Handmade Paper and Poetry

The Stream Itself

There is no sense
in personifying a stream,
which moves along in a
definite path
without thought or
ethics or blood.
Rushing forth it flows, lotic
into the warmth of the day,
all night lacking
consciousness yet awake with
sound articulation.
A stream is a whole
and seconds of parting drops
following and escaping
the origin onto wet trails
nymphs and darters join
for the ride of
never-ending
successional change.
Equally strong and
faint, it pushes along
its stone baggage and
continues
necessary cycles, while
riveting with its
purity, mud
guffawing deeply underneath.
We with our heavy boots
choose our way many times
with nature’s pulsing voice
slipping off our hats of stylish
hair, often forgetting the voices
divergent from our mothers.
We find the surging stream soothing,
if only we
had the sense to understand
where in relation
to the man-made heart
the simple need
of the stream itself.