Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.          
                                         Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne  

This park bench: nothing
but a shaded haunting.
Birds fleck the trees,
tweet rumors of your absence.
I have become predictable,
reckless as a tea cup,
as the tiered fountain that burbles
its recycled delight, happily
encased in a river of grey
concrete, a sparkling constant
of measured going nowhere.
Stiff signs beware our distance:
No Trespassing       Keep Out.  

I close my eyes.
Think of rivers I once knew
that paid no mind to sign
or measure, welcomed invasions
of cattail and frog bit,
the quiet wade of fishers,
boys with rope swings,
the rapid swoop of jay and hawk,
the dangled toes of lovers.  

Oh, to be like that water,
just some wild thing
with no boundaries,
left to wander my own gush
and pull like a rogue tide.
To pilgrim the next luring
bend, sparkled, drenched,
in sun’s echoed ravish.
To sing the cool drowning stars.