BRAD SHURMANTINE __________________________ Head of the Metolius It gushes out of a little cave in Black Butte but originates in the Cascades, a hundred miles away. Cold! Too cold to stand in. And clear. Right out of the ground. And these old man poems– where do they come from, after so much dark and silence? They burble out free, easy, fresh and clear to me. Sixty-odd years of tears & sweat roiling in the caverns of my mind, seeping forgotten into hidden caves and crevices. Chilling there. And flowing out as I tilt and head downhill, hitting the light, sparkling there.
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