Here are her timetable vows: one hour
at the river, then two in the library,
and then back down to the river again.
This rhythm bore no automatic fruit.
But a day came when suddenly the whole
thing sweetened and deepened. She found herself
on first name terms with concentration’s ghost,
while currents kissed the root of every book.
She’s upstairs now, the Shannon’s own reader,
within whose work the otters see themselves,
the one whose silence manifests a line
heard on the bridge, a line the sun makes true
by changing these black words into a shoal:
I read, I write, therefore all life is near.
-Martin Dyar
