The Mid-life Poems # 3 - ALLUVIAL FANS

Fans spread out at

  the base of the hills-

  the base of our days-

  escarping debris

  deposited over time.

The force –

  always down

hauls all sort of silt

from the face of the

highlands to the foot

of the lowlands

Down,

always down falls

all that has died,

all that has decayed

and lost its grip.

It falls and is

washed away.

Are the things we

love really lost or

are they moved –

down, always down –

away to the pit

of our erosion.

Those pieces that have

washed away –

our youth,

our trust,

our freedom to be naïve.

Are they gone or

simply out of sight –

reaching out from

the basin of our days.

The nutrients and minerals

from the mountain

seed the basin

in a downward rush. 

The mountains and

the hills laid low - a time

cast collaboration of the

prophets and erosion;

everything leveled.

Fingers of the mountain

stretch out

hoping to pull her along

the earth,

to widen her presence

along the surface.  We

grow like this.  All that runs

off of us produces chains

and foothills.  Our life

touches another by the

build up of silt and alluvial

wear.  It moves away from

our core.  Then, lifetimes

later, the foothills of our

days spawn foothills and

are themselves carried away.

All things become one

as the work of time

spreads out the mountains,

bringing them all to the ground,

to the earth from which

they came.

The mountains and the hills

laid low.