a few poems...

The River Way

 I choose the river way
near the dancing sun ripples
partnering with forest particles
and winged creatures,
celebrants of the singing water
laughing wildly when boulders resist
its long strokes tickling fish fins,
then calming to woo shore-bound lupine
with mosaic glimpses
reflecting their royal beauty.

I choose the river way.
But I may change my mind
and move my shoes to other depths
with no forced crossings,
a dryer stretch to feed my thirst
and jar my knees,
to behold Life erupting from dirt
as grasses and wildflowers,
searching through roots
that anchor the sublime to survival,
roots that listen in the dense darkness
for a droplet of river
 pulling it closer
with its own earth song.

 © Colleen Akiko

letter poem...

Dear Grandpa,
     I’m resting near the sky on a granite boulder perch.  Craggy peaks nestling August snow remnants loom near me, reflecting in the glacial-melt pool to my right.  Its outlet stream gurgles below my feet.  This is a place you would call "church."  The family men are downstream tracking the high-altitude golden trout with their rods, displaying a stubbornness that may be on par with yours.   
     Thoughts of returning to the crowded world of deadlines press in.  I wonder how you fared with your required returns to civilization.  Did you ever really leave the mountains?  I know the mountains never left you.  I felt that in your secretly tender gruffness—immovable and foreboding then sometimes dissolving into a shrugged laugh, head shaking and eyes sparkling like a splash of wildflowers dancing in the breeze.  
     Mosquitoes honored your space—which they now almost do for me after I drench myself in repellent.  In spite of the threatening distraction, I sense closeness here with you and with Life in the majestic and the minuscule.  Life, which had one day proclaimed to you, "Thou shalt have a red-haired granddaughter."  And though only a slightly bronze patch highlighted the left side of my Asian hair, you swore I was a redhead. 
     Now the bronze has given way to peppered white and ultimately boxed brunette.  But if you were sitting here with 

me, you would hold my face in the high Sierra sunlight and tell me, “I always knew you’d be a redhead,” as if that was one’s highest honor and delight.  You did this more times than I can count.  
     Perhaps what you meant was, “I always knew the mountains would live in you.”  For now I recognize the incessant yearning for space and expansion; for breath beyond what my lungs can hold; for a quiet refuge where I can begin to understand myself and know that I belong—though I’ve never known quite where. 
     You sent me a flash of peace when you passed, and again a week later when my theological paradigm at that time reasoned you to be suffering eternally in hell.  You removed all trace of panic with the clear and unexplainable assurance:  “All is well...very well.”  
     When my marriage ran amuck years later and my heart-shreds barely held together, I looked at the black and white photograph of you on my wall and wailed my apology for failing so completely.  You looked back and said, “I love you.” 
     You had once said, “I love you” during my wobbly transition to womanhood by renting a couple lively horses for us to explore the high Colorado country for a day.  We passed through a June snow flurry that transformed the mountain forest into a fairyland, then emerged later into a typical summer’s day. 
     Except for your pontifications against long-haired hippies, I remember you as a man of few words.  Others may recall a cutting harshness and your earlier years of irresponsible escapes to the local bar.  But for me, you came through like a hero, rising above words like a stark granite peak. 
     The crisp wind beckons my hat to follow it along the water path below.  “I am here,” it sings as the choir of all inhabiting this giant bowl of beauty.  
     “I am here,” I exhale from my heart in return. 
     “I am here,” you whisper in the next tender and gruff gust.  
     We all breathe in sacred unison. 
     We meet in the mountains, Grandpa.  The mountains that never leave us. 

     See you later. 
              -- G.N.
                                                                                                        © Colleen Akiko 

            TAHOE LIGHT

     I sit at Tahoe's shore, eyes tracing the silhouette of snow-flecked mountains rising from a misty base of light on the distant bank.  A meaty grasshopper explores his world of dirt, pine needles and pebbles near my bare feet.  Glistening water has lured children into icy wetness to capture clawed creatures, while a lone gull rests on lulling ripples.  Blurred jet trails cross the otherwise clear sky like waves cresting and breaking, each track creating its own ocean. 
     I wish to feel the Source of this moment's light, to surrender to its embrace, to open up my cold chambers and let the waves lap away layers of disappointment--carrying them into the deep. They can be suspended there with other artifacts:  torn fuselages and hulls buried fathoms below.  
     The lake holds all, reflects all, nourishes and sings, releasing countless sparkles where water meets air -- explosions of light rising from the numbing depths.                                                                                                                                           © Colleen Akiko

---

i am the launching point
where River becomes airborne
and depths become mist
infused with sun rays and color,
every color, held by
earth and heaven's breath
then dispersed everywhere,
 unendingly replenished.

© Colleen Akiko 

we arise
as strands of light
transcending earth
until, in heaven’s expanse,
we take on the color of rich dirt--
  brown feathers, each one of us
  forming the wings of the
  ‘I Am’ eagle,
  flying.

© Colleen Akiko 

I awoke from earth
beholding the underbelly of a damp log
protecting me with warm dew breath,
an overhanging shield
drawing me nearer, higher
as I stretched my thread stalk
to caress with gratitude,
lingering up my guardian’s side
until from above it appeared
that my tiny cloud blossoms
were emerging from wood.

© Colleen Akiko

Glacial-aged granite sentinels
send child breezes meadow ward
for their morning grooming,
to ripple the river for cursory face washings
then traipse through golden sage flower combs--
avoiding the taller, more thorough untangling
from pine spire teeth.
   
  © Colleen Akiko