Where else has it been,
the water that flows today
in the river beside me?
What song would it sing
of otherwhere? And other
otherwhere? And what
could it teach me of flow?
I think of how I carry with me
all the places I have been—
old cities with cobblestones
and mountaintops above the trees
and aspen glades and dark corners
that stink of sweat and piss
and bright hospital rooms and
cemeteries on hills.
Who would I be without
every trail I have hiked,
every bed I have tossed in,
every table where I’ve wept?
Watch how the waves seem
to stay in the same place
though the water that makes them
is never the same, a fact
that thrills me again and again.
Who will take my place here
when my own water flows on?
Or will the wave disappear
as after a flood?
And who has come before me
making this wave I call my life?
How easily it changes the day
to know self as a drop
in the stream.