To Archive Experience, by Tricia Knoll

imagery from Hamonshū, a 3 volume resource of wave and water motifs, by Mori Yuzan (Japan). 1903.

​To Archive Experience
 
Everyone knows about snow’s granularity,
the limits on how we can put it into words.
 
The scientist may record the exact timbre
of the wolf’s howl or coyote’s and still
 
the hairs rise on our arms. Deep
knowledge from the wild. 
 
I have stood on the cliff, dabbled my
toe in surf, run through volcanic 
 
ash falling on the beach at high tide.
Seen waves blown off course
 
by the spins of winter storm winds.
I do not know the words for all vagaries
 
of tide and smack-down turbulence,
the gentle laps of summer days 
 
where the sailboats bob on the lagoon. 
Or how tears overlap and add up
 
one after another like rain on skylights. 
The patterns our fingers scroll
 
in the pond or the frog makes 
diving under the lily pad. 
 
These I hold in my mind’s reservoir
of what I have known and loved.  

Tricia Knoll

Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet whose second book of poetry Ocean's Laughter (Kelsay Books) focused on experiences in Manzanita, a small town on Oregon's north coast. Her most recent collection How I Learned To Be White recently received the Gold Prize for Poetry Book Category for Motivational Poetry in the Human Relations Indie Book Prize for 2018. Website: triciaknoll.com