2018 1st-Place Winner G.G. Silverman

Meditation at the Waterfall of the Gods

by G.G. Silverman

We wondered how it would change us,

   the roar of an ancient river
as it hurtled from a cliff’s edge
        and raged into the mist.
           We stood there for mere
                moments, snapped a
            photo we’ll forget later,
        because eternity
             cannot be captured.

We cannot fathom

how this precipice was
        graven by aeons, how
    this river’s cold bed
          cradled its

child for

        seven thousand years,
what motes we
    are under the sky.

 
                Gods were once brought here
             to drown, and so we
        brought our sorrows,
            made paper boats
                 of grocery lists and death
        notices and overdue
                bills, then
            set them free on the river.

The waters hummed
        the secret
                 to everything,
   
                   surrender,
       surrender,
                 surrender.

G.G. Silverman practices walking meditation in wild or natural settings as frequently as she can. Her favorite place to experience nature’s raw power is the Pacific Northwest coast. G.G.'s writing was most recently nominated for the Best Small Fictions anthology, among other honors, and has appeared in Corvid Queen, So to Speak feminism + language + art, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, The Iron Horse Literary Review, The Seventh Wave, Iconoclast, Ellipsis Literature & Art, and more. She is currently at work on a short story collection as well as her third novel. She is also a visual artist and practices improvisational theater, which she believes is another form of connecting more deeply to one’s inner truth. To learn more, please go to www.ggsilverman.com.