River-Psalms

I was born to rivers—

Tennessee—steady and slow,

my headwaters,

source of everything gentle in me.

Mossy Creek, small and certain,

pressing soft lips to my feet

to teach me the language of water.

I grew with them,

swelling my own banks with the spring rains.

~

Current-carried into red Georgia waters,

Oostanaula’s muddy wisdom teaches generously

that roots wander as they spread,

but they keep a pocketful of river-light.

The Chattahoochee stitching her song

through kudzu heat into the soles of my feet,

leaving silt-soft memory in its wake—

Georgia’s gift of ground and growth and years.

~

And then the current gentled,

rounded a quiet bend to lap soft at red clay banks

like an altar offering the blessing of letting go.

One final kiss at my feet,

a loosening push into wilder realms.

Lush green thinned into sun-shard heat,

rivers shimmering into memory,

fading with the lullaby of my Georgia home.

~

The map felt biblical—

water behind me,

wilderness looming like a question

I wasn’t ready to answer.

But the pillar-of-fire sunset would not wait.

Dust and pale earth stretched empty arms in welcome,

a long dry hush that cracked the air itself:

California desert rising.

~

How do you follow the laws of the desert

when the language of water is your mother tongue?

Heed the ancient prophet of the arid places,

one accustomed to self-desiccation.

I become Rose of Jericho,

curling my lush fronds inward,

tucking the memory of water

into hidden hollows of myself,

inner chambers sealed like quiet tombs.

Preservation feuds with faith

against the desert’s teeth.

Somewhere there is a burning bush

learning to crackle my name,

as though I had just been plucked from the bulrushes.

~

Roots remember water,

even now—

braided beneath this droughted earth,

still singing their river-psalms,

murmuring of mossy creeks and silt beds.

They cup water like memory,

offering libations of rain.

I kneel to receive their sacrament,

to honor the covenant between my bones

and the waters that named me.

and something in me--

tucked drought-tight--

begins to unfurl.