God of the River

 

The water in the river is browner than I remember

From days of oaring, flexing, straining,

Heaving a mixed drink of pride and faith against the current,

Gazing at entire trees drifting downriver

with their leaves still attached

 

I wondered whether the fish that sifted oxygen from the water were shaped

uniquely by the same God who numbered the hairs of my head.

Did he also count scales?

 

Did he also stroke his thumbtips along grassblades?

Did he also know which measure of the finite second

     when that oak leaf would lose its grip on its branch,

that one,

right there,

the leaf that landed like a sigh on the surface of the water?

 

My oar flicked droplets of beaming riverwater on the leaf.

My thoughts flicked between heaven and hell,

     flick, flick, flick, a snake’s tongue.

 

I understood that God must have allowed ants to carve tunnels into

     the sandy banks along the river

because they carried their nourishment on their backs without complaint.

I sprinkled Cheeto crumbs near their anthill. Manna.

 

To bend on command “stroke, stroke, stroke” is to bend

to the Father’s will. It’s good practice

        for contracting thighs to calves,

the prayer position, prostrate before

The Almighty.