Morning Poem, March 5, 2015

ON THE RIVER: A DREAM (Part 2)

It was not long till I was around the first bend

And I thought of the old man and his warnings

If you could really call them warnings

I wondered if he envied me

This freedom to float with the current, fearless and strong

That was not clear from his words or his face or tone of voice

Only that he knew more than I knew

And that he knew that what he knew I could not know.

‘

But I decided not to worry about what the old man knew

I knew somehow that this river was my river and that

Whatever I might encounter down the stream

Would wake in me me something like a memory

And I would know what to do.

‘

And as I drifted every bend in the stream and every shoal and sluice,

Every deep run was new to me and yet known to me

And I felt like an explorer and yet felt at home.

I burned with the green of the trees, the red and yellow of the wildflowers

The blue, clear blue of the stream.

And I yearned, moment by moment, to see beyond the next bend

The next world that would be opened to me.

.

As I floated and as the water seethed around the ancient stones

of the riverbed

I heard new music that was my own and I had an urge

to write it down, even though I could not write music.

I heard it plain as day, and it would have astounded the world

And changed the fate of the nations

And it vanished never to be remembered.

,

And then I saw the bird on the bare birch trunk

Looking out of place, as the old man had said.

It roosted there in the bright sunlight

Watching me, as if it knew what the old man knew

And I did not know

And the Green Heron knew that I did not know.

Copyright 2015

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