---

 

I have bent

      over and over

            and over.

 

My back arched so long

so hard, my face buried in the bank,

that I think I will never stand straight again.

 

Cold, sharp water rushes past, full of life on the brink,

devastation just a moment, a turn, a torrent away.

 

Bend in the wind, is all I can think.  Bend in the wind.

And so I do.  Bend.  I bend so that I am nothing.

I am part of the grasses and the mud.

 

It smells of earth, and warmth.

It smells of coming home.

 

I let myself succumb to it.

I am strong in that.

 

When the water trickles gently again,

and the silt settles,

 

when the sun throws its soft blanket

across my shoulders,

 

when the chipping sparrow rises

from the dirt,

 

I rise with it.  And I sing.