Minnows nibble at my white feet
numbering the sand in Penitencia Creek
water that tastes of the tops of hills
that curve and rove-minnows that
remember the earth on its way from hills
generations ministering to all that moves,
cutthroat fingerlings, wearing their shadows
up the reticent side of the creek.
The last ten years of our world’s need
we have been friends of solitude
(while reaching around the ocean’s tide
death angels frighten the Geiger counter),
friends of ten years, the years of need,
when our world waded deeper and felt
nibbling minnows. And where were we?
-climbing along Penitencia Creek.
Registering fins all afternoon,
meeting appointments with the sun,
I say back to touches on the feet,
“Beside me there’s one along this creek
who keeps an appointment: go touch her feet,
for all in this valley are my kin,
and exalted walkers are reminded of vows:
shallow or deep, kin from the deep.
“Tonight returning from this day of wading
we will be caves alive with shadows
lulled from wilder parts of earth;
live oaks will wear missions in the limbs,
walls that extenuate, silhouettes
implying all that is left of faith.
The San Andreas Fault will tick in the earth
while in unquiet an old bell sounds.
“We will be quiet as roots of willow,
secret by shadow, promised by stillness
of current and sand, descending by awareness
and crawling by rocks like vertical horizons
years have dragged across our land.
On the big horizon lurk missions of flame;
shadows wear devotion gracefully.
Back there in the dark lie sequoia seeds.”
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