One Day (with thanks to William Stafford)

One day when the river is butter
ask me how i have lived with it
all
the melting into terror
 rising up from
the vacuum
rushing on the edge of
oblivion
below
churning rapids.

Ask me how the day breaks
new and surprising,
how I haven't
clung to a log
or climbed
to the polished rock
beside
the tortoise back
how it is that I simply
found myself
in the sea
neither abandoned nor
rescued
but with all my senses
not only intact
but sharper
more present even to the lapping
water whispering to the shore.

Together
we will listen
together we will
find the answer
in the vast impulse to surrender
the moments in between.