Just For A Moment
The Soul is a River, The River Has a Soul
As a child, I was taken to Hoover dam,
one of the wonders of the world, they said,
and in a way it was, a testament to the workers
who risked their lives to build a concrete moat
complete with castlettes
to hold the Mother water back,
and all the life she once nourished,
and all that once laid increase into her womb.I stood on the hydroelectric dam,
atop the concrete spillway.
I felt the machine-drone
of the deep turbines underneath
trying to say something to my foot bones
through my shoes,
something like, ‘I am mighty,
look to me. ‘But I had already been naked in rivers
and crossed land over ice lakes in winter,
and been baptized in creeks,
and the dam could not say enough
to convince me,
for I knew the mightiness
belonged to open water…
__________
CODA
The painting, a watercolor by Buffalo Kaplinski, b. 1943, “Frisco, Colorado, Aspen Fall Patterns.” ©1995, 2008 All Rights Reserved
The poem excerpt “The Soul is a River, The River Has a Soul,” ©1970, 2008, C.P. Estés, All Rights Reserved. From the book Pulse of the River, Colorado Writers Speak for the Endangered Cache La Poudre, editors: Wockner, Bass, Pritchett
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It was the Rebellious one who thought of speaking first,
He wanted to talk about who the Dams serve in the same way
That Robert Johnson asks, “Who does the Grail serve?”
I thought of those who have lost out including the man made change in the landscape, Arondhati Roy’s struggle with the Dams currently being built in India,
And the displacement of all the poor farmers.
It was not the drone under my feet but the magnetic pull of another force;
More like a dowsing tool turning me around
to speak of the taming of nature, the logic and science involved
In the withholding or turning of the great waters;
the conquest of science over nature, control over wildness
and, in some barely perceived way, of mankind over womankind.
Science and technology have become yet another religion, for some.
You are right to not be so enthralled. Oh it’s easy to get hooked
when one is sitting in the comfy high tech seats of a jet
awed even more by the glittering stars blinking in the dashboard.
But I, too, am not quite as taken by the flight of rocket as I am the lovely
graceful flight of common bird.
I see now what hooked my attention was a lifetime of being
Engaged with nature, and my effort was to join you there
In the stream of your imagination for a little summertime swim.
Hope you don’t mind the company.
dear spirasol , i wanted to ask you where we can please find a copy or a book of Dennis DuBois poem you posted re father's day at another of my articles? Thank you.
dr.e
Well I am he as he is me and we are all together. It was stirred up, inspired by your articles and your beautiful image-rich poem where the men/the dads become larger than life, heroes, rescuing the innocent girls who gather the flowers. Since it was a spontaneous rendering, it may have been edited mildly since the original posting. If you would be honored to send you an e-copy. It is of coarse about remembering my deceased Dad…..
I meant, I would be honored if you would like me to send you a copy.
Or, if you need to protect your privacy, I can post it here.
Oh I See, how naive and narcissistic of me. You are inquiring, not out of interest, but vis-a-vis the posting of other's works with appropriate accreditation. Okay, more directly, it is my own, unpublished work which I thought at the time an appropriate comment on your post. I apologize for any confusion or concern I may have caused.
Dear Spirasol, thank you for your offer to send me your poem about your father. There is a way to send it to me through disquis which is our comment engine. I think, but am not sure, if you go to your registration for commenting on tmv, there may be a link there to email to anyone on TMV. But, you know what? It would just be faster I think if you just send it to Joe, our editor in chief, he always knows where I am and will get it to me. I think if you click on his name in the masthead it will bring up his email addy. You incidentally, DD have a great name.
dr.e
p.s. my cousin and I who as little kids rowed to the other side of the lake at dawn to get water lilies for our moms? My cousin is a boy, just a few months younger than me. 14 years later he would become a Marine. Nam.
dr.e
Done and Thanks! Yes the things we share….. and I'm sure you have been/are a muse for many.
thanks spirasol. I want to study both of them side by side. in my own work, the first is fresher and I have to be careful not to noodle it out too much. I liked the line breaks yours fell into in the first one, espec. the last line. OUr WordPress column has a way of cutting my poetry too into unintended line breaks if I try to center it or block quote it. But sometimes, that is an unanticipated improvement! lol. I liked your words about your father.
dr.e
Thanks for the poems you guys.