#confluence - Hello Poetry

They walked us down through cottonwoods the leaves rattled like small bones. Mud ****** at our boots. The river smelled of salmon blood and wet iron. “This is your turn,” they said. “Your turn to weave.” They sat us along the bank knees in the cold silt while the elders pulled story from their mouths hand over hand silver filament bright as fish scales in lantern light. I understood. Grandmother lived in those branches. You could feel her listening. The threads changed color as they spoke. Storm-dark pewter like the river before rain. Then thin as spider silk when someone whispered a name too sacred to hold long in daylight. “Now you.” I shut my eyes hard mosquitoes whining near my ears and prayed to whatever lived in water the quiet old saints who ride the backs of salmon. Then suddenly a net of words shivered into my hands. Wet rope smell. Knots tight as knuckles. Moonlight caught in every strand. “This one is yours,” they told me. “Now cast it.” So I stood there a skinny girl in borrowed boots and threw that net into the black breathing river. Again. Again. Months went by like that. Fingers raw from knotting stories. Rope burns in my palms. The net coming back empty silver dulling toward gray like old jewelry buried in river sand. Years passed. The river widened. I forgot the girl on the bank. Then one night my line ****** hard in the dark. rope heavy with distance and saw it threading through my own mesh gold. Not a glimmer not a trick of light. Your net had crossed mine somewhere far out where the current runs thick with shadow. Gold through silver. Silver through gold. The ropes crossing so often it became impossible to see where one ended. Some nights the river carried a sweetness ferment rising from the reeds thick enough to make the lantern flames dance. Some nights the current snapped and lunged dragging the mesh sideways until the rope burned my palms raw again Still the nets tangled deeper dragging strange glitter from the dark water stories bright as coins others sharp as broken glass. From the shore if grandmother had been watching she would only nod and keep weaving.

0

Mar 8

Mar 8, 2026 at 5:08 PM UTC

Kiki-Dresden

Gold Through Silver

They walked us down through cottonwoods the leaves rattled like small bones. Mud ****** at our boots. The river smelled of salmon blood and wet iron. “This is your turn,” they said. “Your turn to weave.” They sat us along the bank knees in the cold silt while the elders pulled story from their mouths hand over hand silver filament bright as fish scales in lantern light. I understood. Grandmother lived in those branches. You could feel her listening. The threads changed color as they spoke. Storm-dark pewter like the river before rain. Then thin as spider silk when someone whispered a name too sacred to hold long in daylight. “Now you.” I shut my eyes hard mosquitoes whining near my ears and prayed to whatever lived in water the quiet old saints who ride the backs of salmon. Then suddenly a net of words shivered into my hands. Wet rope smell. Knots tight as knuckles. Moonlight caught in every strand. “This one is yours,” they told me. “Now cast it.” So I stood there a skinny girl in borrowed boots and threw that net into the black breathing river. Again. Again. Months went by like that. Fingers raw from knotting stories. Rope burns in my palms. The net coming back empty silver dulling toward gray like old jewelry buried in river sand. Years passed. The river widened. I forgot the girl on the bank. Then one night my line ****** hard in the dark. rope heavy with distance and saw it threading through my own mesh gold. Not a glimmer not a trick of light. Your net had crossed mine somewhere far out where the current runs thick with shadow. Gold through silver. Silver through gold. The ropes crossing so often it became impossible to see where one ended. Some nights the river carried a sweetness ferment rising from the reeds thick enough to make the lantern flames dance. Some nights the current snapped and lunged dragging the mesh sideways until the rope burned my palms raw again Still the nets tangled deeper dragging strange glitter from the dark water stories bright as coins others sharp as broken glass. From the shore if grandmother had been watching she would only nod and keep weaving.