by Michael Dechane
The wind from the west is still
unmaking these mountains:
each branch and blade tip points
toward the sea, the sun that rises.
From the summit I see around myself.
See winter fallen along the spine
of crowning ridge, red spray bouquets
of rowan berries, bleeding mountain ash.
Below, other trees raise the full stain of fall.
And still the green of summer’s coalescence
in the valley floor, the edge of my sight.
I have been standing here for years
seeing where I was, and had been,
with a splitting ache to name
that place where all I’ve seen began,
myself unknowing seed of that day
in me, held so long in bud.
Michael Dechane is a practiced writer, videographer, and public speaker. Motionpoems published his interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Dunn and filmmaker Matt Craig in their Season 5 episodes. He is currently studying Poetry in the MFA program at Seattle Pacific University.