for Finn (9/11/04-8/14/21)
I threw rocks in the river today.
Not because I thrill to throw rocks,
but because I love to remember
how you thrilled to throw rocks.
How you squealed at the spray
and clapped your hands at the sound
of the quiescent surface being broken.
Your joy was the pure joy of life itself,
life that knows itself through tossing,
through splattering, through squealing,
life that longs to stand on the bank
and throw rock after rock after rock.
Joy was never in the rock itself,
it wasn’t even in the splash,
nor is there joy in the rocks today.
But there is joy in feeling close to you here.
Joy in the memory of you being so alive.
Joy in remembering your smile,
your hands flying up in delight.
Joy, even, in the longing for you.
I throw rock after rock. I remember.
Posts Tagged ‘river’
Remembering
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, joy, mother, river, rock, the thing itself on September 12, 2022| 7 Comments »
Walking with Lulu Down to the River
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, ritual, river, wildflowers on August 8, 2022| 10 Comments »
She carries a vase
of delphiniums and daisies
and I carry a tune
and we toss them all
like wishes
into the river.
Some wishes
are more beautiful
for knowing they will never
come true.
When we are done
we hold hands in the twilight
and watch the last
of the flowers float
in the shimmering eddies.
This is the moment
I would not have known
to have wished for.
I lean into this moment.
Almost Imperceptible
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, current, flow, river on February 9, 2022| 6 Comments »
The winter river
flows beneath
the ice,
then enters
low below
my thoughts,
its song
so slow
I almost miss
its strains,
how all is current—
dying, living,
gaining, losing,
forgetting and
remembering—
how all is
stagnant,
all is
change.
All Is Water
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, mother, river on February 1, 2022| 20 Comments »
One river gives
its journey to the next.
—Alberto Ríos, “When Giving Is All We Have”
I thought it was I giving the journey to you.
You gave your journey to me.
I thought I was the head waters,
but I have become your tributary.
Now I carry your turbulence. I carry your calm.
I carry the waters of my own breaking.
A river follows the same changing course,
but the water moving through is always new.
Let’s name this river the river of sorrows.
Let’s name it the river of love.
New, is it any wonder I am startled by this journey?
Old, is it any wonder I am still longing to give?
Traveling these shores, there are moments
when I feel every other wave that has ever passed and
feel every wave that will ever be, and know
myself a share of something greater, something
generous that is always giving, something
ever borrowing from the current of the world.
*Title is a quote from Thaleus of Miletus
The Waking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, river, waking, waking up on July 26, 2021| 2 Comments »
When we wake, all people are rivers—
though some are torrents and some
mere trickles, though some break down
obstacles and some slowly meander.
We move from our beds through the banks
of the world, our lives following the course
of the day. Our streams merge with the streams
of others. We are, every day, more each other
and still somehow ourselves. If only we could trust
our uniting currents as unthinkingly as the rivers
follow gravity—always with the least amount
of resistance. How long will we pretend
we are separate? How long before we find ourselves
joined in the communion of the sea, all our waters
one water, every waking an invitation.
White Water
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged canoe, love, river, stream on June 9, 2021| 4 Comments »
The day is a stream
and your love a blue canoe;
there are rapids
around the corner
and all I can do,
unskilled as I am
in reading the waves,
is paddle with fervor—
terror in my gut,
and this goofy smile
glued to my face.
Tomorrow, perhaps,
the stream will be calm,
but today
the white roar of chaos
crashes all around,
rocking and tossing.
It does no good to pretend
life is anything but what it is,
so I paddle, I scull,
and I may not be dry
but dang, I’ve never
been so alive, my arms,
dripping in diamonding light,
our lives at stake.
Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arriving, home, nature, river on March 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Even after all these years
of wandering this twisting path of self,
how is it I am still surprised
to find a new home inside the rush of river,
as if I haven’t been here
in this song of melting many times before?
How is it I forgot my home
inside the brittle brown grass of March,
home in the sweet moldering scent of spring,
home in the sun soaked day—
as if the great star of beginnings
is saying again to me, Come, friend.
How is it I sometimes forget to arrive
exactly where I am, especially in these days
when forgiveness arrives like the cranes
on great wings that charge the air.
These days when love comes crashing in
like western wind, breaking branches
and rearranging the yard, as if to say
it is here to change everything.
Sometimes I forget the world will find me
wherever I am and insist in the language
of willow and trunk and hawk and noon,
home, home, you are home.
Tempted by Comparison
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged comparison, river, stone, water on February 23, 2021| 2 Comments »
Today I know the self
as a stone in the stream—
everything around me rushing and quickening,
and me, a way to mark all this moving.
Amidst all the bubble and rush,
a stone has its own very slow journey,
and yet, there is no doubt
the stone belongs, is doing
exactly what a stone should do—
which is to be true to its stone-ness,
to know itself as a traveler, yes,
but also as an integral part of the path,
a model of consistency, seldom
in a hurry, inclined to show up
exactly where it is.
The Defense
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged defensiveness, melting, river on February 19, 2021| 6 Comments »
The part of me who fears being falsely accused
will do anything to defend herself—
build walls of words, make dams of truths,
construct barriers out of old conversations.
She has always been this way,
certain others are judging her.
Certain they find her at fault.
Certain she must protect herself.
I would like to take her for a walk
and show her how the ice on the river
is melting. How all winter long,
the river itself was the only thing
in its own way—impeding, constricting—
doing what rivers do in the cold.
Now that the cold recedes
the river is more open, more free.
I want her to smell that alive river scent
and know that she, too, can melt.
I want her to feel the freedom of warmth.
I want to tell her that sometimes
the best way to know the innocent self
is to let it run away.