Tuesday, January 31, 2006

River

The night
is a flat wide river
cold flowing current
convoluting my body
in the centre where
I strain against
this opaque medium
this liquid universe
arms slow and heavy
in its wider weight
sense
rather than see
the distant edges
the disappearing boundaries
between dark water and waking
where I feel the unknown brush
beneath my floating fingers
as I grasp at black water
feel pulsing red
half dreamed dreams rush
through my slackened hands
feel anonymous debris
glance allusively
against my skin
and the slow persistent
abrasion of fine sand rolling
suspended in swift current
scouring me clean and raw.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

vivid...I needed this image.

My mood is like a black river today. Another small death in my backyard during the night...I try to save these little souls as best I can but I always can't. There are so many plodding little grey ghosts here, it breaks my heart.

My lovable smiling Jack is a ruthless hunter I am afraid. He can't help it - it's just what he does.

ether said...

Christa, I'm sorry to know about this...


I love this poem, weaving multiple metaphors so smoothly that i can't tell the warp from the weft.

coyote said...

I'm sorry to hear your distress, Christa. Then, too, it isn't just what Jack does -- it's more what he is. I know that accepting such things, for me, isn't easy sometimes. But it sounds to me as if you do what you can, and sometimes such things are beyond the control of anyone who isn't omniscient, I think. Should you feel bad that you can't do more? I'd say no...

Anonymous said...

I hate watching innocence die...and it always happens slowly. And I can't be angry at Jack, because he does it for me, no matter how many times I tell him I don't want his furry, lifeless gifts, whose greatest crime was using the well travelled Possum Highway down our fence line.

And there's the fact that he always does this after the garbage men come...so these poor things have to sit for a week, so we AND the neighbors get to ENJOY his generosity...Damn Dog. I used to bury them, but they would always find their way back out...

Luckily we are moving soon...to a place with no wildlife to kill. He'll have to start playing with rubber toys.