The Symphonic River

The symphonic river plays both sides of the bridge,

the flow of the gathering descent softly erupts

in white cap resistance to submerged rock, a gentle,

reiterated resonance heard under the concrete road span,

the lyric arches on each side posted with listening chambers.

The fall over limestone ledge levels

are accented with cascades of plummeting scales

across last year's rushes and grasses, effervescent cadences,

improvised gurgles and plops, whooshes, plunges and sprays

that whisper downstream and escape hearing: variations of nuance

layering the soundscapes, isolating strains of melody from the air.

Too diverse for fixation, too alive for inattention, the symphonic river

plays both sides of the bridge conducted by water levels over the bed of its movements,

themes of melt-flood voice solitudes of winter, internalize the virtuosity of a bend

bowed across a country road. Hours later, days later, an exuberant tranquility

continues to heal my inner ear – aching from the work of mallet on chisel

on stone – through nothing more than memories of that hot sun one sparkling afternoon

alone on a rural shoulder near the Irvine Street farm fields, moments that remain

cool in the shadows of cedar-lined banks down the curves of receding flood plains;

the awakening Earth is relived in the counterpoint of choral insects thrumming

up and down the rolling valley runoff washing over me like a balm, a mist settling

in stray beams long after my leaving; fleeting remains of impressions, clear sparkles harnessed

to the page for the sake of spoken song, the traces of our lives in our hands still;

the verses of our own winter resolves meandering downriver, fine-tuning old imagings.