THE CANOE

 

I don’t want my soul

to be a rumor,

 

a hole in a canoe

I bail

 

while thinking it is

somehow separate from

 

the tapering shape,

the ribbed belly,

 

from the canoe itself.

I want the rowing

 

and the bailing to be

twin actions.

 

I want the gliding through shallows

and shadows,

 

through eddies,

toward damns,

 

to come from frugal strokes,

from oars limned and dripping

 

with honeyed-light. 

I want my soul to leak

 

its grief into life.

I want my living 

 

to be the cradle 

that carries me

 

down the river

bending, always bending,

 

toward the sound, toward the sound

of the not-so-distant falls.