One
We swim home. Oblivious to the consummate circle
of leave and return, beginning and ending. Indifferent
to idyllic visions of a cool sinuous universe rimmed
by willow and alder, where pintails glide and herons
wait. We swim our vaguely Shakespearean story—epic
journey, warrior spirit against the currents, time,
the artful cast. Without grief or rage against the poisons,
concrete walls in our path, we fly. Over millennial stones,
up waterfalls, unable to resist the roar in our blood
that obliterates everything except one memory. Then
beget and die in the narrow green waters that cradle
the moon, that buoy the souls of those who spawn cathedrals
and rockets, CAT-scans and cinema, yet refuse
to honor the sustaining symmetry of gain and give back.
Who take our bodies into theirs and deny that we are one.
©Lucy Aron, Knock Journal, 2005
