The Old Dam
The old dam, we called it, and
you’d never know it was there
unless you were born here, but
unseen between trees, just before
the little brick church on the hill,
lies a path down to the creek
where a broken line of concrete
still bruises the water.
Defiant leftover from days of
purpose, you lurk remembering
how it felt to curb destiny, to
defy the ocean, while I am jumping
from rock to rock on familiar
footholds out to my place in the
middle, damp sneakers on a
stubborn lap of certainty.
Bone and sinew surrenders here
in this place, the trees draw
nearer, bowing their heads, the
sky ceases its endless turning,
time stills its ever-shuffling feet
to come and sit beside me,
and we are listening to the
unchanging sound of returning.
Water endless on unyielding rock,
answering the ache of an ocean,
carrying a young heartbeat, water
catching on concrete, flung
backward and upward into
waterless places, in radiance
collapsing it is breaking, but
surging on and on, unstoppable.
Moving things
are the only things
that never change.
They say you can’t go back,
not again, but years later I stood
by the side of that same road,
before the little brick church
on the hill, repainted in white
and renamed, the old path unseen
between trees forgotten,
reclaimed by wind and earth.
A skeleton dam still lingers,
smaller now to eyes tamed by living,
old footholds gone, swallowed by
storms and nights endless
fulfilling their purpose, freeing
water to descend to the sea, over
fragments no longer big enough
for damp sneakers and certainty.
The years surrender their scars
in this place, the trees draw
nearer, bowing their heads, the
sky ceases its endless turning,
time stills its ever-shuffling feet
to come and sit beside me,
and we are listening to the
unchanging sound of returning.
Water endless on unyielding rock,
answering the ache of an ocean,
carrying an aging heartbeat
catching on concrete, flung
backward and upward into
waterless places, in radiance
collapsing it is breaking, but
surging on and on, unstoppable.
Even concrete
gives way
eventually.
