The past month, I did something I’ve always wanted to do: I touched the waters of Crater Lake.
For the first time in 31 years, I feel like I am a true Oregonian. That I have been baptized as such.
The resulting poem is dedicated to a friend who agreed to accompany me on the journey at the last minute.
It would not have been the same without them.
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Mazama
The fire trails no longer from your tongue
Today, it locks within jaws of ancient rock
For you had become canyon where once
Stood heart
And the sky today has turned to clouds
Where fog once rose as smoke
And what was once molten now rests
Above your blue braided coat
Alabaster freckled fingers spell and tangle
Along twisting crimson slopes
A hand of wonder casting about what tales
Have been told of what had been sentinel
Peace and what had been tow’ring wroth
As you stand there, a postcard to both.
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