Two Poems

Pentecost

A constant flow downstream
passes through a slight narrowing
and produces not steady sound
but an altercation between water
and water, water and stone.
Gulping laughter as the river
clears its throat and passes on,
slipping through watercresses
that resist what must be,
this perpetual escape,
try to hold it back a little longer;
as if so caught in fixed nostalgia
they can't welcome the continual new.

A storm rising, and the field of rye,
knowing and not knowing,
...