Despair

“A creek is more powerful than despair.”
— Jim Harrison

Do you remember the moments before I knew you,
when neither of us existed in the manner in which
a creek does not before rain?
I’ve been dreaming the last few nights that I found your door,
and it was a narrow boat that would not,
as it floated up, receive me. Stars swam in my eyes
and dotted them with ancient arrowheads of trout,
and I felt the pain of breathing then.
Remember the moment you no longer believed
we could find air in cloudy whitecaps of waves,
or in the rain that now does not see creeks?
I wonder, is there a fifth season, wandering,
a twisted creek that, with its long fingers, no longer feels
for a spring?