Never the same river twice –
“You can’t push the river.”
Lyric by Chuck Pyle
The river burbles over rock, pebble, sandbed,
buzz of gnat-hatch above
pop of trout rising in a chiaroscuro pool.
There, if I was quiet enough,
the mountain would etch into me
the way the river limned the bank.
That summer, there was only my footfall
at the muddy edge, ‘til I ached for human voices,
dreamed my name on a someday lover’s lips.
As fall leaves turned
and fell into the chill water,
I returned to the cacophonous city
with its clang and clamor.
The river became a memory,
appeared only in dreams
tentative and green at dusk.
Unable to hear the water’s ways,
the city is no less lonely
though full of sounds.
People flow by day and night.
Here, I listen for susurrations in the crowd,
I remember that nothing is more silent
than the pulse and pull of a water-strider
riding a ripple’s crest.
I long for the sun’s slant on moving water,
a golden dance at the bottom of a rill.
Minnows swirl, their shadows
bunch against the cascade.
Time eddies, a spiral, a thread pulling.
If I return there now,
will the river be different?
Will I?
Lorrie Wolfe
Published in *The Mountain*
