River

The crunch of Christmas morning snow
punctuates my stroll along the river’s edge, its lazy
sprawl toward harbour, all the mysteries
of the estuary adrift upon dark arms—rotted
log, crumpled maple leaves, a wild duck’s
perfect wing cleaved from any reason.     I see
a cougar’s paw print sunken in the snow
but I keep going
past noisy squall of gulls
past bald eagles coursing above
past the kiss on my mother’s forehead
an hour ago at her nursing home
past the tiny vole gnawing at my heart
past eyes as blue
as the kingfisher see-sawing
downstream until I reach the point
where the river ends and the other thing
begins.

~Kim Goldberg