An Invitation

An invitation
to this rock
to this now
leads me across
the gentle water
diverted from the river
by a boulder island
to this diurnal bat
grazing the air
drinking from the river
and finding suspended perch
in the sap green boughs
of a surviving hemlock
to this nest-building Raven
patrolling the corridor overhead
keeping watch of passing vultures
along Raven Rock
to this trickle
over moss covered stone
glistened with wet silt
to this garden of shade
where cool, damp air
brings me home
to my skin
where the weight of me
resting on this flat, sunken
garnet-studded ancient being
is pulled as by a magnet
merged, matching coolness
meeting texture of skins
mosses, glint of mica in late sun
and this River keeps sliding by