Wash Over Me

What this wild elixir, flown, delivers

By plunging from the heights to break below,

What icy, fearsome, awe-inspiring rivers

Will do to quench my spirit, I don’t know–

Except I look from indigo abysses

And faintly, I discern in blinding mist

What splendid existential bathing this is

That leaves me breathless, battered, cleansed and kissed–

What sense is left when all the course has thundered

And crashed over my head and hands and heart

Keeps in its wake the beauty left unsundered,

A seed to germinate and grant a start–

For nothing’s as renewing as a shower:

What pours out will remake me, hour by hour.