Membrance (Water)

to Dezh, holding a scroll which reads:
I am poured out like water

More beautiful because you don’t suspect,
You search our lively world and let
your rainbow face alight in cornices
of each emotion: goofball, tristessa, principessa.

St. Gregory says whatever subtle shades
and shapes God takes, becoming human,
are illumined. And he embraces all.

The river in its infinite shifts
makes every face, each fleeting crease.

Sole girl within this raucous house
you trace a lilting line between
solitary and social, one and many.

You circulate, you weave the rooms
and all of us together with
your song. A river whispering nourishment

as one performs the consequential act
for which she came to earth.

You sit beneath the birch conversing
with wistful joy for the imagined
world in the midst of making.

Dreams pace the shores, our days.

In any lovely thing we make,
we accept constraints
and what we make is lovelier,
brimming with love, for having strained.

The river would not be infinite
without its banks. Bounding beyond,

you overflow your narrow bones
curling like fire, colored with sky.