Poem: Night River
by Carole Luke
posted on March 1, 2001
Each night I dream about that rising river.
Each night, my body curls at the catch,
and my blades drop neatly down, square and silent
into black water. My legs push hard against
the wide river's current. The bow splits a darkness
so deep, it threatens to swallow my shimmering, moonlit hull,
now a gleaming white sliver, skimming, sliding headlong
into this night river unwrapping itself around me.
And each night, as I soar through the water, my oars
suddenly wings, folding, gathering, spreading
wide up into the breaking dawn, the light gently wakes
the sleeping land where, tender and calm,
you sleep unconscious of time, the start of a smile
shaping your morning, the day holding its breath
before it unfurls ferociously, like its sister darkness
has done, yielding my shell back onto to your land.
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