ETERNAL RIVER

On a memorial bench for someone’s loved

one, the forest behind me, I sit watching

the river coil in its course, muscles softening,

numberless eyes gleaming in the sunlight,

watching itself. This river has always

been here, ever since it heard a voice calling

it to the surface from the primordial

womb deep inside the earth, giving

birth to a steaming rill, pooling among

the reeds and bullrushes before rushing

down a mountainside to carve gorges

and smooth stones. It slides away now

to be cooled by the ocean’s greater water,

its beginning and end eternal.

I, too, am eternal, moving between

my banks in the embrace of the long now.

My blood beats more clearly. I mark time by

disregarding the riverboat’s departure

horn and flying close to the sun without

falling, to light up the shadowed cloisters

of mangroves and quiet their whispering.