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Show POET'S W' CORNER, Edited by A W Rite of Passage I. some weeks ago I slid down the river on a raft into the west jaws of Cataract afraid and exhilarated by the roaring water blissed out by the beauty of high ragged walls feeling the pulse of the Colorado in its late spring exuberance at the temporal center of the universe the heartbeat the power the long sweet ride -through the frothing abyss inundated in its silty soup splashed upon my eyelids the broth from a hundred mountains in late afternoon I emerged cold and wet from Satan's Gut into a shaft of sunlight near Waterhole Flat overcome in the peaceful aftermath as the sun disappeared toward some unknown horizon II. two weeks later I'm back on the river in a different light walking the jumbled shoreline looking for a lost soul who hiked into the heartbeat center waded the cool eddies and was swallowed by the raging current in a final burst of white light the search is unsuccessful the body cannot be found talus meets the river in tumbled cascades while boots slip and stumble in their gruesome task erratic waves wash this bouldered chaos setting off daydreams on a west coast flash of a friend of mine who died not so long ago and spread his ashes over the Pacific I feel his presence now as I always do by wild waters drone and suddenly I see that it all comes together right here in water and rock is the oneness passing through them both I pause in mystification gathering a memory or two the river gnawing downward deep inside the canyons carries all our hopes and failures in its swift journey homeward to the sea. Author Unkown |