is a giant V cut into the moraine
of the mountainside, whose
middle is a tumble and jumble
of giant rocks wedged in like balls
in a check-valve—which doesn’t
stop the cascading water, but
adds to the sound & fury of its
continuous advance, slicing its
way into a dark green pool which
rushes beyond into a narrower cut
and out of sight.
I sit looking from the safety of a
bordering ledge of rock, tempted
but hesitant to get too near the
raging cataract for fear of being
swept down its compelling but
terrifying throat—swept down
like the strewn boulders of
millennia in a cataclysmic throw
of the dice—swept down and
forever lost to a secure passage
from an appointed beginning to
an appointed end—swept away
into another
conceivable me.
-Tom Bird
I am a retired industrial designer and minister. I’ve had poems published in a number of journals and have a forthcoming chapbook from Finishing Line Press.