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...

Chill evening air assaults patio clientele and bullies those who had forgotten about coats back towards shelter. Body building birds preen and flex. Prescient trees cover the woods in cotton blankets. Fruit hangs heavy. The calligraphy of clouds reveals their inherent schizophrenia. In a kayak, warm… cold beer in hand and not much wind… anyone might briefly humor anthropic principles. Here and there, waterfalls carve out cathedrals… …while a captive river patiently, but unceasingly, seeks escape from temporary prisons. Legions of trees march into the extended twilight. Trees and water…missionaries sent into the wilderness to domesticate ancient, once sterile basalt formations. Grass, in its own way, inscribes a record of the wind onto a transient notebook. And finally, optimistic flowers bloom joyously in a desert…because they can.

Those animals that could, followed the sun south. Those that couldn't burrowed into the ground and went to sleep. Immobile trees jettisoned their canopies and learned to bend before the savage winds of winter. And all the while, the Earth continued its NASCAR-like journey around the sun, completing yet another lap and speeding on to the next.  Standing at the east end of Smith lake, I prepare to launch from the 'new' kayak and canoe ramp that Metro put into place several years ago in deference to the wishes of the rare painted turtles who preferred to keep their slough private. It is cold and dark and calm. The clouds have granted a temporary reprieve and opened the sky to the stars. All night, whatever heat was collected from the previous day has been radiating out into space - no water vapor blankets to insulate the earth. There is a feeling, perhaps a noise - an announcement that the sun will be rising before it actually rises. Perhaps the air beyond the hori...