I Am The River

I dwell in a canyon of my own making.

I am the river and I flow without end
from source to sea to sky in an unbroken round.
I spring from the soil of my own being
and collect the harvest of passing storms,
the thaw of frozen seasons,
the glacial melt of forgotten winters,
and run irresistibly to the sea.

I am the river and I flow without end,
sinking to untold depths, penetrating my bedrock of being,
slipping underground to rest unseen, then rise again,
cycling through drought and flood, all in its season.
I sculpt a path through layers of resistance
cutting an ever-deepening canyon for my shores.

I am the river and I flow without end,
shaving a delicate edge, curved to perfection
in sandstone shrines to Mother Earth
where even the brazen Sun cannot enter directly
but must send gentle emissaries to reflect his glory,
slipping through with an averted gaze.

I am the river, and I flow without end,
sometimes singing softly against willows nestled
in the curve of my reach as a child to the breast,
sometimes slithering through cattails, whispering privately
in back eddies, bawdy and brackish in fecund slime.
Sometimes passing in the silent depths of moonless nights,
void as primordial space, pregnant as winterseed,
fallow as fetal mind, before light, before life, before time.

I am the river. I dwell in a canyon of my own making.

— Saundra Moore Williams
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