What do you see?
gleaming shimmers
silver swimmers
waders, striders
swoopers, divers
croakers, callers
lone mud-crawlers
wrigglers, mopers
gulpers, gropers
from spring to shining sea.
Through drought and flood, in salt and mud,
the river’s
winding, toiling
shaping, roiling
rippling, cooling
snaking, pooling
trickling, draining
all-sustaining
in depths and shallows
past farm and fallow
carving its way as it goes.
Drinking, floating
soaking, boating
surfing, diving
splashing, thriving—
Look at water long enough and you’ll see yourself,
in the ripples and foam,
with the cod and the pelican
We are the water sprites of this dry earth,
dependent upon
the crystal tonic that bathes us from our birth.
Our words dance on wavetops like birds
but our music taps a deeper current still
—as the river, always downhill
to where the tree-roots of truth are
growing, groping
thinking, drinking
digging fast into the soil.
the river runs
and so do we—
birds and people
creatures and trees
—swimming, reflected,
in water.
