Written after a day kayaking on the waters of the Pacific Northwest: the clouds above, the snow covered mountains and the heaving weight of the lifting water seeming to concentrate the entire cycle through my transported body, my paddling arms, my exhilaration and my lifetime memories of the element on which I rode: in the Galapagos Islands, in the streams of the Himalayas and in my childhood drinking of it as it ran straight off the peat stained Yorkshire moors. Water is the central conversational element that holds all of the great cycles of life and memory and even anticipation together. It is only through the agency of drought, of climate change or through our overweening manipulation do we understand the trauma to our humanity involved through its loss. Water is the preserver of memory, the foundation of our everyday participation; the central animating force at the heart of our future and the ever moving conversation that holds them all together.
WHERE MANY RIVERS MEET All the water below me came from above. All the clouds living in the mountains gave it to the rivers, who gave it to the sea, which was their dying. And so I float on cloud become water, central sea surrounded by white mountains, the water salt, once fresh, cloud fall and stream rush, tree roots and tide bank, leading to the rivers' mouths and the mouths of the rivers sing into the sea, the stories buried in the mountains give out into the sea and the sea remembers and sings back, from the depths, where nothing is forgotten. -from River Flow: New & Selected Poems: Revised Edition
"the heaving weight of the lifted water" - yes! I grew up on an island in the Puget Sound and the full and rising quality of the water when the tide is coming in, especially when the wind is still and the surface of the water is smooth and seems to bow upwards, is something I've tried to describe. This is it, exactly.
Visiting Jeju Island, South Korea (from Maryland, USA). After days in Seoul, we’re now immersed in nature. No doubt here on the island their are - stories buried along the cliffs, along the shores. David’s poem, words, are timely - helping savor the beauty of water, mountains, and sky here.