A River Passing
This is the way
you must look to birds,
nothing but a breeze.
Which rounds the hand,
loosens fingers’ memory,
how in your hair they digress.
To the other life
behind the trees,
overhead, a river passing.
Argument
The flowers printed on your teacup
by your lips just now,
or rather the flowers on a vine
circling.
We stir.
Fingerprints mark
time,
coil away
like our faces turned to
bees, our
sweetness stuck
to darkness.
So tiny,
or rather so far,
the flowers on
your teacup
singing
distant bells
Or, the bee humming like
a spoon.
Paul Hoy is a canoe tripper and poet who was born in the rust belt of southern Ontario but “grew up” on the Canadian Shield. His work can be found in Vocamus Press, Rhapsody, and other outdoor-oriented publications. When he’s not in a forest, he’s with his mentors, especially Jim Harrison, James Galvin and Franz Wright, though often they tag along with him, too, to translate for the bears.
