Lingua Franca

Sometimes I swim
with words
like cool, shaded
secret mountain lakes.

Sometimes they
are young untested
rivulets struggling
to become rivers
to pour turbulently
down.

Sometime they meander
and pause,
eddying around
small pockets
of sunshine
and dragonflies.

Sometimes with shock
they enter the ocean
and learn to speak
another watery
language
while feeling
drowned.

And sometimes
they hide
underground
in darkness
and refuse to see
the light.

© Copyright Eleanor Clark
25 April 2013