Title: At the NOC
The Buddha
tells us all things
are empty;
nothing has independent existence.
At the outdoor center
the Nantahala runs quickly by.
Not whipped white here
though there is easy froth,
a promise of down river.
Two days ago
I stepped over the rivers feeders,
drank from them
without knowledge of where
they were hurrying to.
When I was twenty
gravity played cruel tricks,
and I thought everything
was uphill.
I didn’t know life flowed
down hill too,
and my life
and so many others
came together and raced
toward the yet unseen ocean.
Sometimes smooth, flowing,
sometimes …
Down river
beyond the foot bridge,
beyond the turn where
quartzite bares its teeth,
the Nantahala seethes.
All of us together
bound downstream
to something bigger,
something unknown.
Lodestone 