A Photograph of Doan Brook
In spring
I scout the brook too early
to photograph green,
my favorite camera
dangling hopefully
from my shoulder while April
continues fingering winter,
kneading stiff bare clay
for the rising of May,
so that this unleashed world
starts to dither my spirits
in grades of grey.
My presence in the gorge
surprises the water strider,
solitary and early too.
Tumbled runes incline between us,
marked with early moss
budding through last year's moss.
Hunkering overhead, I shift a
truculent shape among clouds,
disturbing the calm at the bank.
My apparition strides
the forest surface, sending
it fleeing on the wet mirror
into ripples, waves, cascades,
shuffling short of slipping away
underneath the flood. Once
motionless among trees,
I taper from memory
until worry-less and free
it skits relieved to placid pool,
a many-legged partner
dancing on swirls of mercury.
We react like marionettes
suspended from strings
snagged between our worlds,
dangling as the shallows spill
through the tall, empty
legs of tree shadow,
passing our entangled stage,
the safety net
of rooted windings,
wet stones, drizzled leaves,
infant fronds furled
in the muck. Strands ripple
like line in the wind
over the bowl of Doan Brook,
fluttering down the path, wild leaves
tumble from their husk
in the cover of the sky.
Across this exaggerated terrain
the brook's water throws back
the mulatto lights of April,
and purls among trees
a boundless prelude that thrusts
its tremolo like a sword
right through thought, exposing
the sharp candor now
constantly tumbling
past my open shutter. Read more...
Voices of the BrookHow has Doan Brook and its parklands influenced you? View the stories, poems, photos, artwork, video and other things contributed from our community. To add your own voice to our online brook, see the "Join Our Efforts" section. A Photograph of Doan Brook by David Perelman Hall Thursday, August 09, 2012
The Origins of Doan Brook Monday, March 26, 2012
My father first introduced me to the wild and rugged outdoors when I was very young. He would take me on long hikes through vast marshes, steep gorges, extensive forests, and across scenic vistas…or at least that is what I thought at the time. I grew up in an inner ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, the Cleveland city line was only a few blocks from where I lived. As with any urban living scene, the rush of traffic was virtually continuous, with trains, sirens, and honking along the busy corridors of city life. Nevertheless, within a walking distance from my house was a local nature center with hiking trails. Most importantly, this nature center was a part of a long chain of parks whose center piece was the Doan Brook Read more... cicada song Wednesday, March 07, 2012
as the evening wanes and night looms ever darker Little Ladies in Tennis Shoes Monday, February 06, 2012
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History of the 1965 community efforts to fight the construction of a proposed freeway through Cleveland's eastern parklands and the subsequent creation of the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes.