𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄

 

Knowing her first, I felt her stream run smooth,

skip playfully on rocks

and fall down liquid hills.

"Follow the flow," was her advice.

I did not understand.

 

In later years I met her once again.

She was a river grown,

swollen with life,

pulled by strong currents down toward unknown seas.

One felt the peaceful eddies, and the deep longing for the ocean's bed,

and she ran blue as the later summer years she bore.

"Follow the flow," she said.

 

Then there was parting, and we did not meet again

until one year when frost was chain about us.

I wondered, then, if she had frozen, too,

into the static waiting of old age,

reverting back to narrow winter stream.

but when I saw her eyes, I knew

she was Pacific now, and stretched horizons and beyond.

Ice could not crust on her

nor the frost chain

but rather wisdom pulled her tides.

Her deeps were heavy with the weight of love.

 

I understood, then, what it is to follow flow:

someday, one meets and mingles with the sea.

 

- Carol Bialock RSCJ -