FIRST TIME

FIRST TIME
— for Jim Byrd

Our canoe rounded a sheltered river bend

collecting calm emerald water

until it glistened in a slow curved smile.

The towering trees punctuated its mirrored speech.

From our raised paddles, words escaped

unannounced as water droplets

spawning concentric ripples

in an undulating desire toward shore.

Who is naming these silent tremblings,

sneaking up, canoe-like along the river

where, like deer coming down for an evening drink,

our hearts stopped, afraid to slake their thirst?

Who will stand guard while they ask the river

where the trees stop and the reflections begin?

Through the trees the wind is trickling.

Only the shore answers in a slow curved smile.

Years later, while drinking from separate rivers

we keep asking each other the same questions,

and our hearts, no less thirsty or afraid,

find nothing in the backwaters, except ourselves.

1983
rev./88
Forestville

1984 Deepest Valley Review