The voices of water

POSTED IN contemporary poetry July 15, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The voices of water

The voices of mountain water
slide down slope, shying at shallows,
circle through sandy-bottomed sinks,
shifting stones.  “See,” they sing in unison,
“We shelter fish, sift gravel, sail fallen trees
off to shore somewhere else,
satisfy thirst and soul, make things grow.
We are a Sierra stream.”
But at night they disagree:  Creek, Stream, River?
Rivulet, Waterway, Snowmelt, Rapids?
The shared sound they sashayed downstream with
disappears as sunlight does.
Stars appear in eddies;  Stream takes off its mask
and it’s every splash for itself:
arias, arguments, yarnspinners and baritones.
Valkyries, lovers, distant mothers and owls.
Ghostriders, clowns.  Hounds and whistlers.
All night the voices of water dance naked on the boulders.
They push and shove, bellow and bark.
They do-si-do, squeak, hoot and hum.

In the morning they whisper in unison.
They know how to look
like a small mountain stream.

 

 

   Teresa McNeil MacLean