A River

God knows the law of life is death, and you can feel it in your warbler neck, your river-quick high stick wrist at the end of day. But the trophies: a goldfinch tearing up a pink thistle, a magpie dipping her wing tips in a white cloud, an ouzel barreling hip-high upstream with a warning. You wish you had a river. To make a river, it takes some mountains. Some rain to watershed. You wish you had a steady meadow and pink thistles bobbing at the border for your horizons, pale robins bouncing their good postures in the spruce shadows. Instead, the law of life comes for you like three men and a car. In your dreams, you win them over with your dreams: a goldfinch tearing up a pink thistle. A magpie so slow she knows how to keep death at bay, she takes her time with argument and hides her royal blue in black. Shy as a blue grouse, nevertheless God doesn’t forget his green mountains. You wish you had a river.