The sealed jar of artesian water
near Kwan Yin’s right hand
has rested on my altar for nine
years—since Dane and I were whited-out
south of Marmot Pass. We traversed
a wrong ghostly spur.
It was late, an uncomfortable
bivouac likely.
A quick compass reading
through opening fog
pointed to a trail trace
far below.
We came to the spring we call
The Source, drank deeply, filled bottles,
walked to the truck by flashlight.
Five long miles
in dark rain.

Big Quil watershed, Olympic Mountains, October, 2000

(No. 69 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

There is no better water on the planet than that which flows so purely from The Source, located near Camp Mystery, just below Marmot Pass, in the northeast Olympics. A poet friend, who knows the area well, calls this little spring The Mother of All Waters.

The day started clear and warm. We ate a late lunch, took a long nap, woke in heavy fog. We could not find our way down the ridge, simple as it seemed. After drifting way off course, and finally realizing it, Dane and I spotted, hundreds of feet below, a trail segment through a brief opening in the fog. We took a quick compass reading and, in last light, eventually emerged from a steep, wooded hillside precisely at The Source.

The focused attention, relief, exhilaration and deep appreciation of this experience are with me to this day. Kwan Yin (Sanskrit: Avalokiteshvara– “She who hears the cries of the world”) was listening.  Isn’t she always?

Or, as Han-shan says, There it is, in the midst of Nothing!

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)