Guzlowski-Stepek: The Never-ending Poem

The river I died on Is fat and it's old It trudges slowly Toward a sea that trembles And squawks like an eagle In the sky Death, Master of the drowned world  Suddenly stopped At my door And said look  You should have put your shoes on And come walking with me. I wanted to show you things You’ll never have understood But would watch in wonder. Too late now for coffee Your shoes float on the rusty red ocean No need for sticks To help you stand and walk You are lost to the river And go to the sea from where you came.

  The river I live on Is flat and cold And moves slowly Toward a sea that rumbles And quakes like the sky In autumn  When all the grayness Of a world ending  Suddenly steps  Through your door And says look  Why don’t you put your shoes on And come walk with me. I want to show you something  You’ve seen before  But never understood. And you put down your coffee And put on your shoes And take up the canes  That help you stand and walk And you follow the river To the river it dreams itself being. 

The river listens to the forest's heart beat A prayer of rhythmic silence,  the march of morning.   The river flows its usual path past where memories are,  past moments of a monk's life that still wash downstream centuries after the day of his dying. The river wants to feel life but knows Heaven will not grant it.   It knows infinity unlike any man or woman  who comes to its shore.  They are just pilgrims of death walking to their foolproof destiny.

 The river listens to Ikkyu’s heart.  There is silence there,  the drift of morning.   The river wonders  where the memories are,  the moments of Ikkyu’s life that he will hold in his hands  on the day of his dying.   The river wants to know  but knows Ikkyu will not tell it.   It knows Ikkyu  like every man and woman  that comes to its shore  is a mystery as great as death.  

The river, it listens to Ikkyu, the way he prays to the wind scrapes the snow, and talks to the birds that sip at the riverbank. The river is the sound of dreams, the taste of memories. It teaches children to follow the Way. The river hears the priest ask What is the way? Please tell me, what is the Way? Ikkyu has sat still for hours. He knows nothing. In that moment Ikkyu is enlightened. The river listens to Ikkyu's quiet heart.

Ikkyu listens to the river The way he listens to the wind And the snow and the birds That fly above the river. It’s the sound of dreams  And memory, the children Who teach us the way. He smiles and wonders  What is the way? He has listened for ages And still he doesn’t know. Perhaps he needs to listen  To his feet more.

The river stopped flowing. Only Ikkyu, sitting on the bank, deep in thought, was flowing. The river, the only thing static in the whole multiverse in that moment, observed Ikkyu and felt sorry for him. He thinks too much, that one the river thought. He needs to chill out. He needs enlightened. So the river, silent as emptiness, reared up a huge wave and dropped it over Ikkyu, awakening him from his musings. Ikkyu smiled, laughed, soaked in reality again. Thank you, dear river for saving me from my stupid mind. The river, job done, resumed its flow while Ikkyu's sat still apart from the water dripping from every inch of his body.