Poems

 

Friends as Waterfalls

My waterfalls don't hang up

Do not disturb signs 

But maybe the rain was a lot recently 

And I imagine the trail is too muddy 

Or maybe it's been bone dry 

But I just don't think 

It's the best falls to see that day

Or I just get a feeling 

Other wanderers who might be visiting 

Would prefer to go alone 

One of my favorite waterfalls 

To listen to her bubble 

Or roar and seem to laugh 

Is a trek away

Sometimes I write her emails 

Our special little place 

Sometimes I don't commune with her

Though I crave to talk to someone 

Maybe I should more

Her mossy banks

Have been the best to feel 

My bare feet stand upon her

So grateful for her touch. 

For Dani Amoroso 

You're a slow rolling beauty with a mystical drop.

- an email to Ed

Chasing Friendlier Waterfalls

Waterfalls, flowers, mixed metaphors

This poem walks down a country road between a rolling stream

and a bouquet of wildflowers

picked weekly

between the worn hands of my mother

I always was timid, reticent,

when it came to picking flowers

and friends

Then I found my friends didn’t end up being droopy blooms

but raging and gloriously loud waterfalls

My best friends are waterfalls

my acquaintances and other friends aren’t.

A waterfall has a sort of decent into deepness

Not all streams do

A waterfall lets you visit it

whenever or commune with it

Not all creeks are open to visitors.

Don’t go chasing waterfalls

Please stick to the rivers and lakes that you’re used to

I know that you’re gonna have it your way or nothing at all

But I think you’re moving too fast

-lyrics from TLC

Makes you Wonder what a Waterfall is

I am brazen

I can be courageous trying to get friends

who seem they might be deep, moist, misty

But finding these 30 precious people I finally collected

has been a life’s works in progress

Again, not everyone is going to be a waterfall

I have friends who I value deeply but maybe I am the waterfall between us

That can be a wonderful dynamic,

But I also need waterfalls.

Then there are ones like Autumn or Josh

Waterfalls among waterfalls

People who make me feel

After 40 years of searching

I am not peerless actually

There are others like me

I am not alone

Nomenclature

Waterfall

As defined by the American Heritage Dictionary

is a descent of water from a height, a cascade

I guess what I mean in this obvious metaphor

is I have a certain kind of friend

who really gets me

It has to do not with the technical term waterfall

but more so how visiting a waterfall makes me feel

My first childhood friend Christina has a lot of trouble

feeling her whole life like she is struggling

to not just always be in fight or flight

She told me I give her a sense of calm that is rare

She said also that I listen to her non judgmentally

She made me feel valued and I value her

Maybe the way I feel among my waterfall friends

Is how I make many feel

Bouquet

I'm usually shy about picking flowers 

I want to let them stay beautiful 

Where they are

But about once a year 

In summer's thick

I find myself in a field 

Or bank

Or yard

And they beg me to gather them together 

Maybe butterfly bush 

In a friend's backyard 

Or queen Anne's lace

Asking me persistently 

Kindly 

To arrange them together 

Highlands, North Carolina

I remember visiting a waterfall with the other interns in 2009,

It was a wide flowing one and it had just rained

It was roaring and beautiful

The sound was a nourishment my mind desired

A blank noise that calmed the thoughts inside my mind

Wiped them right out

Until there was nothing.

Everything’s Finite

There is a cascade

20 minutes from my door

The thing about waterfalls is

If you visit one every week

For a decade

You end up seeing many scenes

Not just one

Every day is a different thing

It is so changing

It is like how the human body

Replaces all its cells

Every 8 years

It is like how my mind is so much different

From when I was a kid or teen

Change is in everything

And waterfalls remind us

Everything is temporal

Flowers are ephemeral

So are the waters

So is a human

We all are here now

But all of us

Will someday be gone

It is a reminder

That can scare someone

But it helps me so much

To see the beauty in changing, fading nature