radar string eyes haunted legends swing rattle river skin tip pebble rips
I didn't find a place for radar and string.
The Old Woman of the River
“Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river.”
— Jorge Luis Borges
The river swirls and burbles
Over pebbles, sand and rocks.
Flowers swing to and fro
On its grassy banks.
If it has any thoughts
It keeps them to itself.
◊
All they found was the rattle.
Did it draw him forward, inward?
Until he tipped, fought briefly
And then, wide-eyed,
With an innocent curiosity
Became the river—
Not ripped from life,
Eased gently from it.
◊
She sits and watches
The swirling waters—
Its bubbles and its ripples
Dancing on the surface,
The skin between two worlds.
Her haunted eyes look deep
Yet somehow blankly.
Legends are unreliable
But a popular thought flows
Through the village people
That she has always been there,
Always looking in to the waters—
Remembering. Waiting. Hoping.
◊
The river swirls and burbles
Over pebbles, sand and rocks.
Flowers swing to and fro
On its grassy banks.
If it has any thoughts
It keeps them to itself.
◊