The thing about a river

Is you can pull your truck off on the concrete bridge

Hot on a day late in the autumn’s eve 

Quiet, so very quiet 

Deep in a red-clay county 

Where the gravels mince beneath your boots

As if they’re afraid of waking the woods up

And the branches furled low above the water’s brim 

As its burgeoning brown bulk windles its way down 

To join itself to something greater, deeper

Far beyond the horizon’s edge 

.

The thing about a skyway

Is you can watch the scudding clouds grapple and twist 

Far up in a piercing blue cathedral’s ceiling 

Soundless, ever soundless 

Heights that only faërie-wings could scale 

Its ramparts hewn of purest aether

Above all the world’s (your, my) bitter desperation

Calling, silently calling:

“Pleni sunt caeli

Et terra gloria Tua”

And you cannot but softly answer: “World without end, Amen“

.

The thing about a lifecourse

Is you can see the same things happening again

Over and over again

A heart-wrenching stream of loss and sorrow

“Oh, it’s fine” they say glibly 

But it’s not, and inside you know it 

For you’ve seen the strength of the river

And you’ve known the wrath of the stormclouds 

Silent, then, you wait for the finale

For the terrible red beauty of sunset 

And that Word to draw all into judgment; forever 

.

August, 2025

Jeremy Vogan