This is one of three waterfalls that spill down the mountain behind my house during the rainy season.
Falling Water
You, my wild and rushing daughter
remind me of falling water
spilling from one place to another
while your sister and your brother
are calm ponds—docile and still.
Do you think you ever will
come to rest within our glade
or will you continue to cascade
from mountainside to jungle floor,
always rushing out the door
to adventures in a farflung world?
Another part of you unfurled
in some new place and some new time,
a foreign place you find sublime.
We’ve had one life. You’ve had a few.
Why, love, will one world not do?
For the Rag Tag Daily Prompt, the word of the day was cataract.
Although I don’t have a brother and my family did move around a bit (but not as much as I have,) this poem was based a bit on the only letter my father ever wrote to me. I had been traveling and working abroad for a few years by then, first in Australia, then in Singapore and Africa. I’ve remembered one of sections: “The wild geese have rested on the pond for the night. They remind me of you, my wild fledgling, winging your way across the world with no place to call your own.” Those words, so poetic, show a side of my father I wish he had brought out more frequently on paper, so here I’ve done it for him.
That is beautiful, Judy. My true love caught sight of your title and it brought the Frank Lloyd Wright house, Falling Water, to his mind. That house sits above a waterfall. It is spectacular.
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Yes, I thought of that, too. My sister and bro-in-law are going to see FLW’s Falling Water in a month…
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Wonderful photo and your words that accompany really made me think and I did wonder if the words were a little autobiographical.
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Yes., thanks for asking. I’ve moved the answer to your question up to the body of my post, under the poem, because I, like you, always wonder to what degree the post is autobiographical and I know many others do as well.
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Love your poem (describes my sister) and the inspiration behind it. 🙂
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Thanks, Debbie. This was me at earlier stages of my life but I think I’ve finally found the place to roost.
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It sounds like you’ve found heaven! 🙂
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What a beautifully penned sentiment (your father’s too!) I have two girls and a boy, and my eldest is like this – has had a few lives.
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