Susan Daniels Poetry

when you put trust in
the river good things start
swimming toward your outstretched finger-
ferns reaching digging pulling up
mud by the root. do you know
our names are written
on the tongues of earthworms
kept deep down inside
their cavernous bellies and
in the morning canaries
find themselves unable to speak
for mouths so holy fruit-full of earth?
do you believe me when i say
we must become this breathing
the riverbed we make must be our own
though wrought from the colors
that made us- murky browns blues and pale
woolen soft grays spilling upward
into caves
which are neither cavernous nor dark,
warm small brown furs of rooms
with a few spots to lie down
and rest?

my body is young for love but old
in the wanting
it measures itself by lengths:
blades of grass,
the iridescent trails of decollate
snails and snake skins,
draping…