| HOME
TABLE OF CONTENTS
|
One Great River
By David Holper, Eureka
One great river binds us all:
Its waters flow over us and through us,
though we may not sense them or
forget them in our hurry through life.
They are the waters by which we stood
before we were born,
the mighty shoulders of water heaving,
the liquids reaching to grasp our hands, to carry us into this world.
Then, too, they were the waters that held us in our mothers' wombs:
warm, salty, and safe, they cradled us
as our bones knit,
as our hands and feet and the faces we would wear
were formed, as the shape of who we were most meant to be
was made and remade
each day, in the silence of that space,
tucked within our mothers, within a river
that broke forth one glorious day
and carried us kicking and screaming into this world.
But now so many of us have forgotten the waters
that bore us here, that bear us up
even this day’Äîand think that there is only us,
that there is only this place through which we are passing
and these others about us. But, no,
this is so far from the truth that if we were blind,
we would surely see this truth. For we have lost sight
of the headwaters, of the current all about us, of one another
¬‚’Äîand in so doing, think of all the damage we have unleashed upon
one another, upon the world, upon all that should be held sacred.
Still, it is not too late. This morning as you awake,
hear the great sea calling,
get up from wherever you sleep,
go down to the shore and stand before the majesty of
the waters, see that you are not alone
and all that you have thought about yourself apart from
the waves, the great deep blueness that made you and will unmake when it is ready,
has been a lie that unravels this day, like so much sand spilled up about your feet.
|
