In Motion

on the banks of the Savannah River

Augusta, Georgia

Why does a gull fly so far inland,

Skimming the misted river’s swirl and flow

Like white-sided stone or tooled flint

Blurred in the moment of flight?

Above the brown silt drifted down

And pushed along, water-color trees

Slide by the river’s edge, as if

A hand left them wet

And the paints ran before they dried.

In the odor of movement and motion,

Grey mist bends and turns

In streams through running trees,

And even I, on the soft-sounded land,

Am swept away by the slow river

To the gull-less sea.