Trajectory

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the river doesn’t follow a straight line
pulled by the moon, but roams
like a coyote following root
skin and scent.
ice jams push sludge-brown waters
(on a screaming path), uprooting
one-hundred-year-old spruce trees and
cutting the silt bank to its knees.
we count our blessings. shore up with big rocks
muscle against the inevitable, learn
to soften. adapt.
And this summer, you turned eight.
smarter. taller. faster. still freckled.
learning to skate and paint.
 
are you who you once were?
a fish pulled from the net slides
through my slippery hands, gulls wheel
the sky goes rust and
everything, it seems is
 
carved in sand.
everything is carved in sand (Barbara Rodgers)

0 thoughts on “Trajectory”

  1. Some wonderful images here, both in the poem and the photos, that capture so well the sense of what we can't really hold on to. That fish unable to stay in your slippery hands is especially vivid and suggestive, as is that last line of 'everything . . . carved in sand.'

  2. Here's the heart of it for me…

    muscle against the inevitable, learn
    to soften

    The trick is discernment, being able to distinguish what is truly inevitable, what requires determined resistance, what is best served by allowing life to simply slide away.

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Welcome to the creative playground of Image, Sculpture, Verse.  I live in a river town nestled in the Chugach Mountain Range of Southcentral Alaska.

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