Life is a Ripple

In the river’s hush, a single fish drifts,

its fins folding into the quiet.

No urgency, no ripples of thought—

only the water’s slow breathing

and the sky’s reflection

swimming beside it.

The carp does not chase the current

nor resist it;

each twist of its body

is an answer without a question.

It knows nothing of maps,

yet it always arrives.

Rocks on the riverbed

do not move,

yet the fish understands their language.

It listens with its skin,

tasting time as it passes

in the cool mineral dark.

A sudden heron shadow

slips across the surface.

The fish neither fears nor welcomes it—

life is a ripple,

death is a ripple,

both vanish in the same widening ring.

Sometimes the fish leaps,

breaking the mirror of the world.

The air tastes strange,

but for a heartbeat it feels

the weight of nothing at all.

Drifting again,

it does not seek the leap

nor mourn the plunge.

The moment was the moment—

already swallowed

by the endless mouth of the river.

At last, the fish becomes the water.

No scales, no bones,

only the flowing that always was.

A cloud slides over the sun,

and the river,

silent, continues on.