Genealogy

This stream took a shorter course—

a thread of water that makes oasis

out of mud, in pooling,

does not aspire to lake. To river, leave

the forest, the clamorous wild.

I cannot. Wherever I am,

I am here, nonsensical, rhapsodic,

stock-still as the trees. Trickling

never floods, furrows its meager path

through the forest floor.

There will always be a root

too thirsty, moss that only swallows

and spreads. Primordial home, I am dying

from love of you. Were I tuber or quillwort,

the last layer of leaves that starts the dirt

or the meekest pond,

I would absorb everything.

I would drown. Water makes song

of erratic forms, and I hear the living

push back branches, wander off trail.

Source: The History of Anonymity (University of Georgia Press, 2008)