River Diction
by M. R. Smith
Which language is the common tongue of rivers,
where woody waters speak with countless
generations of cottonwood risen from a single root,
whose whistle-winged goldeneye share lingua
franca with motionless herons pinioned to ruddy riffles,
ignoring the sound of their hunger?
In the downstream vernacular, quick trout lie
in the bubble-speak of ancient hatches, that numbers game
spilling millions of eggs for the sake of the bare few.
They cruise this way and that as though listening,
testing for sounds long missed, for parts of speech
that shape wind across the limits of their world.
Will they hear verby weather coming from the west,
stretched thin with elision to hide its approach?
The hardest hides will win this day, etching latent genes
with memory, with all legend handed down.
What’s left in this lore is language,
what lasts are the words these rivers dictate.
& so on
by M. R. Smith
Mere slivers of remaining sun
hold the high snow still clinging
to north facing slopes of fir & larch.
Those are thin trees, holding branches
close, not from fear, but from knowledge
& generational experience.
Bring your winds & your fires & even
at the worst there will be seeds
in the deep dens of the pikas.
We may never be allowed to return here.
We may again & again, writing
this & that to preserve the memory.
This river will rush on for its appointments
downstream & never stop to notice
our hands sifting its shivering mane,
this water issued from glaciers where
we can’t be trusted with the silver.
M.R. Smith is a technology executive. His work has appeared in publications such as The Cascadia Review, Camas, The Literary Bohemian, Punchnel's, The Red River Review, the Innisfree Poetry Review, the San Pedro River Review, the FutureCycle Press anthology What Poets See, and the Western Press Books anthology Manifest West, among others.
by M. R. Smith
Which language is the common tongue of rivers,
where woody waters speak with countless
generations of cottonwood risen from a single root,
whose whistle-winged goldeneye share lingua
franca with motionless herons pinioned to ruddy riffles,
ignoring the sound of their hunger?
In the downstream vernacular, quick trout lie
in the bubble-speak of ancient hatches, that numbers game
spilling millions of eggs for the sake of the bare few.
They cruise this way and that as though listening,
testing for sounds long missed, for parts of speech
that shape wind across the limits of their world.
Will they hear verby weather coming from the west,
stretched thin with elision to hide its approach?
The hardest hides will win this day, etching latent genes
with memory, with all legend handed down.
What’s left in this lore is language,
what lasts are the words these rivers dictate.
& so on
by M. R. Smith
Mere slivers of remaining sun
hold the high snow still clinging
to north facing slopes of fir & larch.
Those are thin trees, holding branches
close, not from fear, but from knowledge
& generational experience.
Bring your winds & your fires & even
at the worst there will be seeds
in the deep dens of the pikas.
We may never be allowed to return here.
We may again & again, writing
this & that to preserve the memory.
This river will rush on for its appointments
downstream & never stop to notice
our hands sifting its shivering mane,
this water issued from glaciers where
we can’t be trusted with the silver.
M.R. Smith is a technology executive. His work has appeared in publications such as The Cascadia Review, Camas, The Literary Bohemian, Punchnel's, The Red River Review, the Innisfree Poetry Review, the San Pedro River Review, the FutureCycle Press anthology What Poets See, and the Western Press Books anthology Manifest West, among others.