On or in, this river that is not water,
water that has no form,
form that has no name.
On and in, there is no riverbed,
No silty, weedy bottom on which to plant human feet,
to ground the body against the flow
that endlessly churns and roils in all directions at once.
There is no boat to ride upon,
no place to store belongings.
There is nothing here that is not you.
There is no way to carry or to wear.
All that is not you is left where it lays.
This river that is not water that does not wet the skin,
carrying you naked as your first newborn incarnation
with ultimate speed and utter stillness.
You do not move your mouth to call out or even to whisper;
You have no breath here.
Silence a living thing, an aware entity,
heavier than the haze on Lower Lake the moment before dawn,
when the eagles rise from the island and spread their august wings.
In the dark hours you found the way here;
You have always known the way.
In the dark hours you left the world with the stinging ice days
and scraping loud beard bristle voices chastising whither and thou.
You turned on your heel as a lone dancer into the shadows, hidden
from the searching eyes and knitted burnt coffee brows,
and pointing needle nose fingers that groped and grabbed,
prodded and pulled at your sacred being.
They had no right, they had no right! They hadn’t any right.
In the dark hours you wept, and then you ceased weeping.
You followed the deep, red darkness of the roses;
Remembrance returned you here.
You have been here before,
Between worlds, in and on.
The weaving between is the fabric of the next;
To feel it, to touch it, to reweave the pattern
In order to bend the worlds.
To reshape the very form of all that has happened,
Or will happen.
Do not despair,
these words are no beacon to the unaware.
The hidden culvert will remain secret,
For only those who know where and how
to set their back, and place their feet, can find it.
On or in, to ride this river there is a price, you have always been paying it.
The weariness is beginning to toll; It is of the heart, and of the soul.
And the course is never set, the weaving is not precise,
For I am not the weaver, and you are not the river;
we are merely travelers.
What will happen, dear fellow traveler, if you offer your hand?
Perhaps you will lead me back to shore;
To the beginning, where all is eternal and fresh born,
The place that has been searched for endlessly and left behind,
Where our children are welcome,
Where redemption waits quiet and sublime.
M. Black
