Just downstream from that dark place, Where last beats fell and waters churned A man looked down upon his face… In reverie, his thoughts did turn: To follow the river is to follow the arc It does not drift, it does not wait Find its course with limb and mind There walks a man; There runs his fate To follow the river is to follow the thread It does not lie, it does not leave Drowning stones there as he does, He comes to think; He comes to breathe Something of that ember lives! He feels it bide, he feels it wake Looking out, but at itself, As if to speak; As if to make His vision forming, flowing now In tumbling verse, in melting song Crafting words there as he does They echo out, They echo on: “But a vessel, alive, For a time, I would thrive, That was all, Nothing more lay below it… But a vessel, adrift, Not a theft, nor a gift, That was all - But a pulse, but a poet” To drink from the river is to meet with the arc And drink until quenched The man did But a vessel, adrift, Not a theft, nor a gift, That was all - But a pulse