My words smell of rain
and thunder
I draw them from headwaters
in the north
from vapor and fluid and ice.
My words are steeped
in the peat bog
and visited by owls.
My syllables are fed
by the underground springs
in caverns of copper.
My vowels rise
from roots of the pines
flow over and under
consonants
seep through moss
stream through veins and culverts
fall over stones
pour through chains of lakes
to spill and fall
full of iron and ore into
the Great Lake
where everything stirs
at the bottom, unseen,
the bones and barrels and logs
held in long sentences.
I breathe in the mist.
At the river's mouth
waves rise, break and subside.
Light bends in the depth
and sound changes its speed.