A meditation on love and its unstoppable currents.
How do people face the love they cannot control? The River Cannot Be Blamed explores affection as a natural, unstoppable current—deep, sometimes dangerous, yet irresistible.
As the famous Heraclitus said, a reflection on his paradox: “No one can step into the same river twice,” highlighting the constant flow and change of all things.
The poem’s power lies in its bold reconstruction of classical philosophical questions, turning them on their head: though time and space shift, human emotions—especially love and folly—seem to recur in endless patterns. We encounter whirlpools of desire that leave hearts unguarded, suggesting the ongoing, universal cycles of human feeling.
The River Cannot Be Blamed
by Cathy Xinman
This is no place for me.
I do not know how clever the river is—
it will never learn to be fully awake.
If I were not equally foolish,
I would have heard the sound of the hunter’s gun.
Never believe
that one never steps into the same river twice.
Its eternal secret
is the last thing I am meant to uncover.
Love submerged
awaits my rebirth.
I am ill-suited to bear the coming arrival.
A sudden, beautiful gaze is disturbed,
and yet, it has the chance to move toward the light.
Though the river is deep,
we step into the same current.
This is no place for me.
Though the stars are beautiful, they belong to the sky.
I always console myself:
you belong to distance, not to me.
But you are action, like the river.
How could I blame it
for the whirlpools it creates—
like the stars, wild, spinning?
I do not know how clever it is,
able to leave my heart completely unguarded,
losing all reason.
Cathy Xinman writes poetry in English and Chinese. Find her English-language collection, Where You Love Yourself, on Amazon. You can also hear her poetry on her TikTok page. The Toronto Spark is on Bluesky @torontospark.bsky.social.
