The slippery clay clings to my shoes
before the bank breaks to the edge.
The river whirls, whisking away
loose logs and trees turbulently

Nothing is fixed, neither my feet
slipping around, sliding on clay,
nor the new spring, narrowing down
churning around, channeled toward me.

The mind provides a poit of view
that stops the flow, that stills the flux
in memory, as if the reel
along the bank had never been.

No preacher's text of promising words,
no scholar's term prescribing the truth,
no poet's phrase or potent refrain
can freeze the flow that frets the bank.