On the River

Now for awhile
my lungs fill and empty
like a charm.
I sip a cup of tea,
its elixir smoothing my throat
its perfect taste on my tongue.
My ears fill up with evening crickets.
A breeze strokes my cheek
light as a child’s hand.
I claim my place among the living
where something sings through the body
so the heart keeps dancing.
In the morning maybe
I will dream up the world
once more.
I am washed,
washed in life’s river.
Now, for a while.

II.
I am a rose unfurling,
centrifugal with curiosity,
into the wide wide world,
what I shall become,
already deep inside.

I am the querent,
a querulous toddler, overtired
but dogged
in discovering the meaning
of every shape and smell.

I trust my asking path.
I am alive
in the exact spot in the river
where I need to be.
Streaming. Becoming.

III.
Roll me, river,
polish my rough stone.
Roll me as long as it takes,
‘til I can spin along
allowing
every evolutionary shift.
Roll me, river,
so I can countenance
changes I can’t yet imagine.
Roll me, river,
polish my roughness
‘til my poems, so pebble-smooth,
be lifted by a future child
and touched to her lips.

©Susa Silvermarie 2023