Dipper Falls Step Cascade, Cliff River watershed,
Eagle Cap Wilderness . . .

Here is a little set of three 37-step poems* which plays with the theme
change & time, constant rock & ever-streaming water:

SEPTEMBER STREAM


(I)

Triassic shale gives
back the light of quiet water,
September:— O month of watching

for the moon

of new snow. How bright:—
this clear blue of Oregon sky.



(II)

Cats that look into
mirrors always see other cats.
Magpies know the truth. Shale looks the

same for a

quarter billion years.
Flashing waters of constant change.



(III)

Gold flattens; pyrite
shatters. Streams of useless thoughts, but
one in a million withstands the

hammer of

truth. The patience of
water rounding the hardest rocks.

Camp Lost & Found,
Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon, IX.15.2008

*In order for a variation form like this to really flower, one needs to do
them in sets or sequences. Try reading them out-loud to get a sense of
how the rhythms and accents change in surprising ways while still keeping
to the basic 37-step pattern.