Moonrise; Mid-Pines

In the half-light I think about the woods and feel their cold on my teeth. Sparrows search in frosted firs; their feathers like leaves and leaves like feathers.

​Time in the forest is irregular. Above the pines, eagles and hawks can be heard and sometimes glimpsed. Below, the trickling, gushing, roaring of waterfalls catches in the branches.

​Mountains make rivers.
And mountains and rivers are us.

​Redwoods and Sequoias stand like sentinels in the snow. The next morning the fog is so thick you're barely sure the mountain is there.

Moonrise, Mid-Pines was made over two weeks across California in the winter.

'One granite ridge
A tree, would be enough
Or even a rock, a small creek,
A bark shred in a pool.
Hill beyond hill, folded and twisted
Tough trees crammed
In thin stone fractures
A huge moon on it all, is too much.
The mind wanders. A million
Summers, night air still and the rocks
Warm. Sky over endless mountains.
All the junk that goes with being human
Drops away, hard rock wavers
Even the heavy present seems to fail
This bubble of a heart.
Words and books
Like a small creek off a high ledge
Gone in the dry air.

A clear, attentive mind
Has no meaning but that
Which sees is truly seen.
No one loves rock, yet we are here.
Night chills. A flick
In the moonlight
Slips into Juniper shadow:
Back there unseen
Cold proud eyes
Of Cougar or Coyote
Watch me rise and go.'

Gary Snyder, Piute Creek