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To Find a Waterfall

The wild forest is a spiritual place.
Disbelief does not last there. Halfway through
My span of life, my sunrise-to-set race,

I found my trail among the trees anew.
Goal for the Spring: to find a waterfall,
To trace my pathway out to that grand view.

The rumor was these woods were spiritual.
Religious, though? Perhaps religious too.
The booths of other pilgrims, several

One-eyed and crooked huts proved water drew
More than myself to seek the thing it sought—
The torrent: every stream a separate clue.

Spiritual, yes. But wholesome? Maybe not.
The path beneath my feet was running red
As if infected with some water rot,

Not like my starting spring, clear in its bed,
Fresh from the marshes. Pink pollution fluff
Floated atop it, like some foul bread.

What dyed the water made it ugly stuff.
The very pebbles that it washed grew scum.
But I kept going, going getting tough,

My holy woods as pleasant as a slum.
Had whores been washing clothes upstream? I mused
To make this liquid rusty, lumped like phlegm?

I all but waded my way, disabused
Concerning wild forest’s purity.
But when clean water with sick water’s fused,

What’s the result? That, I pressed on to see.
And then I stepped into the clearing’s heat.
The woodland blooms, like guests at a party,

Forsythia and violet, fairy, sweet,
Each complemented others on their color.
The clearing’s house possessed no chicken feet

But otherwise it reeked of Baba Yaga
Or just the smoke of some illicit shroom.
I had to squint to see the path thread further.

Right past the shack it marched, through sun’s hot room.
I marched along and soon broke through the brake
And saw the waters, gathered in the gloom,

Burst forth themselves. The clean-and-dirty shake
Dashed against rock, bolted in purest white
Down the steep drop, with rumbles in its wake,

Like judgment’s thunder wafted from great height,
Not overloud, but clear, implacable.
These are His woods, His waters, His own right.

Take care then how you walk here, little soul,
And how you worship at this waterfall.

.

.

Monika Cooper is an American family woman.

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16 Responses

  1. Paul Freeman

    Some great imagery on this spiritual journey to the Eden-like home of a traditional or maybe not so traditional deity.

    Thanks for the read, Monika.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      As Wordsworth wrote, “there is a spirit in the woods” – despite it all. I like your characterization of the Deity who dwells there. Thank you for reading and appreciating my poem.

      Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Well, have you passed by her hutch lately? I would make a wide circle, myself. And whatever is brewing in her rotten pot impresses me as distinctly sub-savory.

      Reply
  3. jd

    Beautiful poem, Monica. I look forward to your poems and am never disappointed. I often think He must be very angry with what is being done to His beautiful world along with all the other abominations.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, jd. Yes, the state of things described here was meant to suggest deeper “spiritual” problems and even abominations. I am so glad to know that you look forward to my poems.

      Reply
  4. C.B. Anderson

    This bolt of terza rima cloth is astounding in its fundamental quality. You have touched everything, and therefore you have touched me. At times the poem seems endless, but when it finally ends, it really doesn’t. Silly me, I think I would put this in my Mount Rushmore of favorite poems, up there with Arnold’s “Dover Beach”.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, C. B. When I was writing this, I appreciated the freedom that terza rima’s lack of length requirements allowed me – to begin at the beginning and take all the time I needed to get to the end. It is wonderful to be included on your Mount Rushmore! (And I love Dover Beach too.)

      Reply
  5. James Sale

    A beautiful piece of work, Monika. And it’s not just the terza rima that re-creates a Dantean feel to the poetry. Even the opening with its ‘Halfway through/ My span…’ recalls the immortal start of that other’s journey. But Dante aside, another very great and massively undervalued poem this piece reminds me of is Browning’s Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, particularly in the details of the cesspit that you are wading through (good to find the word ‘whores’ re-entering our vocabulary: Had whores been washing clothes upstream)! Very very fine work indeed.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, James. It was reading your beautiful terza rima that inspired me to try it, as you may remember. I had already been thinking I should re-read “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”; it has been a hot minute and, after your comment, I’m even more interested to see how it will ring to me now. The waters in the forest were definitely giving me Manto’s swamp vibes.

      Reply
  6. Cynthia Erlandson

    This is very beautiful, Monika! And I was impressed with the rhyming words you used for “waterfall.”

    Reply
  7. Sally Cook

    Dear Monika – You always satisfy and give your best, as do I/Thank you for this fine poem.

    Eye problems preclude my writing more at this time — more later.

    qualoiti3e

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Always an honor to know that you are reading and to get a comment from you, Sally. I hope your eye problems are resolved soon. Thank you!

      Reply
  8. Margaret Coats

    Terza rima is a kind of waterfall, but only suggestively. A most appropriate form for your search, Monika. The defined goal of finding a waterfall gives focus to everything you encounter, while allowing symbols and suggestions to retain hidden qualities. The locale is a jungle in which things touching the senses need to be evaluated–as you do again and again, with the questions about spirituality, religion, wholesomeness. Water pools and springs and flows and gathers, carrying much that seems contrary to its purifying force. The grand view sought can only come in a clearing, but the clearing house is unclean. Waters seem to purify themselves at last, with violent motion against a rock, becoming the white waterfall that is the goal of this mystic pilgrimage. It’s appropriate to use the final couplet as a didactic warning to the soul arriving there, about behavior in this high place and about worship. As often, your words and phrases suggest much, without finalizing the thought.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, Margaret. As always, you pick up on so much, the larger lines and the subtler signals. “Violent motion against a rock” – exactly. It is a natural image of purification. I still wouldn’t drink the water but I saw in the waterfall what it means to be dashed against the Rock that is Christ. (To give the thought a bit more of a finalized point here in the notes.) Didactic warning, yes: I did wonder if my hand was a bit too heavy with the moral there, but quod scripsi, scripsi!

      Reply

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