A Purple River

A Purple River

I can see you sitting on the bank of the purple river
as the even-tide blends the blue of the day with the grey of night

I can see you watching the river and the even-tide
as the river gathers the moment and lets it go with the flow.
Neither the river nor the moment is going to feel the same.
They both belong to time and with the time must they flow and go.
And yet in their going there is something that refuses to go.
They will linger to stay and catch you by
and then you will not let them go,
which they too know  and wherever you go
they will carry you with their flow.

I see you sitting by the purple river
sharing a secret word, a name which will give you passage to her sacred heart and her dried up paths.

I watch in silence the purple river bathe you in waves, wash you clean and rinse you soft,
and set you free to be born to earth and her god, a ritual not repeated oft, a moment cherished by the river and you.

I see the awful winter spread a sheet of ice and spikes of  snow and the purple river frozen.
I see you cloistered behind the walls of your home, waiting for the hand of summer.

Here in the sultry sands when the desert-winds will sear the sky
and the flame of the forest will leap up to touch the heaven of gods
I will wait for your river to touch me with her purple breeze
and when your landscape will freeze under the breath of ice
I will pray and hope and try to send  some of the desert-wind
to make your ice melt and the river flow.
that is the reason we are born so,
I with fire and you with snow.


Sushama Karnik