By The River Poem by Mel Mackie

That night I sat by the river,
the slivers of light fragmented by ripples
on the deceptively still surface.
It flows here now, but this is a new path,
not the course our ancestors knew.
I sit at freshly carved banks.
I watched my dark reflection
thinking of the current beneath
and all it carries.
I was alone.
I am always alone.
I thought of the village and all I had left behind.
I knew that somewhere, upstream,
she was sitting at the banks,
calling my name, awaiting my return.
Nothing would ever change there.
The days would pass and the cries
would become more distant,
until the voices were exhausted
and would reach to me only as a whisper,
as echoes of a dream.