RIVER (by Alfred K Lamotte)

First you fight the current.

Then you drown.

Then you float on the river like a husk,

like a dropped petal.

Then you sit on the bank and watch

the river flow by.

Sometimes it is a violent flood,

sometimes a gentle murmur.

Then you are the river.

It moves down your spine from the

mountain spring in your crown

through the forests and

meadows of your body

to the deep cavern of your sacrum,

where it soaks into the earth and

nourishes seeds of 10,000 things.

It is a river sparkling with infinitesimal stars.

All distance is illusion.

Worlds form and dissolve

between your vertebrae.

It is the river of bliss.

Do not fight its terror and beauty.

Drown, float, witness, mingle.

The river is this breath.