There is an estuary
where streams and wild rivers meet
and mingle with the salted tides.
It gathers all the water to it—
like the afterlife of rain: inevitable!
I too must be an estuary of confluent tides—
this earth-body of antlered thoughts,
the decay of leaves: my branching mind.
Tumbling with stones and salmon toward the sea,
the rivers of the Earth move through me.
—Jason Kirkey