Bash Bish Falls

Out of the deep dark gorge, the water rolls on.
Rushing streams flow into a green cavernous pool.
The forest cathedral drips with moss and leaning trees.
The eyes of the hemlock, beech and oak inspect the immortal scene.
The ranger is away, at a station, somewhere else, detained.
He does not watch the teenagers at play, the youthful games.
On the high crags and precicipes, the boys wait for a watcher below, to leap.
Again and again, they lineup for a somersault into deep dangerous waters.
They circle like a pack, hollering and whooping like lumbering cranes.
Their khaki shorts drip hard cold liquid and bare chests are pounded like beasts.
The girls drift away downstream. They set up camp along the pebbled shore.
They take pictures of themselves, in the water and apply sunscreen to fledgling tans.
They are unaware of leapers from cliffs, or so it seems.
Somewhere between the boys and the girls, I wait.
Tucked among the roots and cliffs, I read and watch and think.
In the caves, the bears sleep and dream.
Under the rocks, the rattlesnake coils for attack.
Through the forest, the fisher shyly watches the trees to climb.
The boys and girls do not see Bash Bish falls. There is no lovers leap.
They do not see a face in dark waters.
There is no cloud of bright butterflies surrounding heads.
The white swan no longer cascades like a floating dream downstream into legend.
The winds blow through ancient rocks and trees and waters for me.
The cascading spray from the fall holds memories, caught by waiting leaves.
Between the games of girls and boys, I think of caves below the cold water,
where torches light the way to rocky cave walls. Bear bones scattered on the glittering ground.
Under the rocks where I sit, lies danger waiting to sun itself and strike in open air.
The constricted rattle wants only the insult of the touch to pounce.
The forest path and vaulted arch of trees has more for my eye to see.
I slalom away through the trees down into shallow water to wash my hands and face and feet.
There are no porcupines to hunt, only trees to climb and paths to walk and forest shelters to create.
High above the trees, a woman waits on a ledge, poised to take a mysterious plunge
into the gorge and disappear right before the eyes of all boys and girls.
They will not see it when she does. Perhaps it is best, they don't, I think.
Her spirit in the light may stop the game of jumps and camps and creations in the dark.