When Summer Comes


The sharp jut, of a rock face, looks like an ancestor. My eyes widened, feeling a round stone beneath my modern, Northland, moccasins. I stopped to brush aside the stone, with the toe of my boot,  leaving a small trace of myself, on the path. My jeans and jacket swoosh through the dry, winter grasses and a scattering of thoughtless pines.

An eagle silently passes; I stop again, lean into inaudible sounds of occasional insects and sparrows. I press onward, toward the large white, sunlit rocks in the center of a broad, yellow and orange space… The smell of dew and morning dampness still clinging to my skin and a few pages of my small, spiral notebook.

Overlooking the flat rocks - twisting like a strange staircase in the cavern, is a thin, clear, almost plastic-looking pipe of a depleted waterfall, that whimsically tries to pour its subtle sound over more and more rocks. Behind the trees, are youthful voices; college students (on spring break) that rise effortlessly along the hiking trail - oblivious to me and the passage of time.

Nothing else seems to matter, except this moment. I lean into the warmest spot, smoke a cigarette; wrap its skeleton, in a moist leaf. I listen to the sizzling ash and watch a group of haiku poets walking, somewhat aimlessly, along the main trail. They finally gather below the trail, at a table, beneath a circle of trees.

The sun is high and begins to write its fresh poems, on my shoulders and down my back. The deep scent of red earth rises in my nostrils, dusts my hair and powders the flesh of my arms with an ageless monument - preserving this scene with its ancient map.

When summer comes, I’ll return and gather white sage, nature's silent language and small, spiky cacti, for my kitchen window.

silver thistle -
small green buds
closer to the ground


Deborah Russell, © 2005
 
Colorado Foothills