Lost Creek Campground, Wheelchair Accessible Trails

by Melanie Green

I.

Beavers have built this smooth water.

Grasses edge the pond. Wide blades

arc, enter the water -- reflection,

a circle. Lingering beyond the grasses,

alder and cascara. Thin trunks, exuberant

leaves.

Water-striders dash their shadows across

the silty bottom. Dragonfly, a finger

of blue light, comes to rest on the mud

shore. Wings repeat the sun, the silence.

Raven's cry rattles the throat of sky

overhead. Dismantled to stillness, I am

no other place.

II.

It's the spaces

between

the immense trunks

of mountain hemlock

that I've missed.

The forest-weaving

of light, shadow, green.

The scent of needles.

What I loved

and lost, --

returned.