“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding” is a beautiful and poignant quote by John O’ Donohue an Irish poet and writer. This poem is influenced by this quotation.
The charged heavens looked darkly menacing to burst out
Like pent up feelings bursting out for expression
And then it rained and poured one day
Millions of tears washing the earth
And the drops coalesced into a new form –
Water spurted out from the womb of wet earth in the mountain heights,
Holding within the gushing spring, many promises and desires
Like the dawning of a distant dream made real
Rejoicing at finding its rhythm and course
Mustering strength and mass as it flowed down with a bubbly song
Laughing playfully at the twists and turns in the flow of its new life
Infinite number of springs – some muddy, and some crystal clear
Meet, mingle, swell and become one
Like the widening and blossoming universe of two people in love
Assuming a thousand hues in their flow – a mood for each terrain and time
Falling with noisy ferocity in the hills
Consuming the elements of the earth in its muddy flow downwards
Even like lovers discovering their naked passions for the first time
Flowing down with tumultuous and wild recklessness
The song of the river a crescendo of ecstasy and pain
Humbling even mighty rocks in its majestic flow.
And then the calm of deep waters flowing down without a ruffle
Like the depths in the eyes of two soul mates gazing into each other
The green clear water nestling the earth’s elements in its bosom
And there is peace and the sound of silence.
Two soul mates sat hand in hand on the bank of the river
And they whispered words of gratitude to each other and the ether
For the rain that gave their dreams wings
For the happy playfulness of flowing down unhindered like a stream
For the tumultuous passion of their love rending each other’s flesh
Crying out loud in songs of passion and ecstasy
For the understanding tempered by love from the depths of their hearts
For the rites of purification cleansing their past elements
For the silent presences in their lives giving them awareness
Of the thousand hues and shades in their unfolding relationship
And for the knowing that the rain, the streams, the falls and the quiet river
Are all one.