River Poetry

My wife Kimberley Pittman-Schulz is a Poet and several of her poems have appeared in magazines and periodicals including: Avocet, Cairn, the Oregonian, Rosebud, The Merton Seasonal, and The Sun. I share with you here a poem she wrote for me and is included in her recently reworked manuscript for her book of poems entitled :
MOSSLIGHT.





River’s Wind

For Terry

Late light on the river
shows us where the beaver lifts
his dark face
from darker water,
willow leaves in his lips, willow limbs
stripped and bare as bones
at our feet.

At the end of the day,
we feel the ending.
Two kingfishers rattle
in the firs and fall silent;
a single, yellow alder leaf
spins downstream,
sinking into dusk.

I look into your eyes
and see they are not pebbles.
The river moves in them—
both fixed and flowing, they are alive
in this moment, two blue flowers
caught in the river’s wind.

The beaver drifts
toward us, just forehead and wet eyes
glinting on the surface, so that
in the dimness he could be
nothing more than water
folding in on itself.

A coolness lifts and
the sky bruises purple,
a dozen bats suddenly above us,
licking into the night. All we want
is here, now. I lean into your left arm,
each of us holding on
as long as we can.