Tracking the River

It is a mighty river Galloping like wild horses over the stones Tumbling in torrents from sparkling thrones White with the majesty of the sky. I saw it rushing, leaping, laughing Around bends, carving its presence On the massive body of the land I climbed up the scraggy face Of bearded cliffs Defying the rivers direction Haunted by a desire inside To come to its beginning. Look what we built from mind alone A universe with matter from stars' gas Matter hard as stone Swollen, swollen with our fancy's heat Soon I reached a path Where the river in four divide And followed larger coarse up And for each new divide I did the same Until only trickle there remain And tall trees that covered me from the sky And big leaves that at midday dark Just would not cease to cry. Like single drop of tears Each leaf drips And drips Water by drops from the forest lips And no river was here Just the wet flesh of earth A cold place, Sparse as a manger And everything longing to be born Pause and ponder the umbilical germ The remotely ancient origin of egg and sperm When is the beginning of all existence Then we drip away, one by one, and children the only evidence of our dust.