River Pieces
By Don Domanski
for Malcolm Ross
*
clouds creak in the sky
herons creak in the sky.
*
the dark approaches itself
from all sides once again
the moon lifts
its white and gravelled head
out of the hills.
*
the river holds ghosts
that have thickened
into salmon.
*
on its banks
weeds grow into children
far away
from their parent’s door.
*
an oak tree beside the water
pulls up the shadow of a house
that once stood here
or one still to be built
room after room
up through its roots.
*
to walk beside the river
the long walk of the body
is a threshing of shadows.
*
to stand by the river
is to hear words beginning
in the hands
starting as indelible amnesias
being forced up through the hands.
*
to listen to the music of the river
is to hear a final music
a silk-hedged current
transfixed by a mirror
and a placing of leaves
over the eyes
the age of an evening
over the eyes.
Copyright Credit: Don Domanski, "River Pieces" from Selected Poems: 1975-2021. Copyright © 2021 by Don Domanski. Reprinted by permission of Literary Estate of Don Domanski.
Source: Selected Poems: 1975-2021 (Xylem Books, 1994)