As salt dissolves in ocean, I was swallowed up in you beyond doubt or being sure.
—Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
Glisten and wet lick
and thick river scent—
that is everything.
Swords. Shields.
Stories of who did what
to whom and when—
and all those hows, whether
divine or horrendous—
gone.
Even these words
you and me
reduce to vacant syllables
in the face of such
movement, such shine—
I could never explain but
it rushes in so clear
that whatever
we once thought
of as other is here
in the clamor
of snowmelt, here
in the river birch
waiting for green,
here in the shove of tumbling
breath as we realize wave
and lose
all we were sure of,
lose the path
that got us here,
lose even the loss of it.