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Cabin Pressure

by Rob Littler

Up this mountain side, a water soaked log home is
Leeching the color out of its wood, leaving the walls
A white box against the burgeoning greenery,
Only now emerging, making the scenery
Feign possibility--the potential energy hidden
In the dream of every Spring. Each drop of rain, a pearl, dripping,
It does contain the flood waters identity, raging,
Only meters down the hill into the valley.
Darkening clouds bend in front of a sunlit hillside,
Imaginary smoke climbs up to meet its gray neighbor
Co-mingle, and spread out the smell of wet wood and decay
Like a blanket on a cozy deathbed. This is a place
Where, if you put your ear to the ground, you can
Hear the Earth’s belly undulating, digesting
Quietly millennia in each closed-mouth chew.

Warped by the weight of falling all these years
The roof is bowing to itself, and one
Need not enter to grasp its sense of place.
Lives lived berthed lost unmade made new again--
I can feel them without trying, sometimes trying
To not. But the Folgers coffee can and unnamed trash
Anchor me to the rock, the rot ruining my capacity
To see even beauty in anyone’s time captured there,
And the sun does move overhead, to be sure, until it doesn’t
And it won’t as early as tomorrow says the rock
Face eroding, tumbling into the canyon centimeter
By centimeter. Castilleja, straining to the warmth,
Fight to make use of this much light and sink
Their roots to drink the cool water in secret.
Temporary flashes of red stain the memory of the boulder.
The humidity rising from the earth is a promise of return.

Long forgotten as I want to be, at peace with having been,
Absorbed, transformed, eternal birth and decay, all stories
Do come to an eventual end, and give way to other worlds
And wonderings. The most amazing intricacies make up this simplicity.

06/02/2016

Posted on 05/13/2016
Copyright © 2024 Rob Littler

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Brynn Dizack on 04/22/17 at 05:16 AM

what a blessing, to find you here. "at peace, with having been" <3

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