On the Path To Sweet Creek Falls
She sits
on a wet boulder
face lifted to the spray
eyes closed
A light beam plays
in the ripples of
a standing wave pattern
above the falls
the molecules of water
seem to understand
the plunge
that awaits them
and sort themselves
into ribbons
to break and cushion
the fall
while the lost find their way
in the woods, clear eyes
meeting clear eyes
on the trail
the clean of limb and the
slow and steady
each keeping silence
along the trail
to the falls and the
dense columns of mist
lit like smoke in a
clear ray of sun
the mist laying down
at the feet of the
forest, and cooling
cheeks of one
who sits on a wet boulder,
with no pen, sans paper,
content in the ranks
of the lost.
A Taxonomy of Water
Your lip trembles as you ask if your baby felt
pain when you miscarried, and I watch
the tears roll down your cheeks when I tell you
no, and you try to wipe them away but
they are too many, and you stare at your hand,
wet with salty tears that a scientist said were
nearly identical to seawater, and
I see you, a child by the sea, arms and fingers
caked in sand, sighing out a wish to
take just “a square of the ocean” home with you.
The road we take home that day parallels the river,
you sit silent in the passenger seat, until I
pull over at a wide spot, watching the white water
rolling past us and back to the sea, and
I can see my mother standing thigh-deep in the
river so far upstream from here, her red dress a
chaos of bright red petals around her hips,
fingertips lightly stirring the rushing water,
until without warning she flings water
into the air with both hands, her face uplifted
to catch the sparkling drops as she laughs, and
when you turn on the seat beside me with
your face a question, I say we’re going back, and
your face lights up, not sure you believe.
We stayed at the beach that day till the sun set.
I watch you dance in the foam the tide
creates, unafraid and elated, and I feel my heart
and yours beat in sync with the tide,
our breath the same as our blood, the same as
the sea, unafraid of the depths of water, how the
surface looked from beneath, an overhead
membrane, shimmering at a horizon where my
father’s hand breaks through to bring me
back, and I feel the urge to dance away, to spin
and swirl with the movement of the lake,
the water tasting clear and cold, but somehow
the same as tears at being rescued, and you
are there too, at the center, the heartbeat of a room
that contains everything, sun, sand, and sea,
all with your arms spread wide in your sea-foam
dance, and as I am pulled out and up, I taste
the salt tears that ran down your cheeks in mourning
for the lost child, and feel kinship with the joy
living at the shore and the salty taste of surrender to
the relentless cool water that beckons us home.
Judith Mikesch-McKenzie is a teacher, writer, actor and producer living in the Pacific Northwest. She has traveled widely, but is always drawn to the Rocky Mountains as one place that feeds her soul. Writing is her home. She has recently placed/published in two short-story contests, and her poems have been published or are upcoming in Calyx, Her Words, Plainsongs Magazine, Cirque, Wild Roof Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, and over 40 others. She is a wee bit of an Irish curmudgeon, but her friends seem to like that about her.
She sits
on a wet boulder
face lifted to the spray
eyes closed
A light beam plays
in the ripples of
a standing wave pattern
above the falls
the molecules of water
seem to understand
the plunge
that awaits them
and sort themselves
into ribbons
to break and cushion
the fall
while the lost find their way
in the woods, clear eyes
meeting clear eyes
on the trail
the clean of limb and the
slow and steady
each keeping silence
along the trail
to the falls and the
dense columns of mist
lit like smoke in a
clear ray of sun
the mist laying down
at the feet of the
forest, and cooling
cheeks of one
who sits on a wet boulder,
with no pen, sans paper,
content in the ranks
of the lost.
A Taxonomy of Water
Your lip trembles as you ask if your baby felt
pain when you miscarried, and I watch
the tears roll down your cheeks when I tell you
no, and you try to wipe them away but
they are too many, and you stare at your hand,
wet with salty tears that a scientist said were
nearly identical to seawater, and
I see you, a child by the sea, arms and fingers
caked in sand, sighing out a wish to
take just “a square of the ocean” home with you.
The road we take home that day parallels the river,
you sit silent in the passenger seat, until I
pull over at a wide spot, watching the white water
rolling past us and back to the sea, and
I can see my mother standing thigh-deep in the
river so far upstream from here, her red dress a
chaos of bright red petals around her hips,
fingertips lightly stirring the rushing water,
until without warning she flings water
into the air with both hands, her face uplifted
to catch the sparkling drops as she laughs, and
when you turn on the seat beside me with
your face a question, I say we’re going back, and
your face lights up, not sure you believe.
We stayed at the beach that day till the sun set.
I watch you dance in the foam the tide
creates, unafraid and elated, and I feel my heart
and yours beat in sync with the tide,
our breath the same as our blood, the same as
the sea, unafraid of the depths of water, how the
surface looked from beneath, an overhead
membrane, shimmering at a horizon where my
father’s hand breaks through to bring me
back, and I feel the urge to dance away, to spin
and swirl with the movement of the lake,
the water tasting clear and cold, but somehow
the same as tears at being rescued, and you
are there too, at the center, the heartbeat of a room
that contains everything, sun, sand, and sea,
all with your arms spread wide in your sea-foam
dance, and as I am pulled out and up, I taste
the salt tears that ran down your cheeks in mourning
for the lost child, and feel kinship with the joy
living at the shore and the salty taste of surrender to
the relentless cool water that beckons us home.
Judith Mikesch-McKenzie is a teacher, writer, actor and producer living in the Pacific Northwest. She has traveled widely, but is always drawn to the Rocky Mountains as one place that feeds her soul. Writing is her home. She has recently placed/published in two short-story contests, and her poems have been published or are upcoming in Calyx, Her Words, Plainsongs Magazine, Cirque, Wild Roof Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, and over 40 others. She is a wee bit of an Irish curmudgeon, but her friends seem to like that about her.
