I AM

There is a form of Irish poetry that allows the writer to identify with the land or describe the ties between related parts of Creation. The beauty is that it doesn’t have to rhyme, something that always was a pain when we hit the poetry unit and I actually had to try and write something remotely readable. And since I found most poetry written after say 1700, especially the romantics too sweet for words I never really got into it. Not for lack of trying.

This is my take on living in a part of the world caught between the hammer of Oregon’s volcanic heritage, the changeable vault of the Oregon skies  and the anvil of that great western ocean. That wonderful, wild not so Pacific Ocean.

I am fire from the heart of the earth;

I am the sun, caught in flowing stone;

I am a pillar of steam, born when glowing stone met foaming breakers;

I am a cloud, gray white and heavy with rain;

I am a drop of rain, fresh water become salt;

I am a wave breaking on wind whipped cliffs;

I am a grain of sand caught in the ebb and flow of the tides:

I am land;

I am sea;

I am sky.

Here I am home.

I haven’t quite got the knack of leading each line into the next, like a piece of Celtic knotwork.