The Fissure People

A fissure in the gorge
was the last thing I expected but
as the water issued forth
in a whirlpool of decadent clarity
I felt the suffering of centuries in a place
called the tear duct of infinite sorrow
by a tribe that predated the Cherokee.
Tadpoles the color of kidneys
underwater skipped away from my
wading legs that knew not their
trajectory in swirling waters that
superseded my own force. This is where
nature rewrites my history, where it
erodes as it evolves.
Geology says the Appalachians are
older than the Rockies and I quiver at the path
an ancient arrow arched its way towards
deer or elk. It is written in stone
how old the dead may be and how little
the living remember of ancient cracks in
their genealogy.
The arrow finds its home in the base of my
memory tacking a hieroglyph from regretful spirits
in the spectrum of a sleepwalker coming to drink
from the source.