ONE DAY
Dn Hynes
One Day
Sand dunes stretch from shore to shore
in the dry heat of summer,
the river falling through carved basalt
with petroglyphs looking on,
shaped by hands ten millennia gone by,
and fish, huge salmon in full flight,
sturgeon thirty feet and more trolling the bottom,
one whole fabric, interdependent, interwoven,
from the smallest microbe to the eagle in flight,
the tallest cliff and towering tree
ever changing, ever renewing,
enslaved now to the spinning turbine
and concrete wall of the industrial man
who saw the power of the river
and wanted it for himself.
One day this man will awaken
to the sorrow of the river,
to the song lost by his dominance;
freedom will become more
than the illusion of control
and his story will open
to the flowing water, to the cycles
of birth and death and recreation;
he will free the river from his bondage,
free himself from the chains
forged by a mind and heart set apart
from the fluid beauty and flowing life
of his one precious home.
Don Hynes