The Storyteller
sat at the stern,
usurped the silent figurehead,
addressed expectant oarsmen,
spoke words that dropped
like cascades through a canyon,
like light across a ledge,
like the silent sinking of skipping stones;
told honest tales of half-deceptions—
the easy-forwards,
the frictive backstrokes
of the drifting way;
told of the flowing ebb of changing tides—
sometimes we safely stream the needle’s eye
sometimes we don’t
and don’t know why;
told of colorful prophetic dreams—
the threads of one life, another life,
converging in a tangled web above hurried water,
then separating in other directions
told of the water’s depth and wild river grasses,
waterfowl,
hot stones,
constellations above a folded ridge.
The oarsmen leaned forward,
weight on their feet,
trusting the keel,
rowed out of sync,
minds catapulted into swirling passages.
The Storyteller said:
There are many currents,
many destinations.
It’s the movement,
and it’s the story
reveals the fiber of the craft.