Robert Vivian
Bring the River
Bring the river to your lips and drink of it slowly, softly, the whole river and its mysteries and fishes and pebbles glistening in the shallows on a clear summer day and bring the river to your lips when you are sorrowful and when you are dying, when the world turns to ash and smoke and bring the river to your ears and bring the river to your eyes and let it wash over your listening and your seeing and keen knife blade flash of revelation and bring the river to your doorstep, bring the river to your deathbed and let it water these in great rushing tears and bring the river to your dreams and wide awake stillness, bring the river to your words and let them fall with spring water and rain and alluvial runoff and dripping leaves and bring the river to wherever you go, whoever you are and let the river restore your aching body to grace and bring the river to the playgrounds and to the schools and let the children run down to it like little wild animals shrieking with joy and bring the river to the ticking of seconds and the hands of any clock, bring the river into churches and bring the river into libraries and let the river flow forth in this sentence, this phrase, river speech and turning verse and the slow accrual of algae and moss and bring the river, bring the river close to your heart and let it carry you to the mouth of a greater, sweeter and braver utterance, oh, bring the river into the midst of all your fears and let the river take them and plunge them down into cold rushing clarity where they may dissolve and disappear and turn into foam of the river breathing for the greenness of this earth, for the greenness of this song, for the green, green power now in every life and every bird seeking its own glorious way to fly.
Robert Vivian’s collection of prose poems called Mystery My Country will be published this spring, along with another book of poems co-written with the poet Richard Jackson called Traversings.