New River

NEW RIVER

Joe Nasta

NEW RIVER

Joe Nasta

(for Brannon)

instagram.com/jrnasta ello.co/jnasty

October 2016 Seattle, WA

(A free digital version is available on issue.com/joenasta) 

FOG 1

The gorge was mine, and so it spewed a sour cloud of dust.

At nighttime, gorge's widened flue was blocked by darkened dusk.

The morning came to lighten gorge, and fill it up with dew.

They lived our grimeful memory. I wonder if they knew?

Short Creek (POPs)

The creek took many paths around the boulder.

Waterfall sound drowned out their measured breaths.

The falls sprayed in-evitably towards gravity.

rock was slick and covered in moist moss

dead limbs, half decayed, crossed stagnant pool

some moss was bright and some was dark

huddles of dead foliage in rock’s pockets

Tree roots curved, grossed around the contours of stone.

Creek moves where there’s way/stops where it’s blocked.

The water was heavy, weighted by the energy of falling.

Old Bridge To cross, the miners descended three layer ecosystem each owned by different vegetation all covered in the same moist dust of glowing sundew and coal their cart wheels rumbled, jumped from a rock half-burrowed in the dirt track their oxen groaned to control the inevitable roll towards river.

To cross, the folk used the Old Bridge, rusted in crusty brown and flecked iron made from the product of its soiled fruit, created by and with its own necessity.

To cross, they took all day, and labored to get across the Old Bridge.

They returned, the same old way.

we stop on the bridge, almost at the end of the hour scenic drive that we dragged into two we stop on the bridge, almost at the end of the asphalt gentle road of the Gorge, for a midair expression of our joy the snap will keep us forever together we can take our time, carry it with us in the rolls of our travel yoga mats.

So we jump:

change? why would things ever?

Sandbagged in Bubba City

Winding trail in woods, trees oozing in the humid air, us oozing in the humid air, the sweat of the approach and the unknown firsts to come, oozing.

It’s been too long, almost without thinking (I hope) my arms rise to meet grit, tendons clench features of the rock, unguided toes edge on eyebrows arching.

A rope, and Brannon’s hands, and metal gear are all (and only) between me and the ground, my limp bone cracking on the lichened stone.

Winding trail is out of woods, the safe shade and leafy hands behind us couldn’t care.

We’re in the blaze of sun, our eyes searing, shoulders burning, and the cliff above leering in the humid air.

Tall and jagged, a flake peels off as if (maybe) we’ve trekked this gully just to be so small under the jagged, towering roof.

The strangers’ eyes, and Bran’s (her first real crag), and even the grimacing cliff (my first real lead) are watching and aloof.

And so unthinking my arms rise, my tendons clench,

my toes are firmly planting

but CRASH below the first bolt I fall to the ground (not even Bran could save me)

And so a solid layback a conscious toe jam a reach to a crimp above and

I fall, again but I’ve clipped in and Brannon catches me.

I lower.

Then I send it.

FOG 2 We two wake by sun stabs into eyelids Then drive on bridge into the cemetery air

our sight is vague

mist of nothingness

rises

I need to

breathe moist air

drowns me Noisy Rush of Far Far

Far below

Implausible in blindness Inpausible

in time Impossible

Eyes closed the car is

-ing through the damp sound

in volume

Fall-

Boulders (POPs) Field’s filled with forced upthrust of the boulders.

Tenacious stone fingers claw at an empty sky.

Bran: hidden by the mini-mountain.

I cry out.

Under calloused palms this rock won’t move.

At us, the boulders leer with permanence and scowls.

Arm swings right, up— midair dangling— Brannon’s guiding paws—

I cling to the top/ I mantle above an empty sky.

These immutable hands of boulder clench, hold me.

Youth, Bridge

It’s 6 AM and we’re driving forward into town, to eat and fill up water.

In the fog, river rising, we can’t see but we trust this bridge’s single-minded arch.

We feel the rush ahead, north-bound even as we turn in place.

We feel the groundless space below even as we float above— in white noise/mysteriousness, in the groggy now the steel of cables in the damp air the communion of movement in the onward roar the rise of arch in the emptiness It’s 6 AM and we’re forging on just to survive in the mist, flooded air we can’t breathe, but we trust the iron wheels inside each other.

FOG 3

Beyond, I know you will (unborn) I know, ahead, you must.

Beyond that fuzz of gloom (from womb) I know, past all that dust!

Ahead: uncertain clawing nails, and lengthenings of spines, and unguided, jerky, doubting steps, and our bloody, painful minds.

I know upriver I'll become that murky future me.

You must, upriver waiting, have some sort of clarity. it’s impossible, we both can feel but we must; we will.

(I hope)

I know

we will.

Transmute (POPs)

Onward: the churning, rumbling rapids of New—

Old Gorge, transform into sand solution/ waterflow!

Oh this shape! It is however the weigh will force its weight.

Transmuting how it will, rock/river’s truth’s still yet unborn.

Ahead, the river runs clean blue: the Old, reborn again.

Merge At dawn, there was some rain, so He said, "let there be some New!" and a bang. (pitter patter hands of drops in drizzle, moist plopping lips and guts and)

The Rock that blows to the south said, "Go!" and it ran. (whistle wind through inner space of mountains, moaning gust and wistful bellow)

The elk-filled Knob to the north said, "flow!" and it went. (barking deep from throats, a warning grunt of what will come)

And so He said, "let there be some New!”

*** Two prongs rushed, went, flowed, cut deep into the unformed ridge somehow forward to unknown rocks, foretold digs of mud,

destined strata that were only made

to create another more true.

Crashhhh! Bang! The loudest Clang of two that became one, then and forever, somehow birthing their whoever; somehow forcing out a truth of who knows what; somehow creating something that matters; somehow forcing out a fruit of their existence (sun beat in rays, boiling breeze cooled in wisps, rippling rocks stirred in swirls, bubbling) ***

And there was light, then dark.

And there were two, then one.

And then there was the New.

Poetry October 2016 Seattle, WA