I. The River Will Come Home, My Love

The river will

go to rooted trees and feed them relief from heat, clean air,
take winding paths and flush them full it’s a mouthful

take fish to the surface, swell with the heat of movement, carry on carry river

take away muddied shores with dead fish, cool your hot bare feet, shake thin flat rocks from the back, cool the mud.

sound like   the volume turned up too loud on static TV where the static is

white
sound hypnosis                       it is on repeat always moving

new ancient, sounds like bees and the city tuned out when the city is background noise, breath over and over and over

in the heat 

come home

is birds, is the soft voice of space and the taking up of space, is the wet wind, is the footsteps of earth, is the heavy hand that erodes calmly, is a white road in winter when you loved it best when it carried herons like feather-dusting snow, now left

exhausted, the river comes home, is large; yet
you may float and may not even float
but may soar: the river carries/air carries, what is a fish but a bird of the water?

You think the ocean has millions of undiscovered species, you could be one of them as the river steps so could you, one step to the ocean where light pushed water

to land, where rivers meet open mouths with thunder and still

the river -

my love

around the bend.