Wednesday, February 26, 2014

River Poem


THIS MISSISSIPPI RIVER IS

 

A luminous conversation

Without an alphabet

 

Pregnant with snowflakes

A billion years

 

Coded visions

The blind see

 

Icy serpentine curves

On highway oblivion

 

Cast broadly ironic condolences

For the quick, the quaking awakening

The living for the double-dared absolute

 

We must be still until our bodies accept

 The emotion of water.  Only then can our minds

 Grant water permission to speak.

 

Gates, dams, locks, spilling ways

Shadows to be ignored

 

Darkness of darkness

So logical it shines

 

Water enters before a man enters water,

Rides an ark of bones in a space which never heard of time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.