Creeping from the Depths

It comes from the deep river,

running with swift whispers and muddy slurps
through our desperate landscapes and slipping memory,
underneath the overhang of just-burst leaves,
stirring sediment in the water from our shared past
upriver, uptime, upstanding...it is now upright.

This thing, with strong sinewy tendons

in rough scaled feet, wooden toes
purchasing a hold in the bank...
could it, would it do this
on any other day than one overcast,
gray light faltering in its ability
to hide the springing green
of a new season finally pushing its face out?

Holding out my hand

to help it ashore
in the slippery mud
of my fears,
I smile to myself
in a sudden spray of bird-call
back in the stand of new Shagbark Hickory
over my shoulder.

© 2011, The Jotter