Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The Day After Christmas (poem by Dorothy)
The Day After Christmas
The Creek today
was near deserted.
A ribbon of snow
lined the banks
(at first I mistook its lace
for soap)
the water again so clear
you could see the
great slabs of rock
resting below,
like the remains
of some sunken city
waiting to be found.
And then I met someone
who stepped out of vastness.
As I stopped to gaze
at the racing stream
and listen to its bell-like
cry,
a younger man paused alongside
and asked if there
was something I was looking at.
Only the water, I said.
Only the sound of the
rushing flow.
O, he said,
I see,
and added,
I have a new tattoo!
On his forearm were
the phases of the moon, with
something even more elaborate above--
drawn, he told me,
by the lead man in
his band,
the group named “Incubus.”
I’ve heard of it,
I said.
What’s your name?
he asked politely.
I told him and asked
what was his.
Lucas, he answered and shook my hand
and wandered on.
But I stayed and gazed at the
leaping stream some more--
as if squirrels or monkeys
had turned to water--
you can never get enough of
watching mountain water
and thinking of what it might
be telling you,
what new phase
it might be heralding.
Dorothy Walters
December 26, 2010
