Watershed - Oct 22 2020

 

Watershed

Oct 22 2020

In this watershed year

I feel myself going downhill,

descending from the height of land

from which all water flows.

You'd think it would be easy, heading downstream,

but not when it pours

and this raging current has me.

If only I'd known

that this slippery slope

was no mere elevation;

was, instead, the continental divide

and that there was no going back.

Only water

a far horizon

the sea's unfathomed depths.

The downward slope is steep

treacherous with scree.

And as rain incessantly falls

it carries me further down;

scrambling, stumbling, slipping

unsure of the ground beneath my feet.

Not the downstream of easy going

but the downhill of loss;

my disappointed dreams,

and a protesting body

repeatedly betraying me.

If only some sign had appeared, some warning.

Even though I can't deny

that I had known all along.

Just not when

how fast

how wrong it would seem.

One fateful step either way

and all rivers flow the same.

To an ocean with the salt of tears.

To an ocean where I'll disappear.

To an ocean where life began

and will end

and then begins again,

returning to the warm fertile sea

from whence we all came.

I turned 65 earlier this year. For the many of you who haven't, please understand that you never feel that old, you are amazed by the number, and your contemporaries will all look unaccountably aged.

It's a highly symbolic year, but for me this symbolism became unexpectedly real. First, 2020 – the pandemic year-- was a lousy one for just about everyone. But for me, there were several things that happened (or didn't!) that made me feel not only my age for the first time, but that there was no going back. That is, a watershed year.

Which is where the poem began. A way, perhaps, to write myself out of my negativity by circling around the issue with metaphor and detachment.

For the last half year or so I have given up paper and pen and write directly on the computer keyboard. So there is no crumpled piece of paper full of cross-outs and palimpsest to show my process. In this case, though, no need: these words went down on the screen almost exactly as you see them now; so except for a few minor tweaks on the way, the rough draft pretty much became the final version. I began with a single idea, relied on long practice, and then surrendered to my stream of consciousness.

I did end with a little hopefulness, though: a nod to transformation, the generative ocean, the cycle of life.