by Adele Wiseman
For Tamara
Those of us who fly
know currents,
learn tricks from birds,
the skill to navigate
the invisible,
take off into the wind.
We who swim
read currents on the skin,
know pull of tides
and tug of undertow,
learn limits of the thrill
of mastery.
Who know the world
ride shifting currents
learn to balance
in capricious flow,
learn to look as though
we’re going where we want to go.
We dreamers are seized
by subterranean currents,
navigate blind
alleys of the mind
know the unbuttoned universe
of flux and fears between the ears.
Lovers, we learn to feel
equations of emotion, know
how to make one
in searing current’s fusion, know
we’re briefly current and done, but oh
Who stepped up the current so?
I have been daring in my time,
have flown, swum, navigated blind,
and know the salmon’s desperate wisdom.
To assure tomorrow, love for you,
I would to my own current’s end
against all currents go.
— from Juniper Volume 3, Issue 1