Reading the river (with video)

I read the river
The way gypsies
Read tea leaves
Searching the surface
For signs of truth,
Omens of things to come,
Remnants of what once was
My life lost in these eddies
This backwater
Of bobbing soda bottles
And expired condoms
Bits of me washing away
In the sudden flash flood
Of a heavy rain,
I walk here,
Searching the sides
Of this utterly dark stream,
For signs of what comes next.
Should I hunker down?
Or like the reeds
Stretch out to bend
With the gusts of wind?
And I am always surprised
By the outcome,
Always somehow managing
To survive
The worst of storms