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Green River

Jeff Davis 
There must be 
water to open the earth
to the digging
root, to ease its entry
deeper.

Here, it wore the land 
hollow.
Low willows
watch water slip 
over stones
through thick

rhododendron,
tree-rose, kalmia, 
laurel wood.

This was your river,
when I came to you lost
in my own thicket of 
mind’s perplexity,
and you bathed me
in the torpor of a vivid sleep,
anointed me, joined me
to the body of the land
your river passed through,
took me beyond
myself, and the argument
I let die as it mingled
With the cool air, lost
among the leaves.

Lost, now. 
And still 
the water
that you were remains 
to find its way always
down through the scattered 
stones of your forgotten 
sanctuary, 
creek to river,
to ocean, there raised 
up to spirit once more, into 
the moving aether, to fall 
on these hills as rain,
opening the soil,
sustaining by her stream
the oaks, the rose tree,
lichens, moss, and all below.
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