Song of a River Delta

Editor’s note: While still bathing in the afterglow from the May 2nd Common Waters: Delta event, Jeff Bos posted the following poem in the group text thread shared by our core team.

Song of a River Delta

Hearts blown open,
stories,
poems,
connections with,
and by the river.

Children’s dream boats
filled with inspiration
from stories of
past and future generations —
prayers floating on currents

Float past wandering adults
quietly wondering 
along the rivers edge
if she (the river)
would claim them.

Sweatered chickens,
story poles,
speakers,
witnesses,
calls to account and
to come together —
to ride the backs of salmon
toward a future worthy of this river
and the generations to come.

This gathering of humans,
fed with gifts of river, ocean, and land,
hearts full
from the generous welcome
onto these lands,
into this deep and living culture —

and full, too,
of the river herself,
of Cilla, of mother —
spill out onto this rocky, starlit beach
committed
to a new way forward,
together

believing in,
and belonging to,
a future worthy of it all.

- Jeffrey Duncan Bos