My rivers

What is it about
early rains, seeping walls,
choked drains
or apologetic drizzles
that leave mud
between your fingers and under your soles,
that is so much more convincing
than angry, boisterous rivers?

I meet a river every year.
Sometimes, every few months,
for work.
There are some that kill,
others that are dying
and some others that just flow
or as seasons change,
stop flowing.

I know a lake that is an extension
of a river.
The rocks and the logs in the river
and the birds in the lake,
The weeds, the snakes they all are real.
But a river, is still a good place to have
a beer by.

June 17, 2008