By Sydney Guida

There, cradled in the neck of the valley,
Lolled at yew-laden shoulders of a river,
A sheepdog pants a smile,
Studying a sclera-white crane.

There, the river bares its belly,
Emulating the dog;
Arms outstretched, tongue hanging,
Gnashing its spit on half-sunken boulders
Like a bleating goat chewing his cud.

This place will change you in so many ways,
The river whispers to you,
Ways that don’t show in wrinkles at your eyes
Or aches in your hips.
You believe it,
Oh, how you believe it,
And you ponder, with gentling curiosity,
If water-memory will hold your frame
Once you leave.

You feel yourself moving with the wind,
And you let it wend you, yes,
You let it, and it changes your shape
To parallel the rilling riverbend,
To parallel the wander of the reeds as they
Reach their hands into the cobalt sky.

This mimics this and this—
The wolf turns herself over to inspect her beauty,
Finding her legs curl and yawn like a frog’s;
The thick-coated baby bear sees in himself,
Reflected at a lake’s edge, his mother.
This mimics this and this.

Sometimes you fantasize about
Becoming something of nature,
Where your fingerprints become rings of trees,
Where your spine becomes billowing rye,
Where the pale veins of your skinny arms
Transform into child-treaded trails of
Overgrown milkweed and lilac,
Where your throat becomes the river
And your voice its thrust.

Sometimes you fantasize about
The river itself.
Have you ever wondered if it missed you?
If the river spilled into its basin
Its lonely wails, churning itself dry
Over where the girl’s back is,
How she floated atop the surface as if
Carried by great elephants;
Where her feet are,
Recalling the way they spread to catch
Its gravel at the bottom of the abyss.

Does it capture other girls the way
It captured you,
And does it love them that way, too?
Or is every gliding body a tantalizing reminiscent,
A torment, a cursed thing
To be hated and thrashed about and disposed of
On a rocky bank?

Will your absence make it mean?

You will never admit to yourself that
The riverbed is no more hollow or full
With you in its blankets, that
It is kept warm by other things, that
It meanders gaily, empty of your weight.

You are licked at both ends:
The river lapping at your toes;
The sheepdog drawn to the sugar on your cheek,
Cold, then warm, then cold again.
Soon, you will wade into the water,
And allow your body to be wholly stained
With the glaze of a wet kiss.

You want to be a part of it,
You want to be a part of it,
All of it, the nature of it.

You are,
The river will tell you,
When the water rises above your ears.

This is nature here,
And that too.

And it will press a lumpy rivulet
To your chest.

–

Sydney Guida is a 16-year-old writer from Blandon, Pennsylvania. Her pieces are often lyrical, introspective, and rich in sensory details. She aspires to become a screenwriter.