Sunshine Coast, BC
Chum Salmon
Found the waiting river
Beside our empty park
Near the green forest
By the farmhouse farm
There is where we like to go
To rest in nature's music
It never seems to change
Surprising us again
Chum Salmon Spawning
Splashing urgently
In the flowing river
Touching our souls
Shivering our life
Paired and unquestioning
They dig and spawn and die
Powerfully like the river flows
Their bodies given to life’s force
Digging in the gravel
As it needs to be done
Pairing and spawning
So brief but so right
And dying with honour
Giving Borrowed Bodies Back
To the Land they Love
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I watched a gentle breeze begin
So autumn leaves could fall again
Green and yellow and red or brown
Big maple leaves are falling down
Some are catching on the trees
Some are rolling in the breeze
They are the largest leaves around
And make a crunch when they fall down
That is the loudest sound around
Way out here on the edge of town
Falling all the way to the ground
Leaves circle slowly rotating down
Some of them, crinkled and brown
Hang in cedars that live straight down
Some don't fly they plummet instead
Brown and stranded, dry and dead
Some stick inside my neighbor's hedge
Or land on top of grass instead
To move again when the breeze is seen
Or dance with feeling across the green
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I hear white geese call as they fly
Fog in trees feels them wash by
White feathers lift warm bodies high
Into broad V's that sprawl the sky
Geese fly unblinking above fall rye
Black crows breathe grey mist to air
And hide white geese beyond my stare
Deep blue sky must still be there
Beyond damp fog and the silent air
While ancient stones may draw a sigh
Geese come and go over crops of rye
And fade to grey in the foggy sky
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Habits form over time
Rooting deep into ritual
Their bent corners stick
Into the mud of our life
Only the strongest wind
Can blow these habits
In to our creative realm
Where action has meaning
And life breathes new air
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Fog wanders in and then warms off
Moving almost like the ocean’s tide
Rolling silently and ever so steadily
It is found sleeping on fall mornings
And visits where garden spiders spin
Marking landscapes with silver webs
I thought that spiders built their nets
For the last flying insects of summer
Their webs hardly ever catch insects
During autumn’s damp and cool time
I wonder if spiders seek water instead
Just before their winter sleep arrives
Fog’s mist can pass through any hole
But not through perfectly made webs
These webs can catch the autumn mist
Better than they will hold an insect
During this misty time of the year
Little diamonds of perfect water
Distilled from autumns moist air
On silver strands of golden sun
Do spiders use this water of change
In warm cocoons of endless sleep
To cushion the change that captures
Winter spiders in a mortal web of time
Where stillness can hide the truth
Spun into the evolutionary cloth
Of the blind ever-seeking future
Until life finds its own passion
And caries the spider with it
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The early morning light
Chased away the night
Cloud windows all blue
Let the sun shine through
To ride ripples on water
Distorting distant worlds
Trapping all of its colors
Reflected by our mind
Light and shadow laughing
Under the drag of breeze
Dividing a solid world
Into a changing mosaic
As colored leaves let go
Circling down to land
Some resting on the sand
Each leaf adds its beauty
Flying and landing
Each reminding me
Birth knows no meaning
As death folds its hand
And the present moment
Expands to fill the land
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Dew loves the autumn
It wakes every morning
After the night passes
Beyond its purple clouds
And bright colored stars
Watching our moon sail
Silently across the sky
Wet dew waits for me
To rise breathing mist
Into the morning stillness
And leave a dark wet trail
Of my wandering footprints
Across the sleeping grass
Before disappearing forever
Into the warming day
