Along a River

Along a River

...your life flows toward you.

Upstream a flood fills this waterway,
and now the current is pushing,
pushing forth a river of debris.

In the swirling eddies of muddy water,
you see and identify many strange things.

Look!
It's a bicycle wheel but no bike.

There tumbles an old sofa!
But where are it's cushions?

This river of debris is a reminder
of the way life surges toward you.
It carries within it the lives of others,
along with everything else it can find
not protected from the relentless gush,
forever heading downstream.

---

I was thinking:
so this is how you swim inward,
so this is how you flow outward,
so this is how you pray.
~ Mary Oliver
Five A.M. in the Pinewoods