This, a River

This, a river,

I am not lines but curves

Winding around sand bars

Creating islands 

Revealed in low tide

My current pulses life

Tadpoles, carp, algae

I smile in light

Shimmering reflections

I draw in birds to feed

I am poetry for travelers 

On barges

I hold kayaks as toys

To capture in my eddies

This, a river,

My legs flutter waves

Swimming to create

This flow

My arms formed from rivulets

Guiding this charge of current 

Gravity’s way

My power carving out

My face

I shape Mother

As she wishes 

I clean up her storms 

The overwhelming swells

Of branches and trash

Dissolve into me and my banks

I do her work

Feeding her life 

Dispersing its bones and teeth

For children to seek as treasure

This, a river,

Can hold you

Transport you

Can gather you into me

Into my dark

My hungry fury

Beneath my churning 

My currents are scars

That run as bottomless incisions

Into crust

My age is Earth

Study me

Learn me

My mystery is beauty

My myth is enigma

My abyss is danger

This, a river,

What made me

Our Mother 

Her tears washing away our history

Revealing our present

She is in the sun 

Warming our life span

Reflected into my ocean

My soul of 

Beds and banks

Flora and fauna

My aura is your atmosphere

My depths are your cosmos

Mother’s grief can nourish or drown, but

This, a river, 

Cannot cry.