Austin MacRae

Stream

Something swollen through the pines is spring
and I’m left marveling at the huge release
of silt and sticks and leaves that tells me something
is lost already, lost inside the cease-
less rush before the signal that it’s lost
comes in and I can ponder where it went,
before I can assess the gain, or cost,
or take a stab at what it means, or meant,
before my mind changed tense, my bones grew worn
and settled in a groove, and the season found
its body, in a flash of lightning, born
and dying all at once, slipped underground,
I sensed enough of life to turn and see
it borne downstream of my identity.



Holding the Hill

I hold my family’s hill inside my mind.
Although Mount Roderick is its proper name,
it’s not a mountain, just a lazy mound
that locals call “The Hill.”  Yet maps proclaim
our land deserving of a grander title.
As a child, I saw a steep discrepancy:
how does a mountain slouch into a hill
that looms two thousand feet above the sea?
I liked to think we owned a mountain tall
as Everest, standing proud above the town.
My mind was anchored there, surmounting all.
I scaled it to the peak then tumbled down,
and sensed my mindscape broaden year by year
to hold both hill and mountain, rising sheer.