I slid down a slippery bank of birth
Into a current of life and time on earth
Submerged in ebb and tug and surge
Distant shores ignored and unobserved
I broke the surface and found breath
Clear and cool and thin and fresh
The current flows when and where it will
The moment, an eddy-a tack without sail
I pop to the surface now and again
Just to see where I am going and where I have been
I keep getting glimpses of a distant shore
So I stay up more and more.
© David E. Spry 01/14/2006
Wenatchee
Don’t vacillate, just dive on in.
Kick on down to where the fishes swim.
Don’t fight the current, just let yourself go.
Enjoy the bubbles, enjoy the show.
Feel the current on your skin.
Feel the breath you’re holding in.
Collect fishing lures stuck in the rocks.
Stuff periwinkles in a sock.
The river will kill you if your not its’ friend.
If you fight it, you’ll never win.
Look up and see what the fishes see.
Look at the bank and you’ll see me.
Or perhaps yourself (when you were young).
© David E. Spry
OPPOSITES
She was spread thin and brought low;
She swooned, light headed, in her heat
Her weakness cried out for his strength to flow
He, cool and distant, shifted his weight
At first his passage was but a breeze
Whose lips just brushed the sea?
But she shrank down and out of reach.
He wanted her most fiercely.
Turbulently they danced for days and nights.
Blinded to all they trampled in their need.
Lightening bled from coiled sky.
Run, run away or you may die!
The land lay twisted, bent, and torn.
The shore wept salty tears to mourn.
The passage of Katrina
