by Patrick Clark
My bones know these waters
They tumble and bubble
Foam and smash
Crash and bounce
Sing and dance
Riccoche down the mountain
Over boulders, logs, moss
And play with the fish and salamanders
On their way, passing through
The valley they carved
Sparkle and shine
In rays of mist,
mixed with dappled
Sunlight
My bones know this well
My bones remember
And sink down into
A peace
A silence with no
Coming nor going
Yet nothing but
Coming and going
A stillness hanging in between
Each coming and going
In a timeless time
A placeless place
Between worlds
I slept by the water all night long
And woke up feeling a pain long buried.
My bones remembered
Because they knew these waters
From the beginning.
I sit on this boulder
Water swirling on all sides, breathing in a smell so sweet I cannot leave
I can feel the pain lingering from the past.
I come from a story
I did not want to remember
A pain that to relive
Would destroy.
But here it’s okay.
Here by this stream,
this will pass through me.
I tried to forget
But these waters persisted
Would not stop singing
This happened
This was your life
But this was not you
See this, acknowledge this,
feel this,
and then let it pass.
These waters heal
These waters sing the song of the stars
Twinkling in the night sky
Wide, cold, pure, deep
Constant, cutting through
Millennia to get to the core
Right where the truth is
These waters sing
The story of the universe
You can hear if you can
Stand to listen if it
Doesn’t kill you first.
Most people cannot hear and could not bear to listen and feel.
Sit and sleep near beside the creek
And you will be pure
You will become the sound
the music, the energy
Nothing will be left inside you
It gets washed away one
Grain at a time until you
Become silent. You become
Truth and you exist
Whole and complete
Between worlds
Between time and space
Often you will want to turn and run
Go find something to do
Go find some people to
Validate you, entertain you.
Anything to get away.
Sit here, sleep here, walk here, be here
Breath the mist deep into
Your center core
Hear the pounding in the center of the river
On the bank
And further away
Feel the power and how
It changes you.
Move with it, stay with it.
Your story of
Who you are, where you came from
Goes downstream or evaporates
Now you are ever new
Fresh, vibrant, unencumbered
You are
Boulders
Mist
Ancient Trees
Water
Silence
And your bones remember.