Adirondack Impressions

Paint-By-Numbers

I.

The wind carved face
Of an old man
Upon a towering tree
Amidst an ancient stand,
Whittling personal history
Down to size,
Weathering a soul
Beyond its years.

II.

No television, no radio,
Just the cold hum and hot buzz
Of electrical wires overhead.

Reminders of the Koyaanisqatsi
Fled for the aural traditions
Of the Adirondacks:

The gurgling ripple's fall and rise
Over rocks in Alder Creek.

The repeating splash and drag
Of canoe paddles through a glacial lake.

The crunching rust worn footsteps
Of leaves landing on a forest floor.

III.

Dropping leaf boats for a
Wife-Mother,
Husband-Father,
Son-Daughter
Into a current circulating slowly
In the color choke of fallen leaves.
A family at last,
Headed downstream
Away from A Heart Of Darkness,
Toward a soul-satisfied sea.

IV.

Adding my own storied past
To imagined tales of Train Wreck Point,

Envisioned in,
Envisaged in,

The passing-quickly-glance
Of an old road signpost.

V.

Playing hide and seek with a full moon
Ducking behind shadow branches
And century-old roof lines,
To come to find
The muted, moonlit dream-scene
Of two doe, two fawn feeding
From a nocturnal garden
At a small town, Our Town,
Street corner in Old Forge.

One of many memory anvils
Cooling outside the blast furnace
Of unexpected experience.

VI.

Taste of maple sugar, cinnamon spice
Baked and boiled to bribe
A salt soaked tongue.

Smell of smoldering chimney smoke
And the essence of balsam fir
Traversing mountain air.

Sight of jigsaw puzzle pieces
Of deciduous and coniferous canopies
Against a Picasso Blue Period sky.

Feel of close held heat
Within the fold of fleece
Upon fingers' cold crowns

Sound of disembodied voices
On ascent toward summiting
"...The Top Of The World.", she said.

VII.

The innate study
Of Proust, Whitman, Cezanne
In the silence of an endless forest,

Through thoughts,
Through senses,
Through meditations
Mutating one with the other
In an attempt to define a Soul
And its place in the natural,
And unnatural world

dedicated to jonah lehrer