River Solitude

River Solitude

Even from here, even from this
firmament above the stream,
I feel the wingbeat of closing days.
Here above the waters, I hear
my own heart and the river's heart beating,
rising where the shattered waters
close about the struggling breath
like a sudden word, thought of but unspoken,
caught in this throat of salt.

Even from here, I hear the sadness,
far off, the distant voice
filling the searching heart,
lost between silence and stone, between
echo and answer, without fingers or eyes,
searching among the shadows for my ears.
                           Open-ended,
the water shakes loose from memory
and this solitude, washes into stillness
what voices we had, all our silences,
unanswered prayers, whispered
secrets, loves and debts,
treacheries and destructions,
glances, hands and faces
lingering in our sleep:
each moment unresolved,
each moment changing,
like the river's dream.

The wind blows from somewhere else.
Strident and mournful, the brimmed rising hisses,
bursts and falls like a splintered shore
into the wind's retreating silence.

Where do birds go to die?
.....

Poem by Samuel Peralta