i. Tuolumne River

Moving water makes no mistakes –
or makes them endlessly, without regret.
What does it care for a lodgepole pine
clung to a fissure in the bank? How can 
lichen in the lee of the granite soften
your loss of a love, after so many years?

The flycatcher – out of shadow, over-
the-eddy-and-back in a single arc – can’t 
help you return to yourself day after day.
The circling deerfly’s not a bright halo;
each bite raises a welt.
                                                  Early summer alone.
The foolishness of a map. If only your life
were as clear as water on granite, if you 
knew each plunge would take you where
you needed to go, you might begin again.

ii. Lukens Lake

The same booming wind that dropped these pines in the lake
drove them to this cove and scattered them – pick-up-sticks,
lodgepole, ponderosa – so many spines on black water.
They’re like human stories: bare feet seek out seasoned backs –
stripped and bleached – not coarse skin of the newly fallen.
You teeter on them over darkness, looking down for
something – maybe just relief from midday heat.

Who says we find the way starting over – with only
the knowledge of how we’ve failed, the many ways?
Shapes that look familiar warp and break in the chop.

You want to do it right – but slip feet-first into dark,
toward a bottom you never reach. The cold’s so sharp
it’s a slap: the breath can’t hold. You burst the surface
into light you’d forgotten – each droplet and twig explicit –
pungency of pine, thin air you want more than anything.