Rivers to Children

We rivers, we torrents,

We heavy-backed waters

Burned out of the green ocean,

Came, clouds, from the plunging

Sea restless as flame.

One-willed and unchanging,

We rained and flowed westward.

We crossed these same meadows.

We touched and knew children

Like you; not the same.

Where are those children

Whose fields we then rained in?

We wet their brown fingers,

And grasses about them.

We rained in their eyes.

Where? . . . Surely we waters,

We deathless, recurrent

In leeching this compost,

Have knowledge whenever

A living thing dies.

No grave could have slipped us.

How have they hidden then?

Where are they hidden-

Neither on earth, nor

Under the earth?

And you, shall it come to you,

Children, and teach you

How to evade us?

Even your eyes?

Even your mirth?