afieldnotebook

Listening to the River

(for Dave)

Last night the moon rose early
orange and round. This morning
winter’s first frost on a bristly lawn,
the red iron walls of the barn
like pin-stripes in the slanting sun.
I would like to be able to say
No one I know has lost out
or failed to find what it is
they are looking for. Not so easy.
I think of so and so, a person
of many parts, who is drawn to water
and finds rivers speak to him
in languages he lives to translate
over and over. Their syllables
roll like stones, consonants catch
and tip like slivers of rock
flickering in the deeps. They hold
what life and light is theirs but cannot
stop the whittling and the wearing.
There is nothing unusual in this
and when they lie still we know
they are not asleep or dormant
but huddle awaiting what will be
rather than storing memories of things past.
A river is never silent. Even its
deepest pools thrive with dark
or dreamy utterance. They shelter
more than we can say we know.

-Brian Turner, 1983