Sometimes I Work On a Poem

The River

Carol Schiess

A voice calls across the river,

but the water disconnects,

carries the words away.

The early morning sun

spreads light through shore trees

but cannot discover the ducks,

their passage swift on the water’s surface.

I mark the river’s speed,

its darkness,

water lines from other years,

wonder what it has passed by,

what might lie at its bottom.

At the river’s edge,

chicory grew thick in August,

waving its blue flowers as I passed,

but it's late September now.

A few weeks more, the blue

will be gone from my walks,

like some people from my life,

like their faces, conversations,

their stories of long love or

unexpected death.

I look at the water to find one staying spot,

but the river cannot hold;

its appointment is to move, to run,

tell a new story moment by moment.

I turn towards home, a familiar path,

but I may stop for rest at the log bench,

climb a neighbor’s worm fence,

or take another way.