When the Boy Leaves the River
When the boy leaves the river,
the shadow of the heron
drifts through sycamores,
their leaves an October flutter
coppered by cedar rust.
How they sail on the water
like clouds the boy carries
on his shoulders—the drift
of uncertainty, of journey.
When the boy leaves the river,
the current remembers his sight,
how he sat on a rock and followed
it through shoals and jumbled
birch-stuffed eddies, his eyes
in concert with the sound of it,
how the osprey's shrill cry
celebrates its kill.
In the city, traffic and light,
and oil reflection in street-rain,
horns and tire swish—
and a broken song,
a woman's sorrowed voice
from a car window
fading with the distance—
almost like a river barge
calling night away in sleep—
and this is how he returns—
dreamscape in which loneliness feels
kinship and the river flows.