A river
has banks that close it in,

canyons along its length perhaps,
coves, eddies, sandbars, drowned trees.

It can be marked on a map.
It can be named.  It can be dammed,

at which point the old path
is hidden but at low times

it may be seen, mourned,
recalled.

But mostly, it flows. Swiftly now, slowly now, it flows.
You may swim in it again and again,

but a river is never
the same place twice.  A trip upstream

sees what is, not what was, and never
what could have been.  All you can ever do

is swim in the river
now.

A violet turtle,
rarely expected and even more rarely mentioned,
bellies his way up the path
to the place where you will meet him

at a spot that physics, if worked
diligently enough,
could predict to the exact minute.
Fortunately, your brain doesn’t allow for that.

If it did, you’d either rush to meet him
or step off the trail entirely
to hide from him, and miss
so much.

When you meet, your attention
will be drawn to that perfect shell,
his brontosaur eyes, his morose appetite.
He will be steady and slow.

You’ll suspend disbelief for one second,
less perhaps.  You’ll marvel at the revealed
nature of azure-red and steel-indigo.  You’ll never
let a rabbit claim your life again.