Eden Is Burning

A Poem

Photo by Aaron Mello on Unsplash

Rough-handed river
Cold as a lover
Never a giver
Never discovered
Trees unemboughed
Watching the water
Deliver the seasons
Uncover the autumns
Reedy and stoned
Silty and sandy
River is murky
River is winding
Essence in motion
Purposefully banking
Swallows are singing
Of the unmaking*
Daunting and silent
River is running
No one is watching
Nothing is coming
Haunted and quiet
the river is turning
the wind is a riot
and Eden is burning

*I probably owe Ursula Le Guin for the bit “Swallows are singing of the unmaking.” Read her Earthsea series, please.