I walk the path of the waterwillows to find my way, gathering the river.
The weavers call for children to bring soft wool and spindles.
Their song and spring and cold mud river break the morning open,
I find a place to cover myself within their song.
My darlings, I gathered blue for you.
Work the sky and water into your weave,
and I will weave the reeds into the telling.
I tell of sunlight on the marshbanks and dew-webs on the waterreeds,
I tell of weathered forests with no endings,
split by silver rivers deep and slow,
clouded against the riverblue sky.
Cornflower and goldenrod and purple lupine by the sunrise
sweet over the hills, sweet on the water
and the chicory blooms fit for tea and weft.
Weavers, I have found sweetgrass for your loom.
My darlings, I have found a flower for your blue.
I seek the stream behind the long easy mountains,
green with sweet-scented spruce broken underfoot.
The mourning doves call above the valley.
The morning calls in the voice of five rivers,
the song of shuttles at the loom,
and the laughter of wool-gathering children.
I know the song of spring mud saplings to thank the morning.
I plant as I walk the path of waterreeds to find my way, gathering the river.
—
Constantine Brown is an eternally gobsmacked student of the environment. He gets dizzy looking up at the infinitude of space and down at the infinitude of life. She currently studies in a mycology lab and is a loyal harbinger of our fungal overlords. Constantine dreams of sustainable inter-urban design and regenerative agriculture in the Midwest. In her personal life, he makes Appalachian folk instruments and has a unruly pet slime mold named Slames Mond.
