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Click title to download microchap
Cover photo by author
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How to Paddle Upstream
Consumed with your own thoughts,
always going it alone because
that’s the silence that comforts you,
there’s no easy way to get back
if you start paddling downstream.
So pull yourself along the bank.
The lee side, of course.
Why start now with the risks?
Stroke left, then right, head-on
into the current, meeting snags,
obstructions, knowing you can
always turn back to the beginning
by drifting along the easy course
you’ve followed all along.
Or face those challenges, solve
the problems you encounter.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll learn
something about life along the way,
learn to set your own course
once you rejoin the flow.
mindfulness
gulls wheel overhead,
cries mingled with the sound
of waves lapping at the shore
cormorants dive,
surface downstream,
carried by the current
great blue heron raises
its head, catch grasped
firmly in its bill
soft breeze off the water
carries a mild caress,
warm day or cool
beside the river
or upon it,
my mind is at ease
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Endless Beauty
Trees have fallen into the stream
A resting place where turtles teem
Ignoring all, or so it seems
No time to dream, no time to dream!
Kingfisher flies from tree to tree
Always heading away from me
Dives in the water suddenly
No fish can flee, no fish can flee!
Heron that stands so tall and free
Watches the water patiently
For glints of silver it may see
Strikes suddenly, strikes suddenly
With beauty that I can't ignore
Appears a sight not seen before
An otter swims so quick and sure
From shore to shore, from shore to shore
The beauty never seems to end
Along the stream, around the bends
No matter where the river wends
It never ends, it never ends
Quench This Thirst
Give me a forest trail
beneath radiant amber leaves
that dance playfully in sunlight,
past stony outcrops that speak
of history embraced in layers of time
that seeps to form rivulets of life
that feed streams great and small.
Take me to the banks of those rivers
where the forest’s roots reach to the water.
Just as their thirst is quenched,
let mine be so, that I may know
the beauty of leaves, of water, and of sky.
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Crossing Rivers
beneath a March sky
bundled in my mother’s arms
wrapped in the thunder
of the mighty cataract
dawn’s light on the river’s shore
my float beside my father’s
drifts in the current, bobbing
with each nibble
sunlight diffused at depth
weightless, suspended
freedom in each breath
bubbles cradled by the current
beside those towering falls
camera in my hand
captures the light
held by the deafening roar
hikes within the gorge
below that cataract
recording water so blue
pounding, rushing
flowing to the lake
and its glass-pebbled shore
a bridge of light fading
in the night as it recedes
in my rearview mirror
the river still vivid
in memory
another river crossed
highway of the heartland
massive in its breadth
as I enter a new life
my kayak floats on the Big Muddy
and the murky rivers feeding it
eagles overhead little consolation
for Niagara’s blue grandeur
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Ken Gierke © 2024
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Click title to download microchap
Cover: ’Random Harmony’
taken by author at the
Cazadero Nature and Art Conservancy
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Art as Complement
Within a meadow surrounded by forest,
admire works of art that seem to be one
more element of the terrain. Beyond the meadow, a three-hundred-year-old oak
is laced with colored yarn and twine that
marry it to the giant granite boulder seeming to grow into its side. Another oak is strung with fist-sized beads of colorful fired clay.
Follow a path framed by fallen branches
winding across rolling slopes, between
Douglas fir and redwoods that rise for
hundreds of feet. Gaze at small plaster
masks that nestle into the moss-covered shelf of a stone outcrop without intruding on the nature of their surroundings. This is the nature of art at Cazadero.
art as complement
the sanctity of nature
humble reverence
Cazadero Sunlight
True color revealed
in the filtered light
of Doug fir and redwood
Vibrant moss on stone walls,
outcrops that speak
of time
Madrone on meadow’s edge,
bark peeling to reveal
a grain of survival
A bay tree’s carpet of leaves
beside hundreds of years
alive in an oak
A vista of beauty
under the watchful eye
of the keeper
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Cazadero Remembered
Late October, gazing up from
a meadow in the mountains
above a deep Sonoma valley
embraced by oak, bay,
madrone, fir, and redwood,
I relive a day spent walking
trails and witnessing art
subtly married to its environment.
Led by the hand through this sanctuary
by a friend who dedicated decades
to bring to life a concept of art
honoring its surroundings,
each turn, each rise,
brings an appreciation
for the eyes that envisioned this.
Now, at the end of the day,
with city lights miles away
and a blanket of stars overhead,
Jupiter brilliant in their midst,
the experience is magnified,
and I am humbled
by my surroundings.
Random Harmony
sharp, soft, resonant
chimes lightly touch each other
random harmony
firmly placed in memory
by a Cazadero breeze
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From a Meadow
edged with bay trees,
madrones, and mighty oaks.
Into the heart of the redwoods,
past stone outcroppings
covered in moss, on a carpet
of age-old needles.
Listen.
Who would speak above a whisper,
when The Land whispers
in a voice heard by poets?
Cazadero, that expansive house
of nature. Each meadow or glade
a room. The air of redwood
and fir a cathedral of contemplation.
Who could pass through here
and not become a poet?
Cazadero Moss
Beside a leaf and needle-scattered
trail that winds beneath Douglas fir
and redwood, massive granite
boulders lie, almost a wall.
High, relative to a terrain
that continues to rise
above the valley below.
Moss covers the face,
the crevices between boulders,
as if married to the wall.
A soft blanket of green
where fallen needles and thoughts
collect, thoughts of those
who have stopped to relish
the beauty of this moment,
any moment in this place.
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Ken Gierke © 2022
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Ken Gierke writes poetry primarily in free verse and haiku. He has been published at Vita Brevis, The Ekphrastic Review, Silver Birch Press, Amethyst Review, and Eunoia Review. His poetry is in three anthologies from Vita Brevis Press, as well as in 'easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, an anthology' edited by D Ellis Phelps.