river man (quick shuffle)

I am not the river man,
I am not the green shadow
that moves on the banks
that baffles your eyes
at dusk, nor the hush
that stills the watchers
in the dark shallows.
I am only a distant gunshot
sounding at nightfall,
and the burst of one star
over the treetops.

I am not the slippery river man.
I am only the undercut clay
of the river's bend,
raked by hands that tried to rise
but slipped back, tried to rise
but drew back, succumbed
to the currents and the flood,
to the bend of night,
to the voice in the rushes,
to the voice
that called from downstream.

I am not the leaping river man.
I am only a mudstone
with a round hole
where the grass once grew,
a hole where something alive
once passed through.

I am the sifting of pebbles
and the song of night,
I am the eye in the riverbed
the spring and the sprite.

I am not that frog-eyed river man
who weaves the dawn in your heart,
who wraps you in blankets of fog
and tugs your tresses apart.

I am not the choking river man,
and I will sing no river songs
of far horizons as I pass you by.

I am not the river man
with his swirl of thunder.

I am no more the river man
with his ache that drags you under.