Prospecting

By this river, where you were born, I saw you

panning the silt of your sadness for something tangible.

Perhaps, you thought  the dead  left nothing

the gold rush alumni are laughing close by.

Vanity, such vanity to try so many other

rivers, canyons and foreign deltas,

their exotic epithets entrancing.

Their currents will eventually sweep your dish away

return you to where you came from; hands empty but cupped.

await with starving heart the secrets

 hidden in the grains

And in that place and time you'll know the things you were not told

but not know how.