A green road until sunlight collides
exactly right, strikes diamonds
across the water’s back.

River as creature, as question.
In trees on the margins, each leaf
might sigh an answer.

From the bridge I could not hear
wings against the air,
invisible creatures breathing,

the water’s talk. That day, the sky
beat a drum too blue, too brash
for tender voices.

*

River as body and how
is a body of water a body
when it’s moving, leaving?

Looking downstream
into the water’s future,
I imagined the river always calm.

In my body, some days, the pressure
rivers down, rumbling
from snow melt, drip-trickle
rivulet, creek, the river pulled
around a bend again, stories
toward the ocean. Then the rains,
the rains come pounding.

River as warning. River as thief
cresting, and then wreckage everywhere.

*

River as the mind, the mind gathering
in the hills, the rills and falls, in tributary
and confluence,
a life’s green collection
of ruin and splendor.

How can we navigate what lies
buried in the water until
the water recedes? Voices sludged
with silt and rust—

the voice behind my eyes,
the story I thought I knew.
I am trying to hear it
again, and for the first time.