Warm Springs Creek

Warm Springs Creek is an ancient stream

flowing through my cabin dream.

It adds it stream to the Big Wood River

and to the might Snake

and flows on into Columbia and on

into "great stinking lake"

Or so the Indian called the smelly waters

Of the great "Pacific Ocean Lake."

It's more than I can fathom,

those years of melting snow

perpetuating annual flow, carving mighty canyons

supporting life from the shining mountain mystery

to the graveyard of the sea, 

to the tiniest mountain springs

where all is born again from falling snow and rain, where

water reincarnates and the salmon people are born again.