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Posts Tagged ‘river’

The Phone Call

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 25, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
While all around us the world rushes by, 
our conversation becomes a wide flat rock
in the midst of the river where we can rest
long enough to see not everything
is snarl and torrent, rapid and rush. 
See how the heron lands in the eddy,
how soft moss grows on rocks in the shade.
Holding up all the tumult, the peaceful.
At the edges of chaos, the beautiful. 
This is why, when I call you in the middle 
of the day and you answer, I almost cry. 
Because the timbre of your voice is enough
to land me. I lie on the solid rock of our talk. 
I rest there long enough for my own pulse
to slow, long enough dangle my ankle
into the current and think, yes, 
I can swim again. 

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What Joins Us

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2026| 2 Comments »


 
 
At last the river is covered in ice,
a vast white sheet from bank
to bank. A woman, or a rabbit,
could use to cross what usually
feels uncrossable. I think
of William Stafford standing beside
the frozen Methow river, asking a question.
The silent river was his answer.
Later today I will put on my old navy coat
and my big old rubber boots and walk
to the shore with my satchel of questions,
the ones that writhe and twist in me,
the ones that make me tremble.
Perhaps, you, too, will bring your questions
to a shore where winter has hidden the song.
If you have no river, any quiet space will do.
We can stand there together
at the edge of no separation
to see which questions spill out.
No matter where we stand,
we can listen to the silence
that crosses all boundaries, listen,
together, and wade into the current
beneath all listening.
 

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Currents

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 31, 2026| Leave a Comment »


 
 
I walk to the river and see how the banks
have changed since even two days ago.
Now water flows through the bright red willows
instead of staying in the main channel.
I remember how it used to run right here
where I am standing until a mighty flash
flood altered its course and there was not
a damn thing anyone could have done to stop it.
 
There is, even now, a rising flood of love.
It will move anything that tries to impede it.
When I can’t hear the flood of love,
that’s when I know it is up to me to share love
so someone else hears the currents I’m listening for.
Together we make unstoppable waves—how they roar.

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After a Morning of Crossing Things from a List

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2025| 12 Comments »

Then comes the moment
when not one thing is more important
than walking to the river
and finding a wide rock in the middle
of the flow where I can sit
and speak to you.
There’s not much to say
these days besides I love you,
I miss you. So I say the paltry words,
six inadequate syllables.
As always they are sorry translations
for the infinite songs of my heart.
So I sit on the rock and listen;
silence the language you speak now.
I’ve been learning its tender
conjugations—you were. You are.
You have been. You will have been.
Is it true they all sound the same?
I practice silence long enough
the river moves through me
touching all I cannot say.
I don’t know how I know
when it is time to rise.
The silence holds me.
I teach the silence your name.

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Could It Happen Anywhere?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 13, 2025| 7 Comments »


 
Listen to the rhythm of things that never die.
                  —Mark Nepo, “For a Long Time”
 
 
Worried about what was to come, I went to the river
and listened to the constant song as water met stone,
met log, met wall. The endless white hush of it.
Song of building up banks. Song of tearing them down.
Song of surrender to invisible force. Song of change
that is ever the same and not the same. And in the listening,
I found refuge—not in the longing to hide, not in the sound—
I found refuge in the listening. Refuge in the opening
of the senses. In attuning to what is here. Wave and current
and eddy and flow and the attentiveness that lives
through this woman. And I listened and listened, listened
to it all, and was opened by listening. At some point
the listener disappeared. What was left was
listening itself. For a time, peace found me there.

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One Role Model

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on May 15, 2025| 4 Comments »

leaf sinks to the bottom—
even the river too tired
to hold up everything

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Out of the Corner of My Eye

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 8, 2025| 10 Comments »


 
 
Sometimes I expect to see him walking by the river,
to see his tall, thin body move through the willows,
camera in hand. I don’t see him, of course, but I do,
I see him as a young man in a blue button-up shirt,
his hair cut short, his movements doe-like as he
picks his way through the rocks. And sometimes
I see him a young boy, still blonde, still shrieking
with joy at the splash he can make with a big river rock.
And sometimes I see him as the willows themselves,
as if he’s come back in everything—the willows,
the river, the stones, the trees, this woman
who is standing at the window, looking.  

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Water Speak

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 25, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
When you say goodbye
fill each syllable with the sound
of the river as it kisses the shore
just beyond our window,
then, no matter what words you say,
I will hear the unending waves,
will smell the musty,
earthy scent on my skin
long after the words are gone.
There is home in the way
your words cling to me
like water beads on my skin.
This is how I remember
where I am from.

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One Unpronounceable

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 7, 2025| 4 Comments »



the river decides
it’s discovered me,
renames me after itself

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One Stifled

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 27, 2025| 8 Comments »


 
this winter
I’ve turned into a river
beneath the ice, so much song

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