Artwork by Kimmy van Kooten
Copyright 2007
"Light of the St. Johns"
About a ten minute walk from my home is the beautiful St. Johns River.
The water travels, north, on a path very slowly.
Over the 310 miles, the river’s total drop from beginning to end is less than 30 feet, or about one inch per mile, making it one of the "laziest" rivers in the world!
Regardless of its popularity, this part of the river offers a sense of solitude that is not easily paralleled.
The land is lined with towering palms, large live oaks, scrubby sand pines and old cypress.
Behind the tree line, bobcats, panthers and black bears roam.
The contiguous landscape goes on unspoiled for miles in every direction. . .I love it here!
Acold in darkness creeping in. . .running auld, in orangeness, on the St. Johns Eventide, call it a day!
Sinking silently, I'm barely breathing Behind the rivers’ edge, stunned, unscathing of a constituency where I've lived. . .
Casting chroma, slow ripples shim Cockling . . . breaking into, the coolness that reaches our dampened limbs!
Dangling, from this old dock, submerged in babbling . . . Shadowy smoothness, on moving ruffles . . . Cadenced in waiving, vibrating uphill's
The river ridges, forged in propagation A flow in felling, from aphasic sundowns . . . and alight of the South speaks voiceless on Spanish moss Sun glistening watch fire! O’ flowerless spores!
Hang freely from majestic oaks and aged old cypress Suffocating in an echelon, like a pecking order Ah. . .The entity of life!
Celled in living, among the living Bluer waters meet partial twilight, in faint, complexioned. . . No heat. . . but lightning. . .
If only many more could see with your eyes, and feel with your heart!
Reviewed by Flying Fox Ted L Glines (Reader)
Reviewed on August 13, 2007
Ah, Kimmers, I absolutely LOVE that painting! A certain red conga would resonate here. You need to come over here and give a show. Do it now! And your word-jazz is a sound-painting. I better shut up before you get all ego-tweaked!
Ted
Reviewed by Missy Cross (Reader)
Reviewed on August 12, 2007
Both art and words are gorgeous. Ahhh... thanks for taking us with you.
It is often easy to see the soul and heart of a river as we sit and watch it at sunset with the flames of the sun flaring off it and as it sings its own song of forever. Beautiful capture, and I do know of the river Eileen speaks of as it is only one province from my own of Nova Scotia so I know this cannot be same river...no palm trees in Canada.
hugs
Fee
A most beautiful poem Kimmy! I'm wondering if it's the same place where I lived and worked for two years. In St John New Brunswick, I managed a restaurant where tourists came from all over the world to see what they called the reversing falls.It is where the bay of fundy meets the st Johns river and reverses.I loved it there. This brought back many wonderful memories. I lived there in the mid seventies.
This is a book of free verse poetry that addresses the seven main tests in life and offers some sensible solutions to passing those tests with minimal discomfort.
“The woman or man who is a poet, or fiction writer, or playwright, or all of these, is engaged constantly in a jazz ballet of vocabularies, passions, genders, histories, perspectives, death, love, and life. The music of revelation announces itself to
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Love Tinka
Love you!! ~Mara
Georg
A very peaceful and blessed journey you've brought to life with your painting and words.
If only many more could see with your eyes, and feel with your heart!
Ted
Ron
hugs
Fee
Love,
Eileen
God Bless,
Lew