Otter Dreams

Three poets, Jeff Saslow, Rich Kessler, and Christina Gregory try to find light and balance during the darkness of winter and the stress of everyday life. Join them, as they express their connection to Nature through the written word.
                                                                                       Unless noted, all photos by Old Naturalist

River Otters

The river otter’s homes are the joy of open holes,
Usually a foot in diameter,
and dot snowy Minnehaha Creek
On a cold, February afternoon.
The dark icy water of blackness houses a secret under the white world beneath my feet.

The otters enter the abyss to fish,
But then use the snowy creek to slide along as a game and a ritual,
Much like us who walk, ski
and pull children’s sleds on the surface.
The dogs sniff around the half open holes,
Their nose in touch with an otter or two
That danced, slid and fished eight to twelve hours earlier.

Now there are no otters in sight.
No smells that we, of course, can decipher.
But the open holes, the icy slides,
The dog’s attention are a testament
To something much deeper and unknown on the Creek,
Inside our bodies and just inside the walls of our world.

  J. Saslow –  Feb. 2015

White field

White blizzard
Low winter angle of sunlight
Brown grasses through white frosting
I ski through my cake
Past twilight into the night

 Blanketed hills
Tucked in dark woods
I push and slide
Toward marshmallow prairies
My insides are sucking on sweets
While my winded face meets my self again.

J. Saslow

Haikus – Rich Kessler

ice cracks underfoot
alone   silence broken
by my racing heart     

bare cold icy branch                        
closed buds huddle together
long for spring’s warm sun

 I profess my love
midnight    new year’s eve
full moon steals the show

I live between two skis.
Across a snow white sheet.
On a sky-blue-pink March day.
The wind blows a mystery.

I fall asleep between seconds.
My body shudders
I’m on the upward side of time
I awake
Sliding on a frozen, glass creek
My heart is all that is warm.

J. Saslow       March ‘09

www.its.caltech.edu

Spontaneous Combustion

In the mist of mystery
In the spheres of frozen longing
You are born
Quickened by the rise and fall of wind
The mystical design of old.

Pure vapor is the womb
Tossed about the riding tide of streaming air
Agitated, perplexed, driven to create and birth your wonder for our viewing.

You trick us into thinking you are unique
Yet you follow the manual; dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s
Always 6 branches
Always measured
Always following your crystal destiny.

Condensing cold upon the nascent flake
You grow tihe frenetic energy into branches, fern like and precious.
Colonized symmetrically
Randomized mathematically
Stretched beyond the imagination

And in the chemical bond you join to others like yourself
Lining up, marching as it were, into the form within your knowing
And deep within you assemble
Spontaneously
Organically
Magically,,,

Fresh baby snow

Christina Gregory, January 2015

River Otter Tracks