Ryan Wilson Source
The river sound was more
than river, coming as it did from pines
and bushes, flowers, briers, and even the core,
it seemed, of earth. The signsalong the path were gibberish.
This way, the other, back. One marker, stout
and toppled, pointed skyward: ‘TWO MILE: FISH,’
as if heaven were rife with trout.I tried what paths I found.
Root-stumbled, overgrown, or wide and clear,
all of them got me lost, but it seemed the sound
boomed loudest in the earwhen I’d given up all hope
of getting to the source. Some might have quit,
and why I didn’t stop on that steep slope
and turn back, done with it,
no telling. Still, by stumbling,
awkward, through thickets and dense underbrush,
the sky, the woods, and earth beneath me thrumming
with the river’s hush,I came to the banks at last.
For what? I cracked a beer, set my lawn chair
in the bed’s muck and watched as water passed
all around me there.I wasn’t river sound
and wasn’t river either, truth be told.
I was a man alone, too pleased I’d found
the water aimless and cold.