Thomas Swiss

The River
 
When the river recedes, I don't ask what tamed it,
            counting from the porch
 
those things I thought lost: the dock in the muddy
            sunlight, bobbing;
 
the garden, loyal to fate. I don't ask the river why
            it changed its mind,
 
there – then not there – on the grass or on the bank
            where last year you walked
 
with the daughter you were leaving, and where now
            a few oxeyes
 
encourage her attention. Or is something else calling her?
            Body alert, mind drifting...
 
This is how she moves when she doesn't know how to,
            when she's troubled
 
and can't say it. With a wooden shovel, she digs
            by the birdhouse
 
that's home to the floating cardinal: red in this field
            of green. And there,
 
by the poplar branching over the river you crossed
            to the other side,
 
she knows what she's meant to find. You showed her.
            And you taught her
 
to trust in a thorny order, its tipsy give and take. Only
            now she wishes it
 
less abstract, wishes that the long view time provides
            might be granted her easily,
 
and all in one flash. Hole in her heart, where the rain
            tugs away whatever it can,
 
stealing it to the river – don't ask what she's doing.
            River, unhook her.

 

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