MILDEW & HENRY DAVID THOREAU
During the Plum Blossom Monsoon
in the mountains
of southern China,
you just start throwing
more and more stuff
away, more and more,
and pretty soon
you're at Walden Pond.
CANYON CREEK
It seems colder than it is outside. I
should go look at the moon ripening
in a thicket of stars, but I wanted
to talk a little of creek water,
how the stones in the shallow bed
up Canyon Creek are as round and vivid
as the eyes of deer . . .
No, I meant rather to speak of the stillness
under moss-laden old growth:
bark on one fir so thick
seeds take root in it and soar,
"thinking" as a young tree thinks,
it's the earth.
No, that's not it exactly. I believe
it was simpler, not even the surprise of so many waterfalls
nor the chattering companionship of squirrels
and the stellar jay,
as I stumbled through brush,
worked through devil's club,
jumped skipped from rock to rock.
I think it was when I was
standing under those ancient trees,
wringing out the bottoms of my jeans,
beginning to think some thought
that had come with me from town,
growing a little melancholy in the shade,
that I looked down from the green bank
and could see yes the creek,
the creek in the sunlight,
and it was just the creek in the sunlight,
and it made me happy that it made me happy.
____________
Mike O'Connor
Old Growth
New & Selected Poems
foreword by Red Pine
Empty Bowl, 2023
