One must live in the present, you said,
looking back, the flecked fins of river
washing blue into your hair, and
when the wind drew up,
black rain from the silver clouds.
June, maybe July, I suppose, longer than a year,
though, driving upriver along the Nith
time doesn’t pass, you say to myself —
There’s no way to hold,
regardless of the knuckled white upon the wheel,
how firmly the bodies, our waterskins, are held.
There’s only the river.
There’s only the green squadrons of clouds
dropping from the sky, changing shape as they near,
into the tall cedars.