A little up the river

The farthest sight I see just
a little up the river
where birds speak in tongues,
and rapids laugh in spite of
my eyes on them.

Where, no matter how
curious the eye,
it is the sights of
littered destiny dashed on
waves of frothy possibility,
that days are met in endings brought
rushing to a stop.

Because to have a moment not
spent shamelessly,
you must hold onto it,
so it is not thrown
under the wheels of turning hours,
but instead can be nurtured to
aged significance.
Where each moments
crooked back has been bent over,
beard grown long,
and the wrinkled force
of nature fractured
on the face of its
lived importance.

It is then the eyes I was born too
do not blink,
do not see what I’ve taught them
to see,
do not glance aside afraid of,
bored of,
saddened by.

There are no tears of joy,
no tears of pain,
no nothing to shield the hand of
Nature’s painted moment.

Brush to canvas,
I am left to see
around the bend,
further up the river
to the very source of stream and
all the way back
to where we beget,
to where my body rests
to where I had
disembarked from time’s train.

Where the moon reaches down
for a drink of water
and her hourglassed-reflection
shimmers.

Where the jeweled fish leaps
for wounded meal
and crashes to the water.

To the farthest sight I see just
a little up the river,
to where birds speak in tongues,
and rapids laugh in spite of
my eyes on them.