Current…

Current

I have swallowed mountains

grain by grain

long before your lantern

ever learned to burn.

You say I devour stone.

You say I grind the world to dust

with the patience of something divine.

You are not wrong.

I do not love you.

I do not hate you.

I do not notice you

the way you wish

to be noticed.

~

I move.

That is my only promise.

Through thaw.

Through flood.

Through hills slowly learning

they will not remain.

I carry the bones of forests.

The memory of ice.

The explicit erasure

of everything that says

I will stay.

~

And yet

you kneel beside me

as if I will accept

your confession.

The moss receives you

the way earth receives rain,

without question.

You call this honesty.

Good.

Because you were never

separate from the current.

~

Look closer.

Water was once cloud.

Cloud was once sea.

Sea was once sky.

Nothing keeps its name.

One day

your breath will enter

this same long motion.

You fear my indifference.

But understand,

I do not refuse you.

I only refuse the story

that the world was built

for the brief fire

of your heartbeat.

~

Still,

when your grief

quiets enough

to hear gravel shifting

beneath me,

you are not healed

by kindness.

You are returned

to motion.

And that

is the only mercy

I know.

~

Behind the poem: My poem Current was originally published as part of The Woods Have Teeth Collection put together by Kelly Trost and Wildwood Writer. Check it out!

The Woods Have Teeth Tonight

What does Current mean to me? This poem came from thinking about how small we are within the larger cycles of the natural world. We often move through life believing our joys, losses, fears, and ambitions are the center of the story, but nature operates on a scale that is far older and far less concerned with us than we like to imagine. The current in this poem is not cruel—it is simply enduring. It has shaped mountains, carried forests, and witnessed countless lives come and go.

What fascinated me was the idea that there can be comfort in that indifference. We are not outside the cycle; we are part of it. The same forces that wear down stone will one day carry us forward as well. For me, the poem is less about mortality than perspective: a reminder that healing doesn’t always come from being comforted. Sometimes it comes from recognizing that we belong to something vast, ancient, and forever in motion.

That’s all from me — Chris B.