On Puget Sound

Air Earth Fire Water

A misty drizzle falls over Puget Sound—

enters every living thing

thimble berries I pick from the roadside—

berries red, soft, tender

stain my fingers red

flood my tongue with tang.

Water seeps into leaves, grass, me.

I’m as damp as the black crenelated slug

crossing the forest path with deliberate gravity.

Under a lush green cedar bough I lean

against its stout rough trunk—

I feel the qi in flowing through every living thing

And in water, minerals, earth and from

the sun cupped yellow marsh marigolds.

A sweetness breathes from pink rose hedges,

chicory stands sentinel for my blue longing

 Ferns breathe green ideas 
 into the fallen leaves

Mist falls on an unseen singer haunting

the forest canopy with  unearthly scales of notes.

Imbued, baptized the networks of roots under

my boots know I am here—the news

travels all the way to the salty Sound.

Octopus, seals, sea otters hear the news.

They know my love of them and the gray whale

I greeted in the Baja last winter breaches

its great body as it looks shore ward.

We are all joined in this joy.

                                      --Barbara Spring

Moon Flowers and Mist by Barbara Spring

Mist

White mist rises from the harbor—

farther upstream it slides

between the reeds

around the islands.

The river sings today

as it runs through our town

on its way to the sweetwater seas

on its way to the Gulf of St. Lawrence

on its way to the wild dark Atlantic.

From the bridge I can see

October’s first frost dissipate

in Sunday morning sun light.

Prickly seed pods of moon flowers burst

upon sandy loam.

Cloudy milt and coral eggs

cling to stream bed stones.

Glory surrounds us like water—

we sense it and see it.

                                                                               We feel its hot and cold

                                                                            its colors its sounds

                                                                                as the river sings its songs of salmon

                                                                              as it runs to the sea and rises sunward.

                                                                              With locators sure as salmon

                                                                     we will return.

                                                                                 excerpted from my book, The Wilderness Within

                                                               water color by Barbara Spring