This is something else  – a river of regret,
something we all swim in, however we held ourselves,
whether superior, privileged, clean,
or rebellious, devious, naughty,
justified, victimized,
thoughtless,  or cruel,
or having missed out on the party

The river carries us all –
I may notice
who comes up next to me –
how we might never have
been within arm’s length
in our former life

But the tears we flow in
are just the same, and the cleansing
does its work on all of us,
and it takes us to somewhere
much farther down the bank,
somewhere we can’t yet imagine.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 20, 2021