Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer. Our current guest editor is Micki Blenkush.
I came across Waterfall by Larry Schug in the former local St. Cloud newsletter, Unabridged, exactly when I needed to read it. It was October of 2001, following the events of 9/11, and I, like most, felt shattered. Larry Schug’s words helped to put some frame around the possibility of hope for humanity, and helped to shine a light on a potential path forward.
Micki Blenkush
Waterfall
Larry Schug
The Cross River,
sliding over bedrock,
shatters into a galaxy of liquid crystals
each filling itself with its own light,
singing its own song;
then bursts again
into a billion more
before re-joining the flow
through time and space.
I watch this river fall three days
before I begin to understand.
Each of us must sing our own song
while seeking harmony;
must carry our own light
inside a greater light.
We cannot be still.
This is not the time for silence,
Darkness.
***
Larry Schug is retired after a life of many kinds of manual labor and though he has had to take a hiatus due to the pandemic of 2020 he is a volunteer writing tutor at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University writing enters He’s published eight books of poems and is working on a ninth. His latest book is “A Blanket of Raven Feathers” with North Star Press. He lives with his wife, dog and two cats near a large tamarack bog in St. Wendel Township, north of St. Joseph, which is forever preserved with a conservation easement.
“Waterfall” was initially published in North Coast Review and is included in Larry Schug’s book, Arrogant Bones, published by North Star Press. It appears here with permission of the author.