by Peter Nash
November 20, 2002

Whole afternoons you sat
Watching clouds rain on Prosper Ridge
Until the river bar opened
And salmon thrashed silver
In the Mattole
Like polished abalone.

At night you lay in the fields
Under white columns
That trembled like candles in the sky,
Listening with your ear in the grass
To the myriad of tiny hearts
Beating beneath the roots.

You gathered acorns,
Swam in the estuaries with giant sturgeon
And followed the arc of the sun
With the orange eyes
Of poppies.

You could sit under each tree in this valley
And say its name
By the sound of the wind in its branches
And you could call out the name of each bird
By the sound of its wings in the air.

At the birth of your son
And the death of your mother
You walked to the top of the valley
Where the cold creeks come together
To make the river.

And singing this song
You believed that your life would continue
In the lives of your children
As long as the river
Flowed.


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Table of Contents for Mattole Restoration Newsletter, Issue 19 - Winter/Spring 2002-03