The Corner of the Stream {poetry for lent}

My eighth grade literature textbook featured a couplet I've never forgotten:

On Seeing Weather Beaten Trees

Is it as plainly in our living shown,

by slant and twist, which way the wind hath blown? 

Aaron Householder's poem "The Corner of the Stream" reminded me of that poem this week.  Where the couplet asked if our lives are clearly marked by the forces that have shaped us, Householder's poem asks a different question:  Are we willing to be shaped?

That, sitting still, we may find we are changed -- what a lovely and frightening hope.

 

The Corner of the Stream

by Aaron Householder

 

The boy crouched in the grass

At the corner of the stream and wondered.

He did not wonder about what lay upstream,

Through the trees and far away to his right,

Nor what lay downstream,

Around the bend and through the trees to his left,

Because he would never go either place.

He did not wonder what type of tree it was

That he crouched under.

It was a tree whose leaves sheltered him from the sun.

That was enough.

He did not wonder about his reflection in the water –

The matted hair, the grubby face, the tired eyes –

Because there was no reflection to consider.

Everyone knows that only still waters offer reflection,

And though this stream was quiet,

It still trickled through the trees and past the rocks,

A moving body.

He did not wonder why his shirt was too big,

Or his pants too short,

Or why he wore no shoes.

These things caused no wonder at all.

He did not wonder about the small fish gliding past him.

They were too bony to eat.

He did not wonder if he could jump across this little stream.

He knew he could,

But why would he?

No. He wondered instead what had happened in this spot.

He wondered why this little stream turned so sharply to the left.

Why this corner? Why here? What caused this?

There was nothing in the creek bed to obstruct the water.

There was no rise or dip in the forest,

From his view at least,

That would cause the stream to change course.

And so he wondered what happened right here,

Perhaps long ago,

Perhaps with violence,

Perhaps not,

To make this little stream head a new direction.

And he wondered, also,

If he crouched here long enough,

Or maybe sat,

Or maybe lay down extended in the grass, like this,

If perhaps something might come along

That would bend him, too.

And he wondered if he might like being bent like that.

And he decided:

Yes, he might.  

Aaron Householder is Assistant Professor of English at Taylor University.  (blog) (twitter)