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Kat Lehmann

Water Cycle

My fingers divide the autumn river as the cool water flows, apart and together, sparking sunlight. I thought I would never leave this place: my first home, my healing, my river at the bottom of a grassy hill dotted with dandelions.

vacant house
the weeping cherry
probably blooming

 
The river tells me some things change and some things never change. That what is transient is part of the whole that persists. That I, too, am part of what is transient and persists.

forest air
the gossip of songbirds
in every breath

I rest a sorrow on white blooms of current. I will not be wheeled down the hill to see the river in some imagined future. I will wither with age elsewhere, as the river continues to flow here, ageless.

rushing river
an ending slips
toward beginning

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About the Author

Kat Lehmann is a Connecticut poet and scientist captivated by the grandiose within the minute. A Best of the Net nominee, she’s published a haibun collection, Stumbling Toward Happiness.