There are a number of shallow streams
In the city, but only the one river.
Only the one river, but different
Poems give it different names.

For some it's Lethe, river of oblivion;
For others, it's Time itself, that flows
Through all poems, that laps
At the banks of words, slowly eroding.

Some name it after a childhood
Brook--a current that moved
Alongside their own,
As if they both emerged
From the same source.

Others dub it something
Exotic, as if to say: you are a river
I've never seen, except in imagination:
You are the color of my longing,
Which is deep and pure.

By Gregory Orr