This poem was recently revised, and due to formatting problems has been re-posted out of chronological order.

How Rivers Run

Jan 12 2008

It puzzles me how rivers run

in winter.

The trickle under thin ice.

Open water

where the narrows never freeze.

And where a foot broke through

a heavy greyness

spreading through the snow.

Inexhaustible water

in air so dry your skin cracks

and the frozen land’s locked-in,

gurgling like spring,

shrugging-off the freeze.

So I was surprised it could rise

so quick

behind the ice jam,

a chaotic jig-saw of jagged blocks

tightly locked.

The river inexorably higher,

like one body, at war with itself

- the weight of water,

the strength of ice.

As downstream, we wait;

houses built on flood plains,

our arrogance humbled,

nothing to be done.

A calamity that would be biblical

if you believe in judgement

misfortune

if you believe in luck.

But either way, not enough to make the city papers,

this footnote of trouble

in a world with so much disaster

in which to drown.

I will keep watch from the ridge

well above high-water,

waiting for the ice to give.

Like Noah,

watching

as the world’s washed clean.