he just keep rollin'

I.
the bank here
is about 6 feet high
in a circle of little stones
someone has left flower petals
and the river runs on
in its ignorant way, slightly absurd
like ink
into which no pen will ever dip.

not that anyone does that now, of course,
nor would they recognize
how the silt that slips into your sandals
when you go down to the water
feels like the city soot
from which, in hardened bricks, ink once was ground.

II.
in the evening, just after sunset
the strong young river
looks dirty as a fresh grave,

churns rocks, flicks away earth
like the tail of a mountain mule
tends flies,

shoulders the silt
till it spills in the south
where it's breath comes slow,
wheezing through flats
far down
below the level of
its bluffs.

III.
somehow we always have known
that death is a river
and its inanimate flow
hallows every bridge,
farewell its one
word.
when the boats cut along
their silver lines
the moon ripples
over her silent creatures
and god comes flowing down
through the green ash, cottonwood,
hickory, oak and willow.