The River of Goings

~for Charles B.

“Go with the Flow” © J.A. Carter-Winward Photography

What happens when you go with the flow and so
you must go against the grain of your own character.

What happens when you go with the flow and so
you must sing with the chorus, but never get a solo part.

What happens when you go with the flow and so
you are pushed under water, doomed to drown in logical fallacy.

What happens when you go with the flow and so
you cannot jump in with your whole self, or you’ll make waves.

What happens when you go with the flow and so
you must hold the rope in the raft of capitulation as it
careens down the river toward a destination

you know will eat you alive, while you watch others
paddle upstream, toward something unknown, harder,
but perhaps worth it.

Do you teach your children to go with the flow so
they never become the butt of jokes or the outcast,
because we’ve been taught those things are unwanted.

Do you teach your children to go with the flow because
you might have tried once to not — and it didn’t
work out so well for you.

Do you go with the flow because the world’s opinion of you
is the only mirror to which you hold up your successes.

Do you go with the flow because it’s simply too hard,
too much, too little, too anomalous, to swim alone in a
sea of disapproval and frowning faces.

Do you ever yearn to grab hold of an ancient river stone,
so giant, so slippery with life, it takes all of you
to cling to it.

Do you ever want to hold to it, and find a different shore
on which to plant your feet? If you find the

courage to make your own way, resist the urge to follow a
path already cleared on that hill — a hill so thick with trees,
you can’t see the top or destination. That dirt path,

while a welcome relief amid the tangle of scrub,
is simply another way to go with the flow. No one

ever said forging your own way must be upright
or on foot. Climbing that hill might mean using your
fingers, each one. Your knees. The grip of toes; all the

strength in your shoulders. But as you ascend,
covered with mud and the scrapes and scars of your

adventure, the day will come when you
clear the trees… and the view will be
Infinite. The river below continues to flow, and

as you watch those who still travel in Rafts of
Certainty, digging their oars into the

water — mad and furious as they paddle downstream —
you will see: each stroke, the illusion

that it is their tenacity, their collective force of will,
which powers the very life

behind that river’s
eternal, roiling flow.

— J.A. Carter-Winward