All Poems Pray ~ She Who Watches Inspires Collaboration of Image and Word

Inspired by the Image and Experience of poet and Nature Scout, Judy Todd,

who generously shared the story and photo of her pilgrimage into the Columbia
Gorge on the Washington side of the river across from The Dalles, Oregon to see
the pictograph She Who Watches for the first time.

When Judy sent me the photo it took my breath, as she told me it had taken hers,
and the only way I could respond was in the stuttering speech of poetry.

As with all the images throughout, click on the picture to enlarge
and see it better, then click on the black border side area to return to the page.

Visit Judy's website and blog at NatureConnect Excursions~
http://www.yournatureconnect.com/

   Meeting by Judy Todd, Columbia River Gorge 2011~

   Shown with gracious permission.

She Who Watches Shows Herself . . . 

        Opens Her Eyes to Me Now

breath suddenly
taken, my mouth opens
wider and wider
as wide as Her Eyes
i see what She sees forever

coming around the corner
of my tiny life
then drawn into Her
as if She has taken
a cosmic Inbreath
to bring me here,
and having succeeded,
inhales me Whole

wedged between camouflage rocks and wild vegetation,

She sits watching over the river and all the living,

holding place for the spirits of those who have died

Eyes in Her ears, great lakes in Her eyes,

a face part starving child human,

part Great Mother Bear

She with the eyes of ten open suns
and the ears of ten listening mountains
has opened Her Self

to Earth, Spirit Protector and Witness,
and Seeing my molecular readiness
She has taken me into Her Soul

may i, by all means, help
to dry Her tears
and comfort Her broken Heart
from the Inside and Out

my eyes keep opening wider and wider
so does my mouth, breath nearly not at all,
how can one see Her seeing her or him and breathe,
yet She is the Giver of breath
and one must continue to breathe in order
to serve Her

my mouth then continues to open
in order to be with Her in Silence

and later to speak without ceasing,
to express Her horror at the self-wounded sorrows
of humanity, that animal species no longer One with itself

or Earth or Her, hardly worthy of the sacred name,

animal  ~an embodied Ensoul~
and also to express Her and my own
still undared but almost hope

            Alla Renée Bozarth

See Photos from the blog of Tom Foster, Pasco, Washington

http://iceagefloods.blogspot.com/2009/04/dalles-and-she-who-watches.html


See close-up by Steve Plattner 
http://www.pbase.com/image/55410029