One Drop

There is a silence that lives inside me.
It is a river I no longer clearly hear—
a sound barely remembered from youth
when water was all around me
and I swam in its freckled light,
silver streams.

In it I heard
new vowels,
joyous words
that gathered,
pulling me down
to capture their flow.

Until the hard breeze came,
the harsh sun following,
and the waters lifted—
drawn upward into the unseen,
a thirsty mouth without measure
that caused the shadows to fall.

So I pray,
hands cupped,
waiting,
the moment
I can drink
deep,
one
drop.