Abby’s Lock
Canoe slithers
Across the easy water;
Bits of leaves,
Yellow and brown,
Float beside
The sunbaked banks
And punctuate the river.
Branch and vine
Tangle in the shallow;
Velveteen green,
Across the surface,
Uninterrupted,
Like a fleece blanket;
Everything grows and dies
By the water, as a rule,
And some find it sensual
If it smells like cheap wine;
But everything ferments in time;
Everything here is always here
But only for a moment.
I prefer the mist,
The cool curtain
That the fog drags along,
Like a cleansing shower:
I feel it for a moment
But can only pretend
To be purified:
It’s all too brief
And just not enough.
You could row the river,
And take your time,
Arrive at dusk
Or in the morning,
Doesn’t matter which;
But you said you’d meet them
At Abby’s Lock.
Everyone yearns for this;
Somehow cathartic, so I’m told
But it doesn’t work for me;
No such thing as peace of mind,
As far as I know, not yet:
A private truth
That I’ll never divulge.
Moments rush upstream
And, for a moment,
I forgot why I came
Though I have a sense of it,
Sense subsumed within emptiness:
There is something missing from the moment,
A possibility denied:
I said I’d meet them at Abby’s Lock
But it’s already four
And this oar is getting heavy.