River

by Jenna K. Funkhouser

I.

a bird which is not quite a heron rests by the slow river and the ripples caused by little eddies around its grey spinster feet trickle down the water’s sleeve out of sight.

i thought, then of the way the rivers wind like a damp mythology through every mind – the way they stand, always, for more than themselves.

while the herons and the birds which are not quite herons

stand looking for something, maybe only fish

a river runs mad through a man’s mind.

II.

perhaps there is a mythology in this:

when wheat fields bend we call them a river

and the wind is the river and the river is always running through your mind.

wild, wild, the bird sings.

III.

what is it that a river means – or perhaps, what does it not mean –

which is everything that is still and stagnant everything lost to change

because the river speaks and its every word is a dance of movement unrepeatable and eternal.

IV.

and so, perhaps, the river is the most immortal creature on this mortal earth

eternally recreating its own life.

V.

here we stand on the bank of its eddied waters and watch the herons baptize themselves for flight

hungry for such openings to draw us out, something to spend the life-force rushing up inside

else all of it is lost

even as we try to protect it, the algae grows.

Jenna K Funkhouser is a writer and artist living in Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has recently been published by the Ekphrastic Review, Impspired, and Vita Poetica, among others. In her spare time, she explores the world of mosaic and textile design.