LAST DAY of the DRAGONS

"Dragons live  in the mountains.  We cannot see them, but they are there.." -R. Raphe

It came without warning. They bellowed into the mist.  Their calls   felling the trees as they lumbered forth.

She heard them. Heard the dragons in the forest.

The dragons   wallowed in the mold and mud.

October was ending.

The dragons cried 

Clouds gathered on the mountains with shawls  of dust.

The waning sun burned hot in those dark days

And the dragons  roared to the fog.

The dragons breathed froth and howled at the dimming light.

And the mountains shuddered on the last day, when the rain came and went and went and came.

For there were many of them. Ancient  ones

They waited in the rain, which came and went and went and came…..

 It had been a long time since they needed rest.

To put out their fire. With the rain so cold and biting.

The dragons were weary. The fog  let them into the hills. 

Into the mountains. Into their lairs for winter.

On that last day of October. That last day of the dragons.

 Photographs 2022

IT's a GOD THING

"When you look at the stars you should tremble..."

                                                     -John Geddes

October waned. Wind  shrieked, ripping leaves  from their stark  limbs.  Mountains soared above in the distance.  So far away she couldn’t touch them.

. Like the year they drove from the prairies, leaving everything behind. She and her young son stopped  to gather snow. It dissolved like jello foam. 

And the mountains spoke. But she did not hear.  

“It’s a God thing” the wind whispered. She looked down, and did not look up.

Years tumbled by .  She found miracles in simple things.  Like when the car broke down  in the dead of night, on a dark street.  A stranger happened by. A good and kind man who helped get her car started, then disappeared into the night. She forgot to thank him.

One day, driving home in the night, the car was struck by an elderly couple . He’d fallen asleep at the wheel. Didn’t see the red light. Everyone walked away. 

He  and his wife kept in touch for a while , after that. They gave her a job. She forgot to thank them.

Being led from darkness, without knowing it was darkness. 

There was one time her young son was late coming home from school. She just happened to have the flu,and been home all day. She went out to meet him.  

She saw him , at the end of the street. And the strange car. She saw him pause, one foot on the runner. He looked up, and saw her. He ran to her. Ran with abandon. She marched over to the car and bawled out the two in the front seat. She let them know she’d seen them. She would be on the lookout. She showed no fear.  

She never saw the one holding her hand all those days and nights. 

But she knew it was  a “God thing”, though she couldn’t say it.

Every moment fit together, tied together like  a fish net, leading one into another. Each piece of the puzzle revealed. 

Like the mountains and their perfect snow. 

She longed to feel  snow crumble  in her hands. To hear the mountains tremble once more. To hear the whisper. To look up  and see.

To hold fast, to those hands that reached for her. To hear all that was and would be…         

Photographs Mt. Washington Range, B.C.  2022
 

LET me Be....

LET ME BE A STAR    (Helen Hoyt 1887-1972) (excerpts)

Let me be a star that shines over you.

Let me be a cloud that floats by you

Let me be a mist that rests on the mountain's peak

Do you feel the soft touch of the mist?

I have leaned my head down over you

As the moon leans on the mountain

I have let fall the folds of my hair to cover your head

I have folded my hair about you

as the scarves of a cloud

Winding the brow of the mountain

O mountain I am the follower you called to come,

I am the wanderer and you stayed my footsteps

I saw you from far away, a blue horizon

You called me from desert spaces to the cool of your shadow

As a seed on the wind I was blown, as a bird on spent wings I have come

Now I rest in your sheltering rock

Photographs 2022 Campbell River, B.C.