Ode to the Upper Yahara

"Last night
she
came,
livid,
night-blue,
wine-red:
the tempest
with her
hair of water,
eyes of cold fire..."
                                  – Neruda, from "Ode to the Storm"

1.

Where will
you go
when the day
comes
where there
are no hindrances?
You are patience,
for that comes
with such a blue
vision,
through Cherokee
marsh
you spring
as an infant
from an unknown
womb
and perhaps
it is dirt
and rock
that you come
to wish home?
Eyeing
then the needle grass
loam
of the peat moss
you learn
the kernels
of soft earth
only until
that small river
breaks
and plunges to lake,
Mendota
another mother
shared by rain
and a thousand
others.