I don’t enjoy walking the river when it is this intense.
The rush and roil make my head light as foam
and turns my feet sodden and heavy.
I loose my thoughts.
I start thinking river questions.
Questions I haven’t asked in generations.
Where am I going?
And when I get there, where will I go then?
Are there other rivers like me?
If there are, do they find like I do
that every bend is new and familiar
all at once, that each old tree I see
I have never seen before
and have known for centuries?
Do they watch with the same eye,
one at once the length and width of my course
but small as every drop of water?
I, also, wonder where I am going.
I ponder the absence of any final destination.
I puzzle at why when I look,
the river wears my face.
Mike--you may not remember me; I'm one of Norb's people. Your river poem touched me--as do all your poems. I felt the need to share one of mine with you. Forgive me if you feel it's an intrusion.
ReplyDelete***
It Is All in the Moving River
You can never step into the river in the same place
Even if you set your foot in the same spot,
on the same rock, the water has moved on
and you are in a new place in the river.
Today, too, nothing is as it was a moment ago,
even if you stand the same way in the same place.
A baby is born, a crinkled octogenarian has died,
and the air has moved like the river.
So either stand still longing for the river that has passed,
or step each day into the new river—this clear, cool water
that is a stranger to your feet—
it wants to know you.
(after John Fox)
Jackie Langetieg