The Rising

The Rising

Tom Johnson-Medland

The heat of day
is held within her
embrace, and slowly
she let's it go. Slowly
she gives it rise.

The rising is full
with the aroma of the
moistening and decaying
of the fallen leaves
of last autumn.

Hints of mushrooms and
fungus mingle with the
dampness held close to
the stumps by mosses and
lichen alike. Gently, ever so
gently there wafts a finish
of the ambient strains of
humus which find themselves
as notes and mere suggestions
to nose of other things that
are going on in the falling
apart of life in the basement
and on the ground floor
of this patch of woodlands
between the river and the
promontory of quartzite rock
that rises itself above in this
place. Rising. Always rising
up. As if an offering to the
sky. Everything rises. Seeking
convergence and a blending
with every other thing. It
goes on and on in endless
strains, throughout all time
and upon all space. Rising.
Let go into the rising. Be
a suggestion on the odor
of eternity; an almost
imperceptible bouquet in
the scent laid down of
all that has been and is
becoming. To be a whiff and
tang on the fragrance of
all that is; how could we
not wish and long to swim
toward the sky with such
glory. A balmy, spicy incense;
a redolence of the ALL.

---

Thomas Johnson-Medland
Poet & Outdoorsman

Tom has had over fifty articles and poems published across a variety of journals and magazines. He has also had seventeen books published to date - eleven of these are volumes of poetry. The most recent volume RIVER BENDING: Poems of the Delaware River and Her Tributaries, published with Wipf and Stock Publishers. You can read more about Tom and his works at tomjohnsonmedland.com

Photography by Victoria Palacios