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.
Posts Tagged ‘river’
The Waking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, river, waking, waking up on July 26, 2021| 2 Comments »
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.
Student
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, communication, river, speaking, student on October 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The river in autumn
is clear enough
to see the trout
who swim
in the deeper pools.
There are many ways
to speak.
This is one.
Holding What Must Be Held
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, growing, heartache, holding, river on August 11, 2020| 1 Comment »
Down by the river we sit and talk.
When I think I can’t ache any more,
the world serves more heartache.
And I meet it.
I say no, but I feel myself stretched
by some great invisible hand,
rendering me spacious enough to hold
what must be held.
When we rise to leave,
the river doesn’t stop.
Nor does the forgiving wind.
I swear I feel them move
right through me.
Still Swimming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, death, hair, mom, parenting, river, son on May 4, 2020| 2 Comments »
And so I pull the purple comb
through my son’s thick hair,
the same way I’ve seen
the stylists do at Great Clips.
Wet the hair. Comb it through.
Part it. Hold it between
two fingers. Cut vertically. Snip,
and his hair falls to the floor.
Comb it through. Snip. Snip.
We both know that I
have no clue what I’m doing.
So we laugh as the hair
piles up on the floor.
We chatter, the way
a stylist and customer would,
talking of school and his friends
and his unruly cowlicks. Snip.
I remember that time
I was trapped underwater
by the river’s hydraulics,
how I stared up at the light
shining through the surface
and thought, I don’t think
it’s my time yet to die.
And the river spit me out
and I swam hard as I could
through the rapid toward shore.
I don’t think it’s my time yet
to die. Nor my son’s. Though
all around us the news of dying—
the numbers increasing every day,
stories of beloveds who are gone.
We ask ourselves, how do we
go on? And meanwhile, we do.
We go on. And because my son’s hair
is too long for his taste,
I learn how to cut it by cutting it.
How much more will we learn
as this goes on? How to share?
How to grieve? How to let go? How to live?
And meanwhile, life spits us out
into sunlight, and we come up
spluttering, gasping, surprised
we’re alive, and we swim, what a gift
to find we’re still swimming.
Riparian
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flow, river, surrender on April 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »
To be known by the river—
that is what I wanted,
which is to say,
to know the self
as the river knows it,
as something that might be carried,
something that will be eroded,
something that might wade
into the center and then join
in the flow of all things.