The water churns --
no smooth laminar flow.
Each molecule fights its way
down the mountain.
Sloshing up into evaporation, or
dragged, swirling, across
the rocky bottom.
This is no mighty, muddy river
in a gentle glide.
It's pretty chaos;
just the kind I'm used to.
winter sky mixes: thick clouds, thin clouds, no clouds. light dances, briefly.
The mountain feels like it flows as much as the river that sits beside (or more so -- i.e. more smoothly.) The contours of a half-buried fist -- rounded knuckles and fingerbones -- sit in the mountainside, as if jutting out of sand, but soft & green. It looks like the whole hand could lift out of that mountainous topography, and flick away the buildings on the bank, or pluck canoes out of the river. (But now the water is too low and chaotic for any craft to pass.) So, maybe the ancient mountain monster will just put up its dukes to the world, shaking that great, green, soft fist.
a stately building stands beside the river, commanding the eye. but that ancient river remains unimpressed.
fall leaves will drop, and the winter river view will be unhindered.
When I was a child,
for a time,
the bridge was out.
They were replacing the rusty
iron trestle bridge
with a thick-slab concrete
monstrosity.
I could go down to the river,
and I could see the
scarred and marred
construction site,
& the big yellow machines
that sat dormant on the weekends.
But one couldn't cross the river --
not unless one was willing to get wet,
and was a better swimmer than I
(and it was autumn & the water cold.)
It was a strong current that swept
along between two steep banks.
It was not a great distance,
nor were they violent waters.
But that brown water moved with
such smooth swiftness.
I dream about the time the bridge was out,
now & again,
and wonder what it was
about those weeks
that still has meaning to my mind.
slender, sinuous tongues of willow leaf droop at river's edge.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 