Riversong

Image by Thomas Zahumensky

Riversong

Walking along a leaf-strewn
overgrown access road
along a quiet bend
of the Puyallup River
this morning, gulping
the brisk fall fog rising off
the brown water and wet fields
owned by the last few
maverick farmers stubbornly
still using their land
in the teeth of the damned developers,
I watched the pale shadow tag
created by the forehead of mid-October’s
sun radiating through
the slick moss-mantled dark alder
branches as they painted abstract art
on the wet grass before me, when
I was warmly greeted by a young
black labrador, charging toward me
fast with his fat tail whipping the mist
madly, a chewed stick in his smiling
muzzle, wearing a red rancher’s bandana.

After petting the squirming mass of dark puppy,
I conversed a bit with it’s owner,
a short man with thick glasses,
garbed in denim, hatless and joyful--
then walked on alone
pleased that the chorus of birds
sang just for me,
and whatever meloncholy
that had tagged along, vanished,
as the river ran through it.

Glenn Buttkus October 2010

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