Summer (ahimsa)

Along the Fox River, three men are fishing,
and a flock of seagulls diving from the sky.

The sounds of a party float across the water and layers and layers of birdcalls.
And two waving flames that burn off methane from the wastewater treatment plant.

The giant cottonwoods release their seeds.

The roar of a motor.
The smell of gasoline.

I’ve become so accustomed
to the sight of the river.

The booming of fireworks.
The billowing of pink clouds.

How to see the river
as if for the very first time?

How to recognize our eternal connections?

Does a person walking to the river every day
make a story?

Maybe if there are enough days.

The fishermen cast their lines many times
before I notice the sound of it.

The pelicans spiral up on thermals so high
they are dots dissolving into clouds.

Will I be able to sustain attention long enough
to know what is revealed only after sustained
attention?

How many nights of my childhood did we
spend catching fireflies?
Did the cicadas really buzz every summer day
like they do in my memory?

Perhaps there is no more difficult work than
panhandling.

I did not see what just jumped out of the river
because I was writing in my notebook.

Waves from where it went back under.

What was it?
What was it?

Instead of noticing the river, I get hooked
on regretting something that already happened,
something that will never change, something
that might not even be true.

A waste of vital energy.

Is it possible to experience fear and hurt
without getting hooked by it?

Here I am, all wound up about others’
reactions when the reactions I should be
concerned with are my own.

 A flock of vultures circling into brilliant
compositions, trailing off and back again
to find another swirl of wind.

A turtle slips into the water.
Tiny red ants and giant black ones.
A daddy longlegs on my pants.
Mosquitoes swarming.

In the cemetery, men dig a grave.

To which opinions do you cling?
What brick do you insist on carrying?

 Sometimes my daughters bring their faces so
close to mine, and study me with such love
that my heart swells only to realize what they
are so admiring is not me, but their own
reflections in my sunglasses.

And there is the answer. Matter is neither
created nor destroyed, but rearranged,
reformed.

A dog named Charlie going for a swim.
A woman walks past who looks like my twin.

There’s always something surprising and
beautiful at the river, though I don’t always
notice what it is.

Ahimsa means nonviolence.

It’s easy to believe we aren’t doing any harm.

But how often we are wrong.

A sun shower on the water, each drop golden
against the thick of green.

And a man on a riding lawn mower that
smothers everything with its roar.

This witnessing feels so important.
This witnessing feels so ridiculous.
A white pleasure boat cruises upriver.
A well-tanned couple with cocktails, large hats,
and big smiles.

Perhaps there’s nothing more beautiful
than water.
Maybe sky?
Maybe sky.

Laughter from across the river.
Laughing at me,
laughing at me.

Through the woods, the setting sun.
A branch cracking. An alert deer.
Molting feathers and the stink of vultures that
lingers for hours.

Where the grass isn’t mowed, it’s gone to seed.
Fluff from the thistles caught on a fence.
Just this.
The cycle of life.
The path of least resistance.