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| Lupine Near Kings River |
They twirled me around
ten times at the edge
of the campground
then scattered
Take a different path.
as I swayed a little, then
lunged at them, each one
vanishing into bushes
by the river, the water
roaring into a still, Take a different path.
deep pool, then
sweeping around a bend,
a phoebe chirping, barely
out of my reach, on a twig
above the shining edge
of the pool and the rapids-- Take a different path.
I was tempted to forget the game
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| Woodstar, Fiesta Flowers, Chinese Houses Near the Kings River |
and swim across, the water
smooth for a stretch, Take a different path.
then pitilessly raging,
but I saw my brother,
fifty feet away, scrambling
as if his life depended
on it, and I sprinted
like mad, twenty feet Take a different path.
away before he
disappeared into
the deer brush, and I
gave up. Alone
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| Vetch and Lupine near Kings River |
and lost, I knew that I
had failed. As I
leapt across a backwash,
my friends seemed
so distant, impossible Take a different path.
to reach. Two feet away,
the water raged, the sun
kindling my breast,
the trees and bushes so
peaceful that I felt
one with sycamores
and oaks and plants
whose names I didn’t know,
my soul for the first time Take a different path.
connecting with the spirit
of the river--and I no longer
wanted anything else.
An hour later, my brother
found me and scornfully
asked where I’d been, Take a different path.
before we marched back to camp
where I saw again in the distance
the shining edge of the pool
and the pitiless rapids.
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