Shannon Cuthbert
Riversong
Everything in this land is gray.
Sometimes I wish it was a trick of the light.
Instead, a silver river blurs through me,
Dissolves my colors in its wake,
Turns birds shadow-things,
Their inverse twins tucked underwater.
I keep looking in to wonder
What anyone would make of me now.
Only the geese, hard-hearted wrens and rodents
Have managed, thrived,
Pressed these trees into pleasing civilizations.
Once I forgot this river was wild.
It called to me in disparate voices.
Pockets of sound catch hold
And won’t let go.
They shake loose,
Carry me snippets from untouched worlds.
Which ones? I want them all.
Turn each bend and
Discover the long loose back you ride
Is not stillness as it seems.
A woman downstream
Sings of November and its velvet dust.
A small desire blooms undisturbed.
Trees shapeshift in my twilight
As I paddle to a new home.
Shannon Cuthbert is a writer and artist living in Brooklyn. Her poems have been nominated for three Pushcarts, and have appeared in journals including Dodging the Rain, Hamilton Stone Review, and The Oddville Press. Her work is forthcoming in Sparks of Calliope and Lowestoft Chronicle.
Everything in this land is gray.
Sometimes I wish it was a trick of the light.
Instead, a silver river blurs through me,
Dissolves my colors in its wake,
Turns birds shadow-things,
Their inverse twins tucked underwater.
I keep looking in to wonder
What anyone would make of me now.
Only the geese, hard-hearted wrens and rodents
Have managed, thrived,
Pressed these trees into pleasing civilizations.
Once I forgot this river was wild.
It called to me in disparate voices.
Pockets of sound catch hold
And won’t let go.
They shake loose,
Carry me snippets from untouched worlds.
Which ones? I want them all.
Turn each bend and
Discover the long loose back you ride
Is not stillness as it seems.
A woman downstream
Sings of November and its velvet dust.
A small desire blooms undisturbed.
Trees shapeshift in my twilight
As I paddle to a new home.
Shannon Cuthbert is a writer and artist living in Brooklyn. Her poems have been nominated for three Pushcarts, and have appeared in journals including Dodging the Rain, Hamilton Stone Review, and The Oddville Press. Her work is forthcoming in Sparks of Calliope and Lowestoft Chronicle.