RIVER | RIVEN
​
​
The poems in this collection were inspired by a path along a river’s edge, a clandestine trail of mud where past and present, memory and imagination overlap. Walking by the river through the seasons, the author bears witness to the quiet pull of a liminal place, its echoes of family history and the slow but unrelenting erosion of the land.
​
​​​​​​​
Selected Poems
​​​​
River Rustle
​​​
You step into the shallows
undulating with the wind
from upstream
​
the river’s tongue
slick silt
on legs feet
​
You do not travel anywhere
anymore
except to the river
​
listen to echo innuendo
sounds rustling
​
pulsing
at the back of your throat
​
they utter
​
they recognize you.
​
​​​
​
Scurf of petals
​​
Memory is place is space
opening your body
​
is time raked re-
assembled
​
is silence kneading
the lost words.
​
​
Memory dwells in an empty house.
​
Memory forgives.
​
​
You walked against the current
scent of fall
scurf of petals in the river
​
you could not see the bottom
you could not see
your limbs.
​
​
What does the visible miss?
​
Memory persists.
​
​​
Ledge
​
Each spring
another ledge caves in
​
as your feet touch down their sinews
bones
a base beat over and over.
​
What do they know the mind cannot
of trespass, witness
​
as you trace your wandering on paper in your invented language
​
scribbles where willow limbs knit the clay silt together
desperate willows
with their meshed roots reaching
pleading do not give in do not
give in.
​
Your mind treads the mind of the river
its crumbling elusive ledge
its fears
its hunger.
​
Each spring you sink deeper
into the mud
along the path
by the river.
​​
You smear mud over the white paper.
​
​