Before words, it was cold.
cold and quick,
clear,
and bruised
ice-water over verbal roar
before-beginning is loud,
confused.
We race from the sprain,
following threshold flow
buoyed by,
being load. Too small
to present, to adhere,
we’re pulled
and shaken
gurgle in the stream.
Life, energy and
meltwater
Beginning violence.
Our words are movement,
born by not
dying today, by
the sway, the stay
of judgment.
When to flow, when
in torment
to dart and eddy
in the lee of the spray.
Deepening water
in the rolling levels:
this is the bedrock swell,
our home in language
We are the
daughter
of that flowing well.