The River

A poem is like a river.
Something stirs beneath tectonic plates
deep in the womb
of creation.
Words come together
like drops
of water
growing in their surge
upward to the light,
erupting like a forceful spout
or gently dropping in a slow stream
out of the opening in the mind,
gathering in force,
rushing past
the boulder resistance
into the gentle channel of cohesion,
polished by the pebbles of definition
like a broad river
dividing into manifold rivulets
nourishing the fields of human endeavor,
or becoming
the strong flow of a tributary
carrying the vessels of inspiration
out into the open sea.