The Let it Be Rock at Williamson River

The campsite is guarded by a rim of lodgepole pine

with a break through the bushes allowing

a meandering path littered with sunboiled needles,

and a saggy swarm of gnats, and deer flies.

I escape the detritus of the campsite, strewn with

cooler, coleman stove, coleman lantern, his bike, the exotic pour over coffee,

his tin can stove, the tent I attempted to help him with, and his finest sleeping bags.

I wander the bushy path alone, occasionally feeling

the delicate intermittent kisses of the moist river air brush my forehead.

A blue mountain blue jay screeches a warning at my intrusion into his territory.

It tears at my ears, covering the whisper of river water hidden before me.

Abruptly the path ends at the edge of the river.

My feet find a lip of sand, and my ears a susurrus of water upon the rocks,

The river gracefully clutches at my feet, a forgiveness,

tugging gently in a reminder of the power hidden behind the boulders.

I wade the current to midstream to the rock,

like an ottoman pouf, upholstered in soft green grasses.

I smirk at my “throne”, like some queen of my destiny,

facing upstream to the skiffs of riffles, pondering the V’s,

eddies, and what to do with the mess at the campsite.

My head is crowned by the willow at the bank,

my toes nibbled on by baby redbanded trout,

the sun a cloak upon my shoulders.

I settle.

Letting thoughts drift downstream.

It is enough for now,

to just let it be.