One Valley

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.

Once I thought I could find

where it began

but that never happened

though I went looking for it

time and again

cutting my way past 

empty pools and dry waterfalls

where my dog ran straight up the stone

like an unmoored flame

.

it seemed that the beginning

could not be far then as I went on through the trees 

over the rocks toward the mountain

until I came out in the open

and saw no sign of it

.

where the roaring torrent

raced at one time

to carve farther down

those high walls in the stone

for the silence that I hear now

day and night on its way to the sea

.

~ W.S. Merwin
from The Shadow of Sirius
photo by Ansel Adams

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