The River

High water carried her down stream

She watched the water's living things

She thought, it's not a mound with six planks of wood

The cardinal points to hold you up

Or a mountain where a shed self could

Feed the roots and honor the tongues of the animals

Drift into the moss and bloat where the peat bog pulls

Rolled like a felled tree

With arms as useless as such

Death's panic came, a calmness stayed, you couldn't do much

Just watch the water chip away at the bank eroding

Cut and crumbling through the spate

It took a father, it covered a daughter

Took her down, down, down

With the glass bottles, books, a tire

Collected hair tufts in the weeds

Snagged and wrapped in the peats

Dammed and trapped

You said, is this the ceremony?

I don't know, well I don't mind

The way we all fall in and roll down

Pushed through the veins and trafficked byes

And when your ears sit under

Head is half submerged down below

Pooling all accounts of peace while passed beneath the canopy glow