EVOCATIONS OF BARRY LOPEZ, MCKENZIE RIVER

 

III. Evocations of Barry Lopez, McKenzie River

I.

Walking Three Water

Digging out mud soaking stones

Building this house river

Landscape found in edge dreaming

To bring what is together

II.

Finn Rock tomorrow

Karen quilts face-fabric mountain

What fall emptiness!

Looking out over my hands

Unable to stay on page

III.

When his friend’s request

for a handful of small stones

became a question

River running so narrow

River runs like a fire hose

IV.

Reading you Barry

In the way I’ve been given

And this extra breath

Arctic whale ivory tusks

Edges of any landscape

V.

Slow this river down

Take out invasive berries

Those hungry bull frogs

Walking among tundra birds

I was camped close to the edge

VI.

Beside a small pond

Cranberry walnut cookie

My once-sweet country

Bowing with hands in pockets

Benign forgiving sunlight

VII.

Stops along the way

Literature at first light

Poet’s learning curve

Camera gets out of car

White living willow water

VIII.

Back home to poems

Flood plain, beaver and bullfrog

Back home to notebook

Don’t fall over in water

And now so short of knowing

IX.

Traveling through the dark

Barry Lopez on hunger

Bill Stafford country

Sublime beauty penetrates

Rigging wild shower of sound

X.

If chance darkened me

Darkness brought me to rivers

Textured landscape stones

The people who change nature

Trust chosen companions

Jim Bodeen