river crossings

become well marked by
the river of boot soles that
have for the seasons marched
with collective calling
and necessity

then the path submits to
muscular wrestlings of river
water and rock and trees
and the complexities that
mix and boil the possibilities
and the uncertainty of flux

a good crossing makes suckers of us all
a slow submersion can quickly disappear
in the midstream weight and
toe tracing boulders
unsettled footing erodes the sandy gravel
roils out from under felts and studs
and deepening press toward down river
baptism and transformation
cloudless blue
then emersion
mixed and bound
to river music
until the next fishable run

there are those where
“returning were as tedious as go o’er”
that squeeze time out
into those few moments when
we can embrace solitude by
making the other side
of mayfly emergence and
ants on the wing

in the small places
nothing is new
otters chew brook trout heads
steelhead crash the alders
but for the passage
of few whorling eddies

we

inward turn
possibilities open
when we cross over
to something or from something



Keep a tight line,

Steve Therrien