You come to a river

A poem about choices, the ones we share and the ones we don't

Photo by Lily Weber on Unsplash

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It wasn’t exactly a meditation; it was one of those narrative personality quizzes that were popular back in the 1970s, where someone walks you through a story inviting you to steer the narrative with your choices, and it turns out at the end that each choice reveals something Very Profound about your character.

Well.

Whether there was truth in it or not, there was imaginative power; it’s fifty years since somebody walked me through that meditation, and I still remember bits of it. This bit in particular.

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GUIDED MEDITATION                                                 2024


You come to a river, says the guide.
Is it wide or narrow, shallow or deep?
	Wide, I say, and shallow. I did not say
	what I say now, how teasingly the light
	played on the chuckling water as it danced
	across a bright mosaic bed of glossy stones.

On the bank of the river, says the guide, 
you find a cup. Pick it up. What does it look like?
	Plain white and smooth, I say. I did not say
	what I say now, how there was not one cup
	but two, one plain, one rich dark wood
	carved everywhere with vines and crescent moons.

When you travel on, says the guide, 
do you take the cup? And do you drink first from the river?
	I forget what I said. I would not say,
	now, if I did remember; I would not tell you
	how bright the water tasted, which cup
	traveled with me, whether I have it still.

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