Rebirth

In time deep Portland I spent my first hours of life,
in a place where many sought Eden, a city absorbed by open sky fringed by trees and water.

The old city. North towards the inlet.
Bound between a distant Mt. Saint Helen chaperon and an ever-present Willamette stroking the bare shoulder of the debutante. In the fall the wildflowers still have room to bloom in the north while south lie lilacs, roses and groves of wisteria.
I follow suit across the shore from the short city in the valley with parks less than 4 blocks in any direction and diversity surrounding on hills of Japanese gardens where she and I stole a sunset memorial weekend.

Driving past high school kids already outside smoking in the haze of humidity and the grey of summer blues. Longing for that one more month before idle minds try to decide what idle hands should do and more austere mature minds demand planning driving young lazy socio-soaked minds crazy with the realization of numbness like the slow rolling of clouds over and down the coastal range. Trapping the heady rose water between young breasts pressing against the aqua grey veil. As she lays her evening out over the Rockies, retreating to the west. Scouting out over the short city boasting 6 or more modest cloud scrapers and with the tree tops taller than most, there is only a small up cropping looking like a town, like some strange oasis of glass and girder but from the top of Tabor at night the city lights give it away against a dark shadowed forest hill and the bridge alight in neon turning the river toxic colors disturbed by the current, the boaters, and the occasional brilliance of fireworks as they reflect brokenly their image, the light intensified. I remember it all in the scent of roses crushed with rain, as I sip orange juice and ginger beer.

A thick glaze over black rock making craggy cliffs unconquerable and the brown ant slick body hills slide us on and tall bare old trees cling to copper green and white rock cliffs at 3000 ft watching like a totem sentry and the flash rain waves over the window panes gently distorting life for, no means other than to force change even if just momentarily, sanity and clarity. Dancing in the sunlight on pumice, tiny prism pools falling like passionate fairy kisses, arc promises through a sky bluer than a Kansas girls eye patchwork with white and grey violet spreads over the heavens bed. The sun or rain shifts, sifting in a new direction, washing fantasy color from the sky. Still eyes await it to appear over the aqua valley, where sun tinged hills edges form green underwater plateaus and level clouds form arctic surfaces. But without an artist by my side, who would believe this aquatic menagerie as the waves crash swirling in an updraft against snow capped porous black mountains.