Money tight, children fractious,
emotions threatening to explode,
we grab towels, pails, books,

escape to the banks of the Natchaug.
Children settle, reading, splashing,
searching for where the crayfish hide.

I wade downstream, the shallows split
by a cluster of boulders, some craggy,
others worn flat by the rise and fall,

the sheer persistence of water.
Slipping on stones below the surface,
clutching at those above, I clamber

to the top of a rock, little pools
in its crevices still warm from the sun.  
Stretched out on my back, I trail a hand

in cool water scissoring past,
problems of the day like a lump
in the stomach, rock-hard.

The sun slides below the treeline,
the only sounds now those of the river,
and the muskrat, slapping in and out

along the ledge.  The trees grow close
along the bank, their tops etch the path
of the winding water on an opaque sky.    

I relinquish conscious thought,
lie like an offering on a salver
while the river works its slow magic,

turning stone to sand.


This poem first appeared in the Fox Cry Review (2001).
Used here with permission.