Death of Mother River

Muddy cradle of jelly eggs, indifferent nurse, Mother river, your silent brood leaps for life In hanging labyrinths, your dark cool womb. In teeming mazes a pregnant universe Glides with form, fluid and fantastic, Flows with shimmers of bloating shapes Of tiny bulb and lobe, lures of life for life, Freckled with specks on sun through shadows of fallen leaves. Basking in hammocks of ripe valleys, Annual lover-mate of fertile plains, Body of curved mules, singer on root and rounded rock, Falling, tumbling to foam white bubbles of lace, Woman of seasons, container-covetress of energy, Midwife-mystic of life and death, Mother of mystery, Madonna in the mountains, I sing of you in this late hour Of your impending epitaph.