Herakleitos I Poem by Brian Taylor

Entendu! Understood!
One cannot step
into the same river twice.
Fresh waters
are eternally
rushing in.
Who passed this way?
And when?

Wait!
Pond river ocean
all are filled
with eternal waters.
In tasting these,
is Liberation not found?

And yet the ancient Dragon sits
in a dried out rock pool
singing for rain!
She has burned her lover's letters.
Will her lover's tears suffice?

And the river is jealous,
resentful of bridges,
imprisoned in pipes
and drainage systems.

Even Neptune rages
with his trident
against the volcano
slyly plotting
under the seabed;
impotently chokes
with pollution,
hungry and overfished.

The gods themselves

have traded eternity
for the ticking of a cosmic clock
which crawls its way
towards the end of the kalpa.

For an alms bowl
of memories.