NO ONE ELSE KNOWS
you can usually be free some of the time
if you wake up before other people.
- William Stafford (“Freedom”)
One must be free to follow a river
like mountain men, fishermen – like
children, first or last time, remembering
the smell of bear clover in the cedars
that hasn’t moved in fifty years, or the
velvet moss, mist and roar, the translucent
cave you hid within that still churns
at Soda Springs – your huge, flood-worn
rock awaits another string of rainbows.
Otherwise, we forget where we come from,
forget the fine details of dreams, forget
to rewrite our stories in the mirror, or find
connections where there seemed none.
It can be a quiet time, or not, but when
it’s black outside, no one else knows.