On Rivers and Revisions

Poem, Reflections, Prompt

I wrote the first draft of the poem I’m about to share with you back in April of last year. I posted it to Substack then, though I could feel that something was missing. It wasn’t that the poem hadn’t lived up to my intentions for it. To be honest, I had no set intentions. (I write most poems by the seat of my pants.) But it felt like maybe the poem had an intention for me that I hadn’t yet lived into to. When I returned to it a month or two later, the final stanza seemed to be sitting in front of me, just waiting for me to write it down. And so I did, and the poem felt complete—though if you have suggestions for improvement, I’m still very happy to hear them!

That moment when a poem or a painting or a culinary concoction is complete, is just right—what does it feel like to you? Is it a door closing with tidy finality? A door opening—and you, entering a room that feels like exactly the place you’re meant to be (for that moment, anyway)? Or perhaps you have a better metaphor to describe it? In any case, here is the revised poem . . .

Creek:

a concept my eyes
skim across like a
too-familiar word. 

Brown thing, 
wet thing. I almost
walk past the thing,

but blue on brown
catches my eye,
catches my breath—
there is sky on the water,

and a fish is breaking free
of clouds, his silver belly
its own sun. He jumps,

splashes,
shatters creek,
shatters sky.  

Do you know what I mean
when I say
I want to be
shattered, too? 

Why on earth would you want to be shattered?

This moment is a lot. Maybe not here at my writing desk, where the nearest threat is a cursor blinking at the blankness that follows. But in so many places, so much harm and hurt are being perpetrated. The fabric of many societies is being stretched, torn, stitched together in ways that leave humans and other beings frayed and flapping at the margins. So many of us feel an intense yearning to do something, to make things better. Many of us are doing things—and all the while wondering what else we could be doing.

The ways we try to curb abuses of power matter. If every reaction provokes an equal and opposite reaction (and in politics, it often seems truer that every reaction spurs an opposite and amplified reaction), then how do we respond rather than react? How do we draw lines to protect the humanity of those who are under attack—while at the same time building (rather than burning) bridges toward those who don’t recognize the harm that is happening?

I sometimes feel like to handle this moment, I need to become a bigger basin—need to grow deeper and wider with higher walls. How else can I hold all these waves, all this churning, and still make space for love?

In other moments, I feel an opposite impulse. I feel like to live this moment—any moment, really—what I need is to soften. Give myself over to gravity and slope. Let everything pass through me like water through a riverbed. Feel it, let it change me, let it carry bits of me out to the ocean, let it remind me every border is a fiction. Hold it—but without holding on.

The yearning to be shattered, for me, is akin to this yearning to be a riverbed. It’s the yearning to feel everything. To make space for everything. It’s the yearning to live into the truth that I am not separate from anything—or anyone. It’s the longing to let beauty break me open—and to let grief do the same.

There are dangers to this way of living, of course. Rivers flood, sometimes catastrophically, and if precarity is the water, then dear God, what a year for precipitation! But there are dangers to not living this way, too. There are dangers to trying to make yourself into a tidy container. As if we can hold everything all at once. As if we can keep every bad thing out and every good thing in. As if we’re always right in our assessments of good and bad.

I believe that we are at our best when we hold ourselves open to revision—a thing every riverbed knows. And so, I’m trying to be a river. I’m trying to let myself be shattered often enough that the currents of this moment can flow into and through me. I’m trying to be a river—but a river with rocks at my base, not just mud. Rocks that can be pulled up, used to build a levy, a harbor, a dam, a bridge.

The Prompt

When language feels insufficient, I reach for metaphors, hence all this talk of rivers and rocks. If you would like a prompt to play with today, then I invite you to go on a scavenger hunt. More specifically, I invite you to search up a metaphor to help you navigate this moment. “This moment” doesn’t have to mean this political moment—though it can. It could also mean this moment when the first killing frost is on its way but your schedule is jam packed and you don’t know when you could possibly harvest the tomatoes. It could mean this moment in your marriage. This moment in your career. This season in your body—whether it be one of health or illness or injury. This season in your life—perhaps it is one in which you are feeling stuck? Or off-center? Or lonely?

Once you identify which aspect of this moment you want to focus on, consider what metaphors could be used to describe the moment/situation. You can cast the net as wide as you’d like, but if you’d like a little help getting the creative juices flowing, then start by looking around the space you’re in. Identify five objects. Then figure out how to complete this sentence for each of those objects. “This moment is like [object] in that . . . .”

Your brain might have to reach hard to make these metaphors work. This moment is like an aloe plant in that it is covered in pokey spines but, if I look deep inside it, I might find that it also contains healing properties. If you don’t land on a metaphor that you’re excited to keep playing with, then let your mind roam. Think about landscapes or places or people you love. Thinks about the stories in your life that might connect in some way to this moment. Think about colors, textures, tastes, sounds.

Let whatever metaphor(s) you find to describe this moment act as clues—clues to help you find a metaphor for how to navigate this moment. How to take your next right step. How to live your own values in a way that feels sustainable.

When you find that metaphor? Let it write a poem for you. (Or a journal entry! Or an essay!) You may end with words that will carry you through some future hard day. If you would like to share what you come up with in the comments thread, I’d absolutely love to read it. Thank you for taking the time to read my words. I’m still not over the shock of having people want to hear what I have to say. Which leads me to one final subject . . .

Eeeek, I have a book!

The hardback of my debut novel, ALL IS WELL, was born into the world yesterday! You can order a copy here, or if you prefer e-books and aren’t boycotting Amazon (a big high five to you if you are), then the e-book is available here. A few of you lovelies have mentioned wanting autographed copies. If that’s you, please reach out to me via email or DM rather than ordering from these links, and we’ll figure out how to make that happen.