The Narrative Image

South Falls from the canyon floor I wish I could write poetry about the last warm, sunny days of autumn.  I’d try to explain how, despite the morning’s cold, I’ve worked up a little sweat hiking to the canyon floor, and now, coming to a standstill behind my tripod, I shiver as I wait and watch the Sun’s fingers prod and probe through the trees and mist, slowly — imperceptibly — prying their way into the shrouded canyon. The noon’s warmth is yet just a feeble promise. I am glad to start walking again. South Falls from the canyon rim The sun continues to rise in defiance of the autumn’s measured coup. Where the sun gazes, leaves burst into the colors of wildfire. South Falls (detail) Near the Silver Falls Lodge, a roofed enclosure shelters a small theater where a video loop tells its short story over and over to empty benches. It features a man who captained a canoe over the South Falls in a money making gambit. The camera’s vintage footage shows a close-up o...

"Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods, and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt..." William Allingham Wind whipping up white-caps on the Columbia . Obstinate trees do what they can to hold on to their leaves. ...but the overall trend is obvious. Like a universe of stars rushing to universal heat death, leaves twinkle in the wind, blown away in chaos and disorder. I walk the banks of the Sandy river and capture a subset of a beautiful exodus. Leaves carried away in the current of a rain swollen river. Stems like bones, join rotting salmon in rich silt deposits, perhaps to become fossils...perhaps to see the sun again in some future epoch. Leaves performing one last dance ... ...in the water of life... ...in dappled fractured light of a waning sun... ...beaten against the rocks... ...to sink, to decompose, to cease to be a leaf

Spring – Summer – Autumn – Winter ...the pattern of life rehearsed year after year. I remember the life force within me used to be independent of the seasons, as if in my youth, I remained in an extended perpetual Spring. But now, the crisp cold autumn affects me. My limbs seem brittle like seared red leaves poised to fall into decay. The rich muck of decay… …smells like money… … or poop… …and occasionally, so do I. Into the blue again/into the silent water Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground Letting the days go by/into the silent water Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was... …TALKING HEADS Edge of Smith and Bybee Lake – Low clouds drifting in the Willamette Valley beyond… Smith and Bybee Lake The sun, the source of life, visits only briefly and does not linger. The long night sets in. Sandy River Ice glyphs ...