How Rivers Run
Jan 12 2008


It puzzles me how rivers run in winter;
the trickle under the ice,
bubbling-up in speedy narrows
or where a foot broke through.
Despite air so dry your skin cracks
and the frozen land’s locked-in,
this water seems inexhaustible;
gurgling as if it were spring,
laughing-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;
or 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.