juxtaposed drowning!?

i have no ores for the hours
but this black inner tube to navigate the
umatilla- both unimpressive and unassuming,
impassive? no, but nearly impassable
in places, in spaces with depth and dimention,
and depths too where i can't see the rocks.
did god make these waves, or did they make him?
it is another question for another day.

i dreamt last night that i was on the beach,
the ocean was there too
and i lay between them, the two,
mediating the ebb and flow of their
conversations when a girl
washed upon the shore, a friend of mine
from some time ago;
someone had died, and she arrived
just in time for my ocean dream,
neither of us could awake so they took her
away, and then the scenes, they died, or changed

and today i'm floating on river
that will eventually reach the swelling sea.
there are islands, or unsuccessful forks
and deer cross ahead and climb the steep banks.
the rocks are conspiring, they are growing
life now passes by quicker.

through the window on the door i see her
lying in a hospital bed, but her face is blurred,
or obscurred like dreams always do,
talk to me, wake up before i do
her voice lingures still when no words are said.

i am holding onto a branch, pulled by the current,
matt is approaching and we meet, touch, fall
and i am floating under water, dragged along the rocks
i cannot stand, i hold on until i can regain my tube.
matt's tube passess me, matt still clinging to the tree
i chases it into the swell and sucken limbs
the current is now pressing and i am pinned.

she is awake but she is a child,
throught the door i see a little girl
getting ready for bed as i drift away,
but she always was a child to me,
and i believe she always will.
these thoughts will monopolize the coming day
and make everything feel unreal.

i cannot touch, cannot move and being pushed
under i hold onto the dead branch.
my body is soar, weary
i know i have to stay above, to fight
the current, through the pain,
but first i must let go