The Falls, A poem by Mark Brennan

Swirling white foam on a
Bottomless Boreal lake
Comes in an endless bobbing
Stream from the falls, up river

There is a permanence here
Amongst the rocks
Where the cream water runs
Pines grab and cling
And endless roots snake over
Soggy ground, growing into
The shape of the boulder they cling too

I am here too, in this wild place
First a watcher but then
Something different
I become also as ageless as
The wind, that swishes through
Surrendered boughs above
And as clear as the water
That settles beneath me.

Written near 16 mile Stream, Liscomb, Nova Scotia. April 2011.

Awareness, A poem

Written by Mark Brennan on location during April of 2011 in the woods of Whitehill, Nova Scotia

Come let me show you the stream
Flowed for a thousand years or more
Rattling and gurgling its song
Through the old wood
Where now snow still sits
In rounded clumps
And a brown carpet
Shines golden in the evening sun

I rest, under a Birch
Watch the yellow fluttering bark
In the dusk breeze, content
The wisdom of the Earth might be mine
If I could sit a while
Under the old wise one
Quiet for 100 years

No judgement here, in the forest
No egos, no crumbling states of mind
No cares, nor haste
Or frightened whims

I breathe deeply
Smell the sweet spring
And give away the past and future
But keep quiet company of the present