We ride through the sawgrass, the only humans for miles,<\/p>\n
as evening glistens in the shallow water,<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>and thousands of white birds<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>and gray birds<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>and black birds \u00a0<\/span>to roost for the night.<\/p>\n We talk and stay silent at once as we ride<\/p>\n and imagine wading into the grass<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>through knee-deep water \u00a0<\/span>that everyone we\u2019d ever known, everyone we\u2019d loved \u00a0<\/span>until our clothes fell away, and we sang<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>to each other like the breezes across the tall grass,<\/p>\n going nowhere, and the minnows nibbled our bodies<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>so gently it felt like a new kind of love,<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>what could we say to the shadows waiting for us,<\/p>\n arms crossed and scowling, as though they owned our darkness?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The names we\u2019ve never spoken, that define us to ourselves<\/p>\n like the rhythm of a river caught inside a stone<\/p>\n smoothed by that river, as it falls toward the sea.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In some other life, I wove grasses and lay down.<\/p>\n In some other life I made a nest, and slept<\/p>\n dreaming like a river, as it slides toward the sea.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How many years did we search to find our lives?<\/p>\n How many years do we have before we leave?<\/p>\n The singing of a river as it falls toward the sea<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n is a mind without thoughts, pure being, like the breeze<\/p>\n that wakes in your attic, or underneath your bed<\/p>\n and stirs up the dust, while you\u2019re thinking of the sea<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n and hugging your wife, who\u2019s dreaming in a language<\/p>\n that doesn\u2019t have words yet, and gleams in her eyes<\/p>\n when she wakes in your arms, smelling faintly of the sea<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n and sunlight in the breeze as it moves through the bedroom<\/p>\n then back out the window, like life itself must leave<\/p>\n the body that held it, or like a wave far out at sea . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We ride through the sawgrass, the only humans for miles . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2926,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[728,6,729,730,82,731,732],"class_list":["post-2925","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry","tag-aging-and-death","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-birds","tag-love-poem","tag-michael-hettich","tag-shark-valley","tag-water"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u00a0<\/span>land in the mangroves<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0<\/span>until we were far enough<\/p>\n
\nhad forgotten us. And if we sat down in the water<\/p>\nLove Poem<\/h3>\n