Following Bouyancy

floating in the Eno on a hot day ... ahhh

Naked in the Eno,
    hot day,
sun beating sideways on
silver ripples,
pale green leaves,
turtles toasting their shells
while I toast my pale skin
beneath the yellow eye.

Tufted titmouse and chickadee calling,
the slightest breeze soft kissing
my vulnerability.

Skeeter bugs skate on the river surface,
purple violets and spring beauty blossoms
crowd the river's edge.

Oh–

“Follow your bliss,” the wise men say.
      My bliss is out here,
squidging toes into riverbed sand,
as a slow slow tide washes over my body,
                          only me
                    only me here
with the rest of the world,
                           the wild,
the world far from any well-marked track.

I sink back into the current
legs lifting, belly to the sky,
hair drinking in brown water,
grown heavy

floating
breeze and river

my soul a dogwood blossom
caught in the wind,
carried away by this hot sunny day
and the cool relief of giving in
to the riverway

the river’s way of
       drifting
             ebbing
rapids here and there
but rare,
               wide, deep course
finding the down-hill path
                            down …
                down …
down

following
perfection

mind gone buoyant
soft in the current
where-ever gravity leads.