Anathallo - The River

High water carried her down stream
She watched the water's living things
She thought, it's not a mound with six planks of wood
The cardinal points to hold you up
Or a mountain where a shed self could

Feed the roots and honor the tongues of the animals
Drift into the moss and bloat where the peat bog pulls

Rolled like a felled tree
With arms as useless as such
Death's panic came, a calmness stayed, you couldn't do much
Just watch the water chip away at the bank eroding
Cut and crumbling through the spate

It took a father, it covered a daughter
Took her down, down, down
With the glass bottles, books, a tire
Collected hair tufts in the weeds
Snagged and wrapped in the peats
Dammed and trapped

You said, is this the ceremony?
I don't know, well I don't mind
The way we all fall in and roll down
Pushed through the veins and trafficked byes
And when your ears sit under
Head is half submerged down below
Pooling all accounts of peace while passed beneath the canopy glow