Skagifurious

There she comes,
Brown fury,
Bubbling and gurgling, gurgling,
Silt, and mud,
Logs, logs, and logs,
Turning everything upside down,
Gigantic food processor,
Latte colored mixture.

There she swells,
Shake factory,
Running wild, wild, wild,
Loud, loud, loud,
Thunderous neighbor,
Gigantic cradle
Thrown into the storm,
Balloting you up and down,
Back and forth,
Up and down,
Back and forth,
Bundle of laundry

You wonder when she’s gonna stop,
Struck in awe at the sight of such fury,
And then you surrender,
And you just watch, listen, and wait.
And you accept.
Then as a child after a genuine, deep sorrow,
Then the loud cries turn into sobs,
And when finally all grief has been shed,
She gradually calms down,
Calms down,
Calms down...
Thank you, magic Skagit, for having spared my floating cradle.

Beware of the magic power of words

It never occured to me till lately that words do have a life of their own. Now understand me, I'm not only talking here about the power of words, but of their having an intrinsic life of their own, and of their pernicious influence on you, the way they can work on you. I experienced that lately in the wee hours of the morning, finding myself wide awake with that word in my mind, and all the following:
Procrastination. My first encounter with the word dates back from my college years in France. What I do remember is my being unable to memorize the meaning of that word precisely, having to check it out each time I encountered it.
-Allo, Sigmund...- However my attention was drawn to the word as an object, as a chemical combination. What a terrible word.Think of it, there must be a diabolical element in the way the letters of the word are combined and arranged so as to attract attention: pro-cras-ti-na-tion. Forget about the meaning, look at it as a bare word, as it was then for me, utter it, chew it, -pro-cras-ti-na-tion- and you'll find as I then found, that it has something terrible in it, though I couldn't name what it was. My relationship with it got worse when I later discovered that the other reason why I had difficulty with it was that it related to something that was part of my behavior pattern. The demon was unleashed. Then I would remember the meaning, but the strange thing that happenned is that I avoided it whenever it appeared before me, like a child hesitating to open a closet door for fear of what he may find in that dark corner. Believe me, when you reach that point in your relationship with a word, you're in trouble. You can call your counsellor. -Allo Sigmund-. Which I haven't done, of course, not willing to open that closet. So whenever that word popped up in my head, I tried to get rid of it. I tried to smash it down, I tried to crush it with the tip of my shoe, as if it were a bug, I tried to turn my back to the door of the closet, leaning on it to make sure it wouldn't open. No way. That's how it ended up awakening me at 5 am, more present than ever, and that's how I ended up writing this. I don't know whether this is going to help me get rid of the beast, but I felt the urge to write about this experience. Beware of the magic power of words.

The Water People

I usually observe them from my perching position on our favorite tree over the river, the one we use as a restaurant. The other day we were having salmon there and she came out with a pair of eyes- those funny creatures are not gifted with a good sight as we are- and she stayed there for a while observing us. I tolerate this only because I know they don't have guns and they don't make noise. Funny little people, they live there, on the water, on curious floating nests. Three people, two dogs, and a kitty. A genuine Noah's ark, I tell you. I'm having a hard time, trying not to dive down on the kitty, looks like it could be a nice meal, but that damn creature is pretty smart at eluding me. Never got to catch her. Gave up. So I observe them, on my leisure time, and got a pretty good idea of their habits and lifestyle. I don't get it why they persist in living there on the water, while they could live with their peers in what those people call a house. Maybe those people think they are shorebirds or something like that. They eat outdoors like us, they spend a long time watching the river, and seem to enjoy it a lot. I once considered explaining to them they should go back where they belong, then I figured the frequent floods would take care of that. No way. They're still here, which is fine with me, it provides me with free entertainment. I watch them like humans watch a reality show on TV. Interesting.