Những dòng sông Rivers

Rivers

I remember the day of the ultrasound,
tiny body pillowed on grainy clouds.
I could hear my daughter’s heart racing,
more a whirling, wooshing than a beating
I held her when she emerged,
slick with blood and soup of the womb,
my hands cautious, soft with awe
as new eyes met mine, tunnel dark and wide.
It seemed a long white time before she cried.

She’s eight now and gone,
driving home with her mother.
I straighten her room in my apartment,
bed still warm from her sleeping

We were riding a river, whitewater riffles,
aspen leaf coins in thick palette paint sunshine
My wife and my daughter in one raft flowing,
mine upside down swirled swirled tight in an eddy.
Raft finally righted, crossing pebbly shallows
I found myself on a fork that had split,
trying to gauge a course to catch them,
paddle blade dull against the cold current.
I could see them through the bars of trees,
growing smaller in the crystal light,
watching them go down the rapids of knowing
our rivers had lives of their own