| What the River Sees, What the River Knows Collinsville, Summer 2015 By Virginia Shreve, Poet Laureate 2023- This is the citizenry of the Town on the River. A handsome man with kind eyes walks his elderly pugs along the riverbank (later he drinks wine in his small perfect garden sketches arches and umbrella pines) Two beautiful women arm in arm cross the bridge to the farmer’s market they buy peppers, two kinds of goat cheese, three plums (they offer their visitor plums so sweet and so cold) Up the hill, the gentle painter dreams in his studio of light and Italy and the color of persimmons sometimes a piano The bearded man pokes under rock and rot along the shore, carapace and slime-gilded crevasse finds all decaying things equally beautiful and interesting he wants to see what the river sees he imagines he knows what the river knows River sees cloudless sky, rippled only by the shudder of wings August a deeper chiseled blue than July’s hazy dome shadows are longer, ripeness perched on its own trembling peak. A golden hawk soars above. River knows etude and opera parasoled picnickers in clover wreathes someone plays a flute someone sings someone falls in love again Does water have memory? unveiled sun glints off the silver pikes which will bloody Kansas and the hard wild rapture of destruction thunderboned roar of rush and smash the 55 flood uncorseting the river of bridge, rail, dam, road, tearing the child from mother’s arms she will never unhear the fading scream the river will steal your breath crush your ribs knows the knucklebone of infant as well as the spine of salmon knows how the boy tried to save the woman her foot caught in the rocks her eyes white with terror he pulled her so hard he lacerated her liver but it was too late the river is unforgiven River soothes the suicide ebb and flow like beat and pulse against bone it is all right to go on it is all right These days the river is genteel, sedate. Brown-limbed boys plunge gleefully off the crumbling concrete pilings of the old bridge. In a blink, they will be the old men meticulously tending the train set in the museum. But not yet. Paddleboarders glide like brightly-colored heavy-bodied water beetles. Young women in kayaks giggle at midnight. Tonight the sky is Japanese pink fog drifts like dream below the lacy iron one-lane bridge perhaps a lone fisherman up to his hips in the slow cool water stands unmoving as if he were waiting for his picture to be taken or even painted Now twilight is pearled, then indigo There are ghosts in the trees stars caught in the net of branches, a web of willow moon rises, sliver or half or full- faced River waits. Reflects all beauties ‘til, in love with themselves, they lean in and just before touching are once again swallowed by the river A handsome man with kind eyes walks his elderly pugs along the riverbank |
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