Valley Oak I used to dislike you Your disfigured form Your gnarled hands Your thorned leaves I thought you belonged in a horror film The perfect backdrop for darkness and grim – I’ve spent a decade with you – Now I see You are amongst the strongest of trees You stand amongst the wildfires The…
Author: songsfromtheriver
I'm a poet, a photographer, a physician, and a patriarch who loves the great outdoors and all of the beauty it shows us. I live in a great valley between the mountains of Northern California, and I love it.
Presence
Presence There are so many things going on in this present moment Then those things disappear but the present moment does not The present moment is our taste of the eternal Every leaf that quakes in the wind Every bird that flaps its wings and flies Every ray of light It rests in the here…
Transplant
No photo today. Shocker! I’m going to let you use your imagination instead 🙂 Transplant I see the transplant branch Withering, sad and dry I don’t know where, I don’t know why When I followed all the given directions – I went to class, I listened well But still my lovely branch was felled By…
Crossroads
Crossroads Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to guilt To shame To self-criticism and hate I hear the screams of the rigid “you’re taking away the right from the wrong” Exactly I’m tired of playing this dualistic song I’m tired of the same old lyrics The same old endings The same old routines I’ve listened…
Revoke
Revoke Today is a day of mourning A day of celebration Today my childhood died From youth, a liberation From fantasy, fallacy To life, reality From hopeful nonsense To quiet trust I think I may I think I must Keep leaning into this moment This moment right here with me No past or future liberty…
All Encompassing
All Encompassing Love is the greatest of delights,the most unconscionable of painsIt rides mighty horses across the universe’s plainsAn all encompassing sea of stars and planets and spaceQuarks and mesons and traceLove is the reason why I breatheThe reason why I dieIf love was not in the midst of my being,here In meaninglessness I would…
Singing River
Singing River I often read great poetry Then first cry out a woe is me I can never seem to attain to such beauty Such wisdom So dark disdain is born from comparison An offspring I need to cast in the river – Here I stand on the shore The river in motion Quickly heading…
The Voice
A blast from the past. Something I wrote seven years ago that I thought I’d share. Hope you enjoy 🙂 Voice I dream of days, I dream of ways Where I do not have to enter into this incessant wandering This amassing of graves between worlds of reality and fact And the realms of reality…
Unless the seed….
Unless the seed… Remember your passions First I have to find mine Those things that made me come alive Now are dead and gone It isn’t age that’s passed me on It’s living life itself – I found this book upon a shelf Just sitting there, dusty, old Yet still it had life deep within…
Raven
Raven For so long For far too long I have dwelt amongst images Ghosts Imaginations of my own making Without a voice Without another opinion And we all got along just fine But after all these years I see this wine Has been poisoned with the art of sorcery A deep magic has consumed my…
