River Metrics

(for Maqina and  Heraclitus)

The beauty of the river’s in her dance

From leisured waltz through pirouette to prance

To tango rushing over rocks and down--

Her white-water petticoats and sapphire gown.

The glory of the river’s in her light,

Her gleaming silver sheen by night,

Her tiara days and sunset sheets of gold,

Her lilacs and her roses when the dawns unfold.

The river’s truth is more difficult to know,

For the rolling water keeps secrets in her flow,

Obscures her currents through her reeds,

Guards her meaning through lands she feeds.

That any river harbors verity is strange,

For the supple nature of a river is to change

The rhythms of her surge and depth and form—

As if to live for dancing were the norm.

Yet the river isn’t always rushing dark and cool;

At the bend below the falls she shapes a pool

Where golden sand gives off an amber light

Reflecting birds above crystal fish in flight.

Beside this pool we’ll sit and pause awhile

And maybe charm the river with our guile;

For a river resting may afford the chance

To catch the truth of rivers in a glance.

Right here where roiling waters clear

And rushing ripples disappear,

Dappled shards of sky and cloud and tree

Focus into smooth tranquility.

The pool’s the place the river gathers into grace

Where we may read her joy, her grief, her face.

Time here to let our own reflections gauge

And scan her verses rhyming on a page.

Time by day to watch the zephyrs at their play,

A single russet leaf launched mutely on its way;

Time by night to downward gaze, not up,

To find the universe within a cup.

The pool’s still the river by another name,

For the water here is just the same,

And the pool may give us in fair countenance

The truths that glide beneath her mystic stance.

Oh, this river is the place to be,

Morning mists and dazzling noonday majesty,

But our river’s secrets are deep and long,

And her journey hides her truth in song;

And since we would both feel and see,

There must still be time for poetry—

For limpid pools of water and words writ down

Can tell our river to us, lest we drown.

C.R. Magwaza