Featured Selection of the Month:
July 2003

Sudden water, just before noon
cuts my day into pieces
floods me out. Shoes, hats

make their way through the hall
and catch on the stair. I stumble down,
clutching the railing. Let go

the water says, I will take you.
It pulls me by the legs and leads me.
Reeds break in my fingers.

The land has been parched so long
I have not known it. Come forward
water says, I will show you

as the land is laid bare. The floorboards
of my home float by. I stand to my waist
in the stream

watching the rock tell its story: when water
has come before, where it has left
the score of its passing.

Eddies have carved a bowl. Wash,
says water, make it clean. I hesitate
to touch the plate of this surface

which I thought was sealed against me.
But water has arrived
and will take me

to a place of certain footing
where I may bathe and climb to dry
on water's edge by wind.