The Man Who Moved Water
The man moved water
with concrete dams built on the surface of earth
as easily as a potter throws
clay onto a wheel. Water moved
where his blue ink dried,
cutting through fields and artifacts.
He straightened out meandering water,
uncurling energy meant to be snaked
and curved, overruled the flow
of power to cities, money to men.
On weekends, over dinner,
his Irish falsetto whispered
poetry, mysteries of life,
the small anchors that held his light,
but as if volume
made the ethereal disappear,
he spoke softly to keep his heart fluid,
to hold back the cementing shadows
of gnarled divorce and four angry
children who roiled his metered sleep.
The man who moved water
dreamed of going to another realm,
sailing easily across the Styx
to leave behind ghosts of karmic revolutions,
abandoning blue ink in straight lines
to breathe lotus air.
The man who moved water
fell from a river raft
sucked by a whirlpool's vortex
into never-ending cycles.
Beneath the surface, oak snarls
trapped the man
three days
until the dam was stopped,
the river lowered
to show his waterlines
inked in blue upon another shore.