A recent poem...

Rapids

I long for deeper rivers
Than the tributaries in which I’ve tread
Whose smooth stones
And reflecting pools
Are graciously welcoming
Rather than menacing
Or treacherous
As the rivers in my dreams
Churning white rapids
And depths that would disappear a man
From this world
These rivers, by night visited
Are the challenge awaiting
They are the ghostly undoing
Of my feeble world
They taunt me
As I stand barefoot on the shores
Paddle in hand
And life vest buckled
But no boat within sight
To dream of a river
And to be without boat
To stare into the endless flow
To be mesmerized by the unceasing waters
To know this force began
Somewhere upstream
And smaller
To have become this beast
With its cold body
And mighty push
I reach down and collect a pebble
A smooth stone
Like the ones viewed awake
From my own wanting creek
The pebble and I
Stand along the edge
And watch the waters pass
Rushing toward its destination
Leaving the bystanders to wonder
Of the mysteries of its torrent
Of its ebbs and flows