Along the Brule
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank
you would sit and watch its flowing.
—Kahlil Gibran
Now I can watch the river.
Now, from this melting oxbow
where I sit with my senses steeping
in the sun, I am witness to the torrent,
but am not yet of it.
Soon my perspective will be different.
I will be running with the groundwater
from grave to creek to roaring channel
where, among sticks and gravel,
I will wash downstream with the other detritus—
remnants of what once was leaf, garden, gardener—
past the still-invisible piers and posts
of the next generation and the next and next
whose silver bridges
will one day arch, shimmering,
over the strange blue boats
of the remote unborn.
—Marilyn L. Taylor
