The Soul of a River Rock

A Poem By Harlon Rivers

When you look at my cover photo to this poetry blog you probably can see that rivers are an important symbolic icon in my life. I grew up on the river and that cover photo is a photograph I took of a special spiritual place I go to connect with the roots of my ancient culture.  Here I find peace and balance as well as who lives in this form of my flesh...I view life conceptually thinking as many paralleled similarities with nature. This is an attempt to express those thoughts in a creative way here. Thanks for reading about the river.

The river rock lay cleansed 
adjacent to the receding flood waters

Exposed, glistening in the sunlight, like a naked stone collage

Just above the turbulent water's edge, every single piece

of the shoreline’s puzzle still fits perfectly

As if every single river rock were a perfectly placed piece

rather than naturally falling into arrangement

of a much grander landscape

Having endured gravities unlimited currents 

Abstract patterns emerge 
with the continuity of an intricate dreamscape

Broader perspectives viewed from awakened moments

Life has so many hues of infinite shades of grey 
redefining black and white

So much unique visually obscure definition

Sandstone, Limestone, volcanic afterbirth, 
boulders, thrown stones  

Rolling stones that gathered no moss

Pebbles gathered from the spawning redds 
lay scattered within the river’s shoreline beach maze

Once sustaining parallel aquatic existence

now resting basking in wait until the next season's floodwater

reestablishes purpose to their organic downsize cycle

Stones rounded and rolled through the ages

Expatriated from unknown mountainous terrain

Prehistoric elevations and unknown distant horizons

Through new beginnings until the winds of change

blow away the remaining naturally eroded dust

Vanishing hazy memories of weather-beaten endings

No two river’s rocks are ever the same
anywhere in the vast universe

No two human beings are ever the same 
somewhere in the vast universe

Each soul has a place in an eternal landscape

as vast and varying as a sea of humanity

Colors are a never-ending range as infinite

as the watercolor palette of mother earth

Stones interwoven within the earth’s tapestry

of minerals and fossilized matter cling to roots

Unlimited sizes compose the unbounded myriad of shapes

Shaped by the forces of nature over time

After enduring gravities currents of life’s ebb and flow

Natural life energy sculpts ever changing reality

Contoured by eternal universal currents

Attrition shapes life’s constantly evolving form

Until all that remains are the original grains of sands,

water, a puff of clay dust to be molded into new beginnings
and a universal connection between all things

© 2012 Harlon Rivers  8/10/2012