Naming Your Child After a River

I have washed my feet in you.

Your eyes afloat with waste
and you can’t,
you can’t cry it out,

accepting me even if it taints you,
stretches your hips a little too wide
and burns the corners of your lips.

When he traces deep lines of your skin he sees
eternity, but you are young, mirror to the sunset,
joy that fills the blinds and floods
the room, and secretly he looks back at you
every morning and if worlds crumbled, he knows
you would lead him
back to the beginning
selflessly.

Your mother named you Thames and cradled you
in her arms knowing you’d be the tenth world wonder,

spread arms to teach you humility,
to make dirt into diamonds and lay them down
like pavement.

Your mother named you Tennessee so you would rip through the new world.
Nile so you could give back what was given to you.

You climbed up with stains gracing your legs.

I saw you sliding through stone and
splitting a mountain in two
the other evening.

I touched your lips and you swelled
and shattered and
clung to my fingers
like sunbeams clung to your hair.

Hadn’t mattered how many more
moons will find their spitting image
etched across your weary back.

I seized you quickly before you could evaporate and
I’d be left searching for another that would
draw meanders into my heart but never
quite fill out the path you had carved.

You rushed through ages and
peril and sights to be where I needed you the most.
I need you here.

Your mother knew that you’re colossal,
building yourself out of nothing,

named you after a river because she knew
you would only ever go forward and manifest your
destiny more fully than any other,
through a thousand hardships
as untainted as you were
the first time you kissed the land.

Reviews

[Demii]

aweh this is so sincere and sweet and sad towards the end, but a perect way to put it as
"named you after a river because she knew
you would only ever go forward and manifest your
destiny more fully than any other,
through a thousand hardships
as untainted as you were
the first time you kissed the land"
and a completely different aspect to look at it, and emotions you brought out of the river and then to the child, was truly amazing. I really enjoyed reading this.

[Little Birdie]

thank you so much! :)

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A telling piece that holds no punches, well done, good read.

[Little Birdie]

thank you x

[Ars Goetia Poetry]

Absolutely brilliant, my friend :)

[Little Birdie]

thank you :)

[Corset]

So many truly incredible lines in this poem, a mother's love and heartache rolled into one poem, especially loved the lines:

Your mother named you Thames and cradled you
in her arms knowing you’d be the tenth world wonder,

spread arms to teach you humility,
to make dirt into diamonds and lay them down
like pavement.

Your mother named you Tennessee so you would rip through the new world.
Nile so you could give back what was given to you.

You climbed up with stains gracing your legs.

I saw you sliding through stone and
splitting a mountain in two
the other evening.

I touched your lips and you swelled
and shattered and
clung to my fingers
like sunbeams clung to your hair.

Hadn’t mattered how many more
moons will find their spitting image
etched across your weary back.

[Little Birdie]

I'm so happy you enjoyed my poem! thank you so much :)

[Corset]

very beautiful write.

[Mark]

Thames Tennessee Nile. Most definitely a name to be reckoned with. This modern ode is in a style I find fascinating. I like it very much, mostly because I can give up my intellect and let my heart understand it.

[Little Birdie]

I'm very glad you found it to your liking, and thanks so much for taking the time to comment :)