One Limp Forward And A Hundred Steps Back

Who hears the rippling of rivers will not utterly despair of anything. - Thoreau

in a stark divergence of divinity

a divestiture of narcissism

a mocking of the trinity

a fornication of free will

a foray into a flowing fairy tale

a river's prowess is looted

robbed

embezzled

pilfered

plundered

forming a millpond of stolen water, sweat and tears

a carnal causeway of callousness

eddying in an exited eternity

standing at its periphery

i see a mix of reality 'pon its surface along with murky, spent dreams in its depths

incapable of reflecting anything but truth

hiding greedy secrets, desperation and depravity in its recesses

the mill's wheel has long since stopped turning

but its spun legacy remains

surrounded by stacked bricks

held together with the mortar of existence

in a sneak attack

carried on a twisted, aching, broken back

stretched out on a rack

one limp forward and a hundred steps back

Author's Note

“The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell.” - Thoreau