Passage

Hi everyone,

Back to the Amazon. Here’s another poem from Sounds of Rain, the book I wrote in 2006 after SANDY and I took a trip up the Amazon River.

Passage 

Roots slither around the boat,
heavy-bellied vines stare
with invisible eyes.

Dark as an alley,
this narrow-throated channel
tunnels through silence.

Mud sucks at poles,
swirls up shafts
like murky serpents.

Dense shadows take shapes,
unseen doves sigh warnings.

Then comes light, the tunnel ends,
we squint across a wide lake,
welcome reassuring heat,
move to open water glad
to leave the possibility
of anacondas
behind.

(c) 2006 David L. Harrison, all rights reserved