March Selection #4

Fissures

That room,
in which a mother bathes an infant,
and nothing happens,
only sunlight falls,
or a kettle steams,
there is the root, the origin, the memory.

By every tiny, hidden, path,
invisibly, in crevices,
through watery fissures numerous as hairs,
our longing seeps and trickles to that core,
in and down,
urgently returning,
oh to return,
return complete, illumined,
child and adult at once,
triumphant, golden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

as if there were no shadows in the mind.

Polluted water rims the river bank.
Brambles overwhelm a rusted pump.
A tired cop is writing with a pen;
the tow guy scratches, ratches up his chain,
and you and I trade vicious looks again.

Just then a dirty cat peeks out of weeds
and one of us uplifts it and you say - or is it me -
put down that fucking thing and wipe your hands,

and I remember - as I turn around -
the trickling of sweet water
underground -

--Deanna Hopper