Day 589 And Still It Flows

Daily Note

Every day, a photograph, a poem. Winding up the two weeks of  #writeout from the National Writing Project / National Park Service two week celebration of parks and the outdoors in the next few days. I choose to peruse my photos for the lovely deep blue of the Columbia River winding its way from Canada to the Pacific Ocean. I wanted it to show its natural winding through the northwest in which the Ice Age had changed its flow, and still it flows.

I know the creatures in and around it, humans through history and the many creatures around and in it, and the one especially that is no longer, the salmon.

How I wrote this short moment in the river’s story through the use of art and writing strategies is here: And Still It Flows #WriteOut, with the help of Jean Kanzinger @Writers_Locker  ‘s WriteOut Inspiration.

In our park below the dam, an osprey nest sits, with a pair returning each year to nest, mate, and raise young. That I wanted in the poem.

The swirling current does not stop the dive of an osprey, and the power of the river gives us both life and power.

And so, the poem….

And Still It Flows

Long ago an occasional Ponderosa pine
among the many sagebrush
dotted the expanse of dust
surrounding a village
of tule mat lodges
now a small town,
both hugging the edge
of the mighty river

A small white head
pops up in the nest
of broken sticks
of fire-resistant pint
high atop
an abandoned
telephone pole

Below, white foam surges
atop indigo currents
spinning in whirlpools,
spiraling to a vortex
that explodes into ripples
erupting into white foam
over indigo
over and over
like galaxies spreading
across the universe

Above, two osprey on uplifting currents
circling in an unseen funnel,
with keen eyes searching before
diving head first within minutes,
barbed foot pads grasping
the squirming walleye, dinner ready
And mate’s sharp, piercing call
“Dinner is coming”

“I give you life,”
rumbles the river
“and power”
as it tumbles
through the turbine
spinning to light up
the windows in the cluster
of homes on its shore

While the ghost
of salmon calls,
“I am there no more.”

Sheri Edwards
102221 29536521
Poetry/Photography

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