december's here

Jim McCarthy photo

nov 28
trekking upways & sideways
long ways and winding ways
back ways and upside-down ways
the white vest bobs
the braid flicks back and forth
the mighty Hutch
where is she taking me?
A trip down memory lane perhaps?
there is more to say
more to tell
Let the leaves change with time
Let's take the long way home

(Charly)

*******************
Dream of Ferns

I heard myself muttering thinking aloud
"Only the clouds are as old as the ferns
and only the ferns are immortal"
I heard the ferns whispering singing aloud

We've burst up in your path and you're hip-deep
in our tossing arms arrows and wings
when you walk out of the woods to the road.
On a dry day we have the scent of
bruised fruit and wet hair - in the rain
we smell like frozen blood or boiled rice.
Toward evening we become grave in our celebrations.
Doesn't that sound like something you'd say?
You've been repeating your labors,
creating us over and over again.

"And on the Moon, the Sea of Tranquility
is made of a blotch of split fern-stipes."
Hasn't your mind told you that?

You think we have names - we have no names.
and if we have names, you could never know
how they sound when we say them.
As many of us as there are, we have no names.

We're the ferns
we have no pity and we can never be cruel
and we never love in the way you know love.
We're the ferns and we're never sorry.

If you want to hear as we hear:
Tonight take us down with you when you go
down beneath underfoot to your sleep in that soil,
in death, to that palace
that place that you think is a dream.
Take us down with you into the dream.

You think we have eyes - we have no eyes
but we saw whole years pass by while you flinched
at this beauty of ours. You have eyes
and you see that we know we're alive.
We're the ferns.

We hold the shade underfoot and we say no prayers
and when you are sad we are not sad.
We're dying, as always,
but would you be sorry to die as we die?

You've seen the time when a hot day turns cold
when the clouds and treetops are stopped
and the wind burgeons out of a hole in the earth.
Where at first the ferns seemed to be sulking
the spokes of the ferns are set spinning,
every fern wheel in the woods
has got spinning,
and it seems that green whirlpools
come closer to you, quietly pulling
you into a dream. You'd be
welcome there if you would go.

We're the ferns and we die there
a death without pain.
And then still dreaming
we come again
And we're never too deep
never too wide and we're never too many
never too silent never too dark.
We're the ferns and we;re never sorry.

Stephen Petroff

Jeff Nelson - left as a page in the CREA Walks journal at the map kiosk

photo by Jim McCarthy