The River’s Address

Slow in the evening light through tree-covered streets

sounds develop unenvelopable—

Troubadour, river-citizen, can you navigate the sound’s course

to my far shore’s ecstasy?

Be gray here, be broken and strafed, fully roused and drawn here,

like a compass needle, find yourself bound and unintelligible.

You followed the shrift north from the city into the mountains,

to the place you eddy, churn, spell out the moon’s tidal courses.

River-chaser, compass-worn, here the source spills to the sea,

and here the waters wend from the sea back to the source.

Unsire yourself—instead of street-maps and sounding depths

trace your name, trace the trees, trace the night into your mind.

Close your eyes and listen to the sound—try to remember—

or try to forget—here is the place you could turn and return.