Was that the one?
The final ripple?
Of rebirth? Of… birth?
And if it was, what now?
Where shall I go?
Where shall I take
this patchwork of spirit and body
that grew back together?
It almost doesn’t seem real.
There’s too much to remember.
Too much to forget.
Too much to correct,
while knowing all
that we can’t.
Maybe that’s why it happened—
so I’d stop.
Stop believing
we each get one glorious river,
running one course,
until it empties into the ocean
where all rivers meet.
That all of it is a matter
of choosing your vessel
and deciding to get on board.
Because boats break.
Masts fall. Sails tear.
Gunnels flood and hulls sink.
There’s no remedy to stem that tide.
And I adjusted to this.
I adjusted to the limits.
Until my knees finally buckled
and I fell into the sea.
I can tell you, though,
thinking on that night,
my forehead pressed against the floor,
I found something underneath the couch.
A light.
An acceptance of slow steps.
A way to face and adapt,
but not forget.
To acknowledge the river run,
knowing there are two currents.
Two streams.
One running for and one running against.
And that the death of one
does not mark the end,
or beginning,
of two stories.
For an eternity, it seems,
I believed that on the final ebb,
the final ricochet of water off rock,
if I got the chance
to look down at different feet,
I’d excitedly think of the possibilities—
and wonder with this new body,
What do I tell it to do first?
But I see now,
that in the quiet of that night
where no one could hear the torrents
flooding against me,
a tidal pool was born.
The first ripple
of a river
that flows the other way.
— ❧ —
Poetry as a Vessel
This post started off long ago as something else, and I picked it back up again this morning with a new set of eyes. I think something was telling me it wasn’t quite ready when I put the first stanza down a year or so ago. I find some poems are like that. What looks like an epiphany at first is really a broken thought that needs time to develop the right conclusion.
If you liked this poem, I hope you’ll head over to In Verse and check out some other entries. I’d love to hear back from you if anything resonates. Thanks for reading!