Forgotten Ground Regained

Along the Missouri

The slippery clay clings to my shoesbefore the bank breaks to the edge.The river whirls, whisking awayloose logs and trees turbulently
Nothing is fixed, neither my feetslipping around, sliding on clay,nor the new spring, narrowing downchurning around, channeled toward me.
The mind provides a point of viewthat stops the flow, that stills the fluxin memory, as if the reelalong 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 refraincan freeze the flow that frets the bank.
Copyright © Stanley P. Anderson, 2006.
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