poetry

In the mad kayaker's dream he stands high above
The world's last wild river and the mist
Climbs like steam from a kettle out of the gorge.
In the plunge pool below are other kayakers,

He descends to the basement and flips
On the bare bulb at the foot of the steps
And enters the kingdom of floating.
The cinderblock walls and the raftered ceiling
Are a testament to his worship of things

She hangs upside down in the current
And the mad kayaker waits for her head
To pop up. He's taught her how to place
Her paddle, snap her hips, and appear
Like Houdini from the flowing world
Once more into air.
All he sees now is the plastic bottom
Of the boat. What's she doing down there
Among the trout and boulders?
In the pool she had it down-and the boat
Twirled like a top. Now he waits a second longer
Than is natural for his wife's body
To appear and float toward him.
He doesn't think she's scared-
The boat hasn't moved or bucked like a pony.
Could she like it, this reverse image
Of the world-all water and shadow?
Finally, she surfaces. The move performed
With grace and no rush. As she rights herself
He sees the smile as the water drains
From her helmet's ear holes. She's touched
By what he knows-what's down is up,
And what's up is down-
And the art's in moving in between.

His boat sits dusty beneath the house
but the mad kayaker wakes to hear knocking
like a sailboat against the racks.
The water has risen overnight and taken the backyard,
the oak trees, the gravel he carefully spread
for walks to the river. There is nothing
he knows to do but paddle, so he crawls
into the boat's narrow cockpit, snaps on the skirt,
and floats into the monster flood.
He leaves his wife behind, even his two
sons still snug in their beds.
They too know the ways of water
but he will let them find their own
path toward the river's roiling heart.
This morning he must go alone
into this acre of falling water
where a small rippling stream used
to meander through their suburb.
He keeps his craft tracking true
as he finds a line through down trees,
surging pressure waves, and washed-out bends.
Sand is his dance partner as he floats to the sea.
He passes over the old banks and the mouths
of feeder streams. He watches backyards
become flood plain and flood plain fill
from ridge-to-ridge. He tries his old roll
in the current and finds it waiting
to twirl him back to the surface.
He catches the only eddy on the river's
clogged hurtle toward the sea and stops there—
He watches as the world turned liquid in the storm
passes by. He moves back out into the flow.