two rivers

Perched on a rock in the river, the water rushing

on either side of me was too perfect a metaphor

for the two men I spent the past week between.

The unique energy of the streams, how the water broke around me,

the strength of the current, the way it hugged my edges as it flowed.

The river was a longer story I temporarily punctuated,

one that began before me and would carry on after,

Languidly lounging on the slanted rock, my nude body

gleaming in the spotlight of the afternoon sun,

I had placed myself inside the action, but not gone in

deep enough to get wet.

I couldn’t sit still to enjoy it, too excited to capture in words

what I had only briefly stayed to experience. I hopped

off the rock I had just settled on and stepped carefully to shore.

Cradling my phone, I placed myself apart to let inspiration flow.

Instead it sputtered.

In my attempt to capture it I lost it.

What came out was trite and obvious, words like roar

and life force, power and flow. The metaphor was blunt,

too bored by itself to even begin to carry its own weight.

At least I know when to quit.

My friends busied themselves with meditating, sunbathing,

stretching or praying. Rather than parading my newly-claimed

nudity through them to reclaim my throne in the river,

I found another spot just in front of me, set back

from the edge of the water and comfortably on the periphery.

Here I lingered, lay longer, breathed deeper.

At this distance the water flowing through its rocky cradle

was a soft hum. My body was my own.

From here I could marinate in the moment without my mind fleeing to poetry.

At the river we all were who we were.

Separate, but together. Playful, adventurous, shy or stoic.

I did what I always do, what I had just done the week before.

I sat on the side till I captured the sum of it.

I disrobed with newly found(slightly false) confidence.

I eased into the cold water slowly, extending the discomfort,

part in part out, going deeper only gradually.

Once in I called the shy ones after me with comforting coos.

I waded upstream and rode the current to the edge

of the drop just once, tasting the force of the water

without truly letting myself be taken by it.

I sat in the heart of the experience just long enough to say I did,

using art as an excuse to remove myself from the roar of life around me.

Then I basked, comfortably, happily, on the sidelines

imagining what could have been as opportunity after opportunity

was carried, as it always is, downstream by the current and out of sight.