I Hear There is a River Underground

Murmuring voices whisper my fears
at the lip of the cave.
You swear they are just
_____a susurrus of streams,
indifference mounting an echo,
making mouths
_____at nothing,

_____but the growling
hollows me the way a tree dies
at the core:
_____diseased heartwood
moribund while cambium persists.

Another swimmer, local girl,
hovers for a moment at the edge, small
caution, then she leaps.

_____I can almost
hear the wind slide through her
agile body like a flute,
meting out a trill
as she, brave embouchure, finds
rest around the province of the tune.

Photo by Brooke Gottmeier

The acrostic guiding this draft is mayim hamah chamar: “though its waters roar and foam,” from Psalm 46. Verses 2-5 describe the terrors of earthquake and storm as “mountains quake with their surging.” Yet the psalmist resolves not to be afraid: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.” I’m using a photograph by Brooke Gottmeier to consider, through this poem, what happens when the refuge itself is scary? Brooke visited an underground lagoon known mostly to locals in Kauai, yet couldn’t bring herself to swim in the darkness once she’d climbed down into the cave’s entrance to the pool. Her photograph is her failure, in a sense, taken as she emerged from the cave without enjoying its refuge. Trusting what we can’t see is terrifying. Refuge isn’t peaceful every time, and often introduces its own set of challenges. The image of the hollowed tree, dying from the inside, led me to reflect that letting go that core of self, diseased by fear and ego, can lead to courage – pictured in the confident girl who has trusted the cave before. The local girl, in her practiced faith, occupies her own stanza without indented lines. There is no hesitation or afterthought for her, which the narrator admires yet cannot quite approach. In the trusting leap, the girl becomes another form of hollowed wood, and the wind or spirit surging through her makes a beautiful music that provides its own wisdom and comfort. This reminds me that I do better in my practice of compassion, mindfulness, joy, peace, when I am not the origin or end, but a channel through which other forces do their necessary work.