish the marshes and estuaries that are in such close proximity to our home. The skunk cabbage are blooming right now, along with other early bloomers. The bird life brings joy to the heart with the sound of many different songs. I note a sublime stillness in the muddy sludge that sustains this paradise. It calls me to sit and listen!
Without the water, it would be a desert!
like this one don – there is only sea in the end i believe
Hmmm, especially strong on the dismount.
The middle stanza is a little opaque because of the non-standard grammar:
Remembering this defeat,
years later they drained
is a comma added and a verb change…but if you have “they,” you need “memories,” to also be plural, and then I’m not sure if they are remembering being inadequate or if their memories are in and of themselves inadequate…
their memories of inadequacy,
Their empires of machines
paved the water course
to be rid of the hindrance.
Hmmm…not quite making it for me.
The rest of the poem is grammatically sensible, lyrical, and switches over to second person plural–all of which works beautifully: Let’s look at it again:
There are trails to the river
where sand is piled against stone
and the powerful river eddies
in a dark pool of aquamarine.
Yes, mysterious and compelling image…
We carve our names in the sand,
knowing the next hard rain will erase us,
knowing the hope we seek is yet upstream:
if we are to find ourselves,
we must learn the way of water.
I only add the punctuation to myself understand the parts of the poem better. You’re speaking in pure metaphor here–a “higher” answer is “yet upstream.” That is exactly right.
That makes me go back to the opening stanza and re-read it it to myself:
The journey to their New World
mired them step by slogging step
in the rain-soaked bog.
[That which was a]
feeding ground and sanctuary
to countless birds and fish
[was] to them a sucking pool
of unforgiving mud.
I see you’ve made some interesting language and grammar choices, esp. with pronouns and missing words and commas. Poets are, as you know. entitled to do so! 🙂
Great comments Sandy. I’m going to edit.
“Remembering this defeat
they would years later drain
their memory of inadequacy
paving the water course
to be rid of the hindrance.”