dams of sand slip away

change riots

I once wrote of myself as a kid

“building dams of sand to watch them slip away,

change casually, intensively washes over the world,

what I hoped to be constants, all of a sudden

become a past that doesn’t repeat into the future,

by the cabin in the Smokies,

smaller rocks conglomerated against a car-sized stone

and allowed the creek to back up

and fill in some behind them,

then white water into the pool below,

in high water this step-up allowed

the roaring current to dig out the hole below,

leaving water deep enough to dip in,

climate change with its aggressive rains

scoured the rocks away,

trees I have known all my life have died in the last few years,

forest glades riot in new growth

forced to grow by what fire and wind have wrought,

Big Beech, first year after fire

Big Beech, now, June 2020

I age out of repeated experiences I have counted on,

and what is before me can tell me 

to forget the comfortable familiar,

and force me to deal with new unknowns,

the dams of sand slip away,

and I mourn the passing.

by Henry H. Walker

June 18, ‘20