The River

If it flashed a message in the pewtery twilight of northern plains,

it was a wan one, about surfaces: how light does not adhere,

but adorns and momently describes as motionless a moving current

and peels off into the minds of the beholders who stand,

irresolute, on the bluff

watching the wild geese paddle steady in the wavering purl of weed by the little island,

and feel, already within them, the sheen this evening will hold in memory

as the soiled water shrugs them off and moves away toward night.

If you touch me, I will run through your hands like water.