Jeanne Lohmann: "Rivertalk"

is whatever comes along,
practice always here while we

keep on shore, all the time
saying we want to get wet.

But the river has ways
of sound and light, ripples

and waves that tell us:
don't be so serious, rumble in

where nothing is finished or broken
and nothing asks to be fixed.

"Rivertalk" by Jeanne Lohmann, from The Light of Invisible Bodies: Poems. © Daniel & Daniel Publishing, 2003.  

Photography credit: "Ripples on the River," by unknown photographer.