Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up

Bridging the Trough

It was the lowest tide that I had ever seen
within the riverside of Sandy Point and then
a January afternoon as well. Such subtle
situations seem like cold apocalyptic
facts but in effect they’re full of rising promise.
I just normally forget the other side
of that indigenous equation. But this time
I saw the western canyon shore and russet river
butte as ancient desert landscape waiting for

the sea to cover it with sky blue revelations
soon enough. I walked into the dunes before
that era dawned and saw the waxing moon ascending
in the east. A silhouette of hawks were sailing
over silver birches in the south. Across
the river, spirited construction workers drummed
a steady rhythm. Overhead the high-pitched cries
from warrior alliances in flights of geese
were painting changing vectors towards the northern verge.

And I fell underground beneath the measured currents
of those steady drifts. Emerging from their passage,
I perceived the sun and moon on equal terms
in bright opposing skies. That’s when I saw the skeleton.
Bleached white by light and clean of any residue
of life, it waited in the shadows. Whether it
belonged to some coyote, deer, or washed-up seal,
it waited for the sand I dusted on its bones.
I wait for spring to tell me things it used to know.

~Son Rivers 2006