The River
By Mark L. Jordan 4/2/2005It starts as a small trickle in a muddy little hole,
running over pebbles, grass, sticks, and leaves,
before it ever finds is soul.
While it is young and small it picks up debris
long before it hopes to find its way to the sea.
It grows from a spring to a brook and gains steam,
widening and deepening to where it's a stream.
It take minerals from the soil and silt from the ground
enriching it's water and changing it's sound.
It spreads it body and adds to its' depth
overcoming hilltops and forest with every step.
As a river it flows in the bright open sun -
it's waters now warmer from whence it begun.
If fortunate to encounter the rocks of a rapids or strait,
it will leave purer and cleaner than when it entered its' gate.
For it is here in the tumult, the torrent and falls
that the water is cleansed of dirt, debris and gall.
The flotsam, poisons and timbers collect
on the projecting boulders and jetties they set.
Once submerged and hidden, now they're revealed.
They rise to the surface and the water is healed.
Or else they sink to the bottom to rot and decay,
where more slowly their filth is then swept away
And so from the mountains to the valleys below,
the water is tortured the whole way it flows.
From a tiny trickle of no certain threat
to a mighty raging torrent, power unknown yet.
It both washes and dirties all without regard
refreshing and drowning, the living and scarred.
So now the question is asked, which of the two
are you still, clogged with decay - or running, crystal and true.
Are you little, gleaming, fresh and alive
or deeper, slower, and now wider inside.
Has your water been washed, are the pollutants removed
or are your hopes buried by bitterness in a deep icy tomb.