While the River Runs Dry
Sept 3 2016


Where the Hydro dammed the falls
there is only grey rock.
With hints of pink, the glitter of quartz
exposed to light and air.

In high summer
it reminds me of sun-bleached bones,
as still as the desert
quiet as death.

Thousands of years
of moving water
have polished the ancient rock.
Like a marble obelisk, or cast bronze
I feel compelled to touch,
run the flat of my palm
over its smooth dry surface.
I want to drink
from the cool trickle
that wends its way down, 
the path of least resistance
water seeks.
And after a long climb
I can’t resist stretching-out
on its sun-warmed curves
worn by eons of flow.

I imagine the the spray, the power, the roar
when water thundered and poured
down its hard granite face.
Before men came, and shackled it,
before it was blasted,  dammed,  diverted
and ordered to serve;
like a broken animal, 
branded and penned
and put to work.

Now corralled, the torrent obediently flows 
through tunnels, turbines, wires
and on to comfortable homes.
While the river runs dry,
a testament to the immensity of time
it takes moving water 
to carve through rock.

Leave its mark on earth. 

My working title was “Silver Falls”, which the is the actual name of the place. But I like the ironic tension in ...river runs dry. Because a river either runs, or it’s dry; and the idea of “running dry” doesn’t really make sense.

I found this picture on the internet. As is often the case, a photograph doesn’t do the place justice. Approaching Silver Falls, I see an immense sculpted bowl of polished rock. And from the top, the panoramic view is spectacular. Further up, there is a jewel-like set of pools and drops, with a thin sheen of water pouring over a vertical face. And even further up, you make your way along the dry gorge that eventually leads to Dog Lake, clambering over the immense boulders that tumble down its course.

(As to the circumstances of this writing, here’s something I wrote to my first reader while working on this:  A total perspiration poem. I sat down knowing I needed to write to feel good; but with ABSOLUTELY zero ideas or inspiration, and not even much enthusiasm. So it’s reassuring to know that it turned out pretty well, regardless. As Mary Heaton Vorse (I always thought it was Mark Twain, but apparently not) famously  said about the mystique of inspiration:  “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” .)