The Rivers Run Away In Their Own Direction And Vanish To Flow Under Other Skies

by Greg Hall
copyright 2007, 2008

This world may never change
Though a grain of sand and the wide curve of sky
Change every instant
Every man a rip-tide breaking on himself
Every woman an undertow
The fluid knots tying and untying themselves
Under the flat gun-metal of the bay
Men with guns guard every diamond
The real treasure hidden in a handful of dirt
The joy is wandering with empty hands
Embraced by the wind and immersed in the changing light
That falls on us in the course of a day
One among an endless number
Swept away inside remorseless and merciful tides
Moved here and there under the constellations
Born to live inside the ecstatic journey
Which is nothing more than a traveler on a short visit
With both eyes open
and the hands always empty
Moving about beneath the treasure of the sky
And over the treasure of the earth
Weightless and amazed
And drunk inside the rain.

Note: This poem was previously published in the Redwood Coast Review, November 2007.