RIVULET

By Maya Teague

Ripples burbling beneath my lively feet

Skipping over pebbles blue and grey

Trusted keepers of my childhood secrets

You seemed much bigger then, dear river

When you challenged the reluctant sun

To cast its warmth during monsoon seasons.

In the summer you coaxed the gods

That we may run kissed by crystal raindrops

The murmur of your suds a gentle lilt

As we traded earnest schemes.

At night you implored the moon to whisper

Into our senses the night’s solemn secrets.

We came to you each morn, my benevolent brook

Carrying heavy, improbable dreams

The day’s burdens we cast upon your busy swirls

Names of despised elders we hurled

At your absconding waves

To be banished into faraway towns!

O cheery little creek, how you solaced me

My juvenile tears you swallowed in your gullet

My anguish you confiscated when you mirrored

Dancing waves in my desolate eyes

And my joys! How you gurgled like a baby tickled

I offered you my smiles and the day’s gains

The butterflies we nicknamed flittered about

Colorless lizards bounded on glistening stones

Ants, toads, bugs that have tasted my skin --

All impatient to partake of a child’s merry feast!

But here, alas, my lonely little river

How old and barren you have become!

New-sprung rocks have deformed your sinews

Unruly brown grasses have covered you

Your beauty and usefulness they have shunned.

The suburbs will never know the ancient rituals

Remembrances my heart will hold forever

My happiest years concealed in your deep, deep soul.

Sleep, my old friend, rest your weary head for the nonce

For I am sure, as those gleaming waves

Once rushed a-tingle under my feet

That our children, with their basket of dreams

Will awaken you ere long. # # #

Maya Teague

maya.teague@yahoo.com