CASCADE LAKES

     Round Whitefish (Prosopium cylindraceum)
     Mountains here are so high rain runs off their faces
     In long white streams of water and foam
     That fade in thin air before they reach the base.
     One of them starts halfway down a notch
     Between two peaks above a string of pretty lakes.

     I pass this place taking the kids to school
     And point out some new aspect of interest.
     They crane their necks for the last pocket of snow and ice
     Glaring at them from up top and at the green fuzz just
     Beginning to show on bare soil along the gravel roadway.

     A stand of paper birch covers the steep slopes
     In a red bloom slashed with white mixing with cedar
     And granite blocks along a margin of black water below.
     A rare fish lives there in a silvery body with a torpedo shape
     A small fleshy fin and a single flap between the nostrils.

     Looking for the kind of clean material I like to write
     I walk with them to a neck of land where fast currents
     Run full force into a narrow channel of stone and sand.
     Along the way plants and animals from the different orders
     Throw words and phrases at me which I catch and pocket.

     The Climb
     In a dry watercourse filled with boulders and forest debris
     We listen for a roar and alter the direction of our climb.
     Picking our way hand over hand up a ladder of stone
     The soil is washed clean from every crevice and corner.

     Spread out on a blanket of moss the juvenile forms
     Of emerging plants make a miniature garden at eye level.
     A pair of simple germinating leaves persist opposite
     The mature palmate form with veins and deep serrations.

     A seed falls on the wrong spot and later a grown tree
     Perches on top of a boulder its roots grabbing in space.
     An entire system upturned with dirt and stones intact
     Is afterwards stripped clean to a skeleton of dry wood.

     The pieces in this poem start flying apart
     And the longer I take to do something about it
     The harder it gets to put them back together.
     We get to a vertical wall and admire the cascading waters.

     The boy scrambles farther up the ledge above a stream
     With spills bubbles froth and a quiet pool along the side.
     She sits crosslegged on a flat rock in sun watching the lake
     Through a screen of brush with green lights.

     I get too close to the subject and the spray from it
     Wets the paper so it puckers and makes the blue lines run.
     Where I write in pencil over the moist portion
     The letters are lighter and less legible to this day.

     The Outflow
     We go out a muddy track that deadends in a swamp
     With wildflowers and a showy plant on a dark bank.
     Sighting a crested duck along the river during Spring run
     We find him here again by still water at a remote place.

     For a moment while the lake is motionless undercurrents
     Feed the outflow just enough to make the grasses wave.
     Where the terrain falls abrupty off waters gather speed
     And we feel ourselves giddy and weightless in a freefall
     With them rushing into the valley below.

     From the sketches I make that afternoon I select
     What is familiar and available for this expression.
     Much of what I find is undecipherable
     Or untranslatable whatever the pains I take.

     When I ask them how they like it they're impressed
     Turning back to look at something way above their heads
     That makes a bright crease between the trees by earth and sky.

     Lake Placid 5/20/94