8/7/2019 Creeping From the Depths
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Creeping from the Depths
It comes from the deep river,running with swift whispers and
muddy slurps
through our desperate landscapes and slipping memory,
underneath the overhang of just-burst leaves,stirring sediment
in the water from our shared past
upriver, uptime, upstanding...it is now upright.
This thing, with strong sinewy tendons
in rough scaled feet, wooden toes
purchasing a hold in the bank...could it, would it do this
on any other day than one overcast,
gray light faltering in its ability
to hide the springing greenof a new season finally pushing its
face out?
Holding out my hand
to help it ashore
in the slippery mudof my fears,
I smile to myself
in a sudden spray of bird-call
back in the stand of new Shagbark Hickoryover my shoulder.
2011, The Jotter
