Sometimes I feel the streams of memory
overflowing the banks of any containment
I have erected to keep past dreams and desires
from flooding me for forty days and nights.
Water is not my element and it holds creatures
deep within me I do not know I can defeat
the way Beowulf once did in that sea that
has become a metaphor and so much more
dangerous. I worry how the past has a strength
that can exceed the moment, a dance that will
not be forgotten, a touch the heart still longs for.
“There’s nothing but now,” I remind myself
as if a lie like that can change the truth
and see the waters rise and consider the nature
of baptism – standing in the river, priest or
priestess beside me, one hand on my back, one hand
over my mouth, nose squeezed shut and my arms
crossed. The words spoken, the submersion, my
wet, sputtering reply as my eyes open. The brothers
and sisters of the deep having marked me
and I walk on the water to the shore forever dripping
with that knowledge I can’t speak of, forever
its essence in inarticulate splendor within me.
The fear of drowning gone.
-Byron Hoot
