Here on Maple Street
the blacktop grade is off
a few degrees and so
the rain
rushes past the rusted grate
Fronds and catkin balls
thick as tumbleweeds
pile along the iron sieve
The banks rise with the flow
that rolls and twists and dances
as the basin grows
The shoreline’s shallows
taper to a dampened onyx beach
Across the sea
the current sways the blades
of muddy jungle stalks
marching off, away
and up the hill
Still?
The skin is not
It’s wrinkled by the beat
beat, beat
Staccato
Keeping time
with a rhythm too obscure
to jot beside a staff
This number over that?
We’ve not the space
for all those digits
The wave comes suddenly
Moses parts the sea
(via SUV)
The ocean retreats
to advance
upon the green bank
bathing earth and clover
pulling withered stems
back into the deep
Reversal
and the wash spreads, far
across the asphalt beach
and back and forth
and back and forth
diminishing in time
each time
Upriver
the dam is breached
Some portion of the wake
is swallowed by the drain
Detritus meets chasm
carried by the current
out of sight
out of light
out of time
until, in time
the eddies steadily decrease
The surface once again grows smooth-ish
(rippled by precipitation)
Debris accretes
The tide returns
Here on Maple Street
in the rain
a river grows
and flows into a puddle
that we call
Maple Lake
