The River Without A Ruler

A thought is born —
not summoned by any throne,
but shaped in the hidden loom
of contact, echo, and memory’s dust.

It gathers form like mist on a valley’s breath;
without the valley, it could not appear.
Yet the mind crowns the mist as monarch
and calls its passing I.

Who signs the river’s decree?

No sovereign sits within its current.
Only the quiet inheritance of motion —
wave leaning into wave,
moment begetting moment
by the old laws of the earth.

The grammar of mirrors misleads the watcher:
it carves a face into flowing water
and names it self.
But the river knows no portrait —
only movement.
To know this is not to recite it,
but to stand barefoot in the stream
until the mind learns
there is no hand turning the tide.

And freedom is not command,
but clear seeing —
the easing of the fist,
the falling away of banks,
until thought flows as open sky
through the valley of being,
unowned,
unheld,
and endlessly free.

In grace,
Joy Davis
10 February 2026