Looking Into The Creek

-for Fi

On the banks of the take-your-breath-away-cold

milky, silver emerging, round stroke of frigid paint

and pulsing foam, disappearing like a thought—

or like friends, who are here for a while

then go away

downstream of the rapid that killed

our beloved we wondered where

it was along the stream

now in which stretch of desert

And when I asked how you would curse it

you humbled me with the only response

true enough

to have meaning,

to speak:

You said,

“Thank you for being water.”

-title after Rumi