C.M. Rivers

"I only borrowed this dust." ~ Stanley Kunitz

Journal

  • A Great Many Sparrows

    You know there are a great many sparrows in a tree when your view of the tree itself has been almost completely obscured by the birds. There are three ways to see these birds as they leave the tree in the morning, a single entity swirling up and away, as if together they made a… Read more

  • Minnows

    Again, the whale descends, the tidal current pulls away.  The microcosm of Us gravitates to center. We touch silence with our collective identity, the Self that is linked to all things, the part that knows it’s not alone, that knows it is a splinter of consciousness, that knows it is born again each morning.  It… Read more

  • Nature’s Classroom

    The wood at the heart of a tree cannot grow without wind. Once again, nature informs humanity.   Read more

  • Safe Harbor

    Down on my knees cutting kindling in the cold still air, I don’t just think I’m the luckiest man who ever passed this way – I know I am. It doesn’t matter where, or when, you live.  It only matters that your heart stays open, that your heart can be your home, so that regardless… Read more

  • Birth of a Poem

    Eavesdropping on your observations with transcendental accuracy, the gleam of something half-buried catches your eye. You investigate it as if it were a valuable relic, bring more of it into the light where you can see it, turn it over with a delicate hand. Working carefully, you begin to chisel fragments of it away with… Read more

  • Cat’s Last Days

    He was smart, for a cat – something people tirelessly admire in their pets. And in terms of being a cat, there was little his eyes didn’t see.  But then he became a crippled old animal, no longer a threat to mice, chipmunks or birds. It was then when he himself became the hunted, by… Read more