This River
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This is the river
that didn’t appear on the map

that spread across the end
of one of those endless two-tracks
angling off a logging road

or, perhaps, it wasn’t a two-track
at all, just a space between the trees
that you mistook and ended here.

No tracks but the curve
of deer hooves in the bank sand,
the path of ancients
disappearing into brush.

The river surges by,
its unmistakable clarity.
Even in the pines
on the far bank, each needle
sparks a single fire
rubbed from it by the wind.