As Water Flows Over Rock
by Daniel Thomas Moran
Today, there was
a raindrop fell
from a swell of cloud,
onto the brow of
a rocky hill, and
tumbled into a rill,
that ran through
the leaning grass.
Because of this river,
nothing is ever still,
the silence of distance
is whispered away
by a wight’s lullaby.
On its surface,
the brushstrokes of
an impressionist,
his palette of black
and cadmium white.
Its travels are unceasing,
under weary August sun,
or star spilt winter nights.
Monthly, the full moon,
lights upon a dance of
the ancient spirits.
It is the traveler, who
never stops to board,
who drinks of itself and
never from thirst,
a clockless watchman,
counting ages through
unimagined places.
It is ever on, to where
its burnished waters
become waves and tides,
To wear and wash the shores
of places we will never see.
a raindrop fell
from a swell of cloud,
onto the brow of
a rocky hill, and
tumbled into a rill,
that ran through
the leaning grass.
Because of this river,
nothing is ever still,
the silence of distance
is whispered away
by a wight’s lullaby.
On its surface,
the brushstrokes of
an impressionist,
his palette of black
and cadmium white.
Its travels are unceasing,
under weary August sun,
or star spilt winter nights.
Monthly, the full moon,
lights upon a dance of
the ancient spirits.
It is the traveler, who
never stops to board,
who drinks of itself and
never from thirst,
a clockless watchman,
counting ages through
unimagined places.
It is ever on, to where
its burnished waters
become waves and tides,
To wear and wash the shores
of places we will never see.
Daniel Thomas Moran, born in New York City in 1957, is the author of sixteen collections of poetry. In the Kingdom of Autumn was published by Salmon Poetry in Ireland in 2020, who also published his previous collection, A Shed for Wood. Looking for the Uncertain Past was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2005. He has had some four hundred poems published in twenty different countries. In 2005, he was appointed Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York.