CMC Home | Trail & Timberline Home | POETRY

Rafting Corseted in wet suits and life jackets, we sit on a wooden log, listen to safety instructions for grabbing raft, paddle, rope; or floating feet first toward a rock. I watch a caterpillar slink toward us, its circumscribed world uncertain as it disappears underneath the log.   I rise with the others, walk robot-like to the raft, help lift it slightly, run it along shallow water. I climb in, position myself beside you. We bounce over waves, each of us in separate footholds, eyeing our own contained eddy, paddling it.   I lose my balance, and our guide’s earlier warnings swirl over my head like cliff swallows. I begin to fall over the edge but you pull me back, your firm hand light against my heavy gear as you reach past your own encumbrance, your low voice of assurance more audible than white water slapping a bucking boat.   We forge downstream, in steady movement, then return, at last, to the river bank. A few yards away is a spread of cookies, cantaloupe, lemonade—ours for the taking. Just beyond is a white butterfly, silhouetted against great red mesas. —Sandra Goldsmith