River

RIVER

I went down to the river

to listen and watch

as the river gave thanks

with its currents and eddies

and both of its banks

for the rain

the replenishing rain

Dean Metcalf c. 1970

Segues: #1 of 1,000,000 - Responding to Notice What This Poem is Not Doing

2 of 1,000,000
but . . .

aye... yet there was....

..chance providing. . . simple sensing. . .
.....subverting . . . drifting . . . floating . . .
inordinate co-axialating . . . latitudinal paralleling . . .

......deeply delving . . . verticalizing . . .
............fossorial faunching . . .

. --r.anderson


1 of 1,000,000
(The Day Without Nouns)

Just for (the span of the sun and moon)
Name ( ) no thing
Along comes --blank-- the dark time

Make it (more than okay), let it
Be yours if there was a Name for that
Yet more, let it be beyond the gerund

Speak no (noun-meaning-word), just
pass along the (angled land) as if
There never was youth or (caution).

No need to Name the (feathered ones)
Sort the calls and cries (slot them)
in memory and (forget)


.....responding to William Stafford's Notice
.....What This Poem is Not Doing. The
.....original title of the response via
.....fortuitous typo, "The Day Without Nous." KB

See http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/William-Stafford/1649

Stemming the Wallowa Flow

Stemming the Wallowa flow...

Rivers of fur continue to flow here
.. otter and beaver, mink and weasel,
... though spotted cats are the lure,
..... coyotes and muskrat still pay the bills.
 

Nimi'ipuu always took a few...
.. for food and clothing and such like.
..... Contact time found a few metis,
..... refugees from fur brigades, living here.
 

Then trade... plews for guns,
.. and pots, axes, gee-gaws and booze
.... supplanted the balance and the rush
..... was on for soft gold to trade.
 

Homesteaders flooded in here
.. once the natives had been chased off.
... A desperate folk hungry for a dollar
..... turned every rock and beast to use.

Today, all seventeen trappers
.. travel our streams with roads along them,
... following the mystique and almost
..... paying for the gas they use
..
Now, the big money may lie
.. in the pockets of veterinarians
... that patch up stock dogs and pets,
..... the by-catch that survives.
 

Ahhh and the rare glimpse
.. of an otter or mink, a beaver or muskrat,
... raccoon or skunk marks the day
..... for those of us who yet play afield.


'Tis an old tradition this,
.. subduing beasts of field and bush
... with gin traps and snares
. ... for subsistence and sport.



r.anderson





plew: a beaver skin used as a standard unit of value in the fur trade

Meditation On a Leaky Raft

Meditation On a Leaky Raft

look ahead
...for the next
.......thrill down
..........the river
.............paddle on
..........leave the past
.......back there
... stop wood
..... bail water
.........share only
............the splash
.......of the current
....moment . . .
..there is no
rush to attain
.....the next rush

River Flows...

River flows...

The freshet this day
.. starts on my roof,
.... flows down my sidewalk,
...... joins the neighborhood ditch,
......... before it's name becomes River.

A little downstream
.. the eagles sit watch,
..... the mergansers float by,
....... and fishers whip water,
......... in hopes of rainbow quicksilver.

So too time flows
.. from now to then,
..... from then 'till tomorrow
...... and watchers sit by
..........casting lines and nets.

How do you
.. contribute to the flow,
.... snatch krill as they float by,
...... merely watch for drift
......... and fetch up in its logjams?

--r.anderson

Your Poem in the Talons...

Osprey drawing used by permission of artist Jimmye Turner, Walla Walla, Wa.

To submit a poem to the Fishtrap "William Stafford Birthday
Community Write" send it to staffordpoems at fishtrap.org

The Mullein Leaf

The Mullein Leaf

Happiness begins at seventy five grand,
and while I live in a neighborhood
of missing hubcaps and cigarette butts,
I can walk slow enough to drag my feet
and stop to look at European red slugs
wrapped around a glob of plastic
or spit in the river at the pookie mark,
watching the ripples erase my reflection.

I like September.
The grey clouds, drizzle
and yellow school buses.
It brings introspection.
Summer is the time of vacations,
birthday pool parties and sunburns.
Fall is the hunkering down of life,
even the spider’s web gathers rain.

While life is a gift,
not all gifts are what we’ve wished.
We all must bear grandma’s soap-on-a-rope.
Just ask the drug-addicted babies Kim is nurturing.

Today is my daughter’s first day of high school.
In the past, I’ve always given her a gift on this day.
I think this year it will be a mullein leaf
giving to me on a float trip
down the Snake River
to be used as bum fodder.
The lesson, nature provides.

Though my happiness may not reach the seventy five grand mark,
I’m content just to avoid jails and churches.

Nature provides,
drag your feet to find it.

Kevin Nusser, Portland, Oregon