Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Creeks

where seas start:

springs leak & snow swoons 
under sun & soon trickles
become inklings of headwaters

off spiked hills 
spasms of water splash, crash,
& make thin loud brash nervous
streams skating over slick slate.

off peaks proper creeks
leap in white waterfalls,
smash into crescendo pools,
lounge awhile,
then amble, then race & riffle
around boulders til they fall
again            listen:

there's a jazzy rhythm 
to high country creeks,
syncopation of gurgle,
trickle, rush, splash, & knock

see shadow and sun, eddies
and pebbled edges, deep
black pools, glassy sheets
under which fish shadows dart.

carved into loamy meadows
and farmland, catfish creeks
won't be rushed (hush, now),
quietly they tread over 
fine silt floors.

desert dry creeks--
ghostly impressions,
molds of pool & streambed
asking for water. lizards
scribble graffiti on 
parched sand. but then
sky attacks one day 
&  the memory of water
comes roaring back

creeks give themselves 
over to rivers that give
themselves over to bigger
flows & who knows?
maybe the big river can't
resist a coast & runs to a 
bay, to a sea, where
all the banks of rivers vanish
& all creeks sing together.


hans ostrom 2022

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

"Thinking at a Funeral," by Hans Ostrom

It's sad to think that those little
private,unfounded beliefs (blue underwear
will bring me luck
)will die
with each of us,
along with the complex cultures
we create in our minds, whereas something
truly silly like labeling water H-2-0
will persist indefinitely. I was

thinking this at a funeral when
I was supposed to be listening
to a "friend" of the deceased
talk almost exclusively about
himself, not the life of
the dead man. Dear Lord:
there are over 7 billion
vagabond human minds on Earth;
please advise.



hans ostrom 2014