RIVER POEMS

ICE

Most winters the river froze

A foot or more thick, visible,

Before the snows came,

By crack lines that struck

Down like lightning bolts.

I could step out fearlessly,

Though the loud zip sound

Of a fissure shot from yards

Away and ran between my legs.

As I skated the sounds of stressed

Ice followed me, just as I

Chased the schools of fish

That ran ahead of me. I was

Never quite sure what they were —

Panfish, cats, bass, carp or pike,

Never more than four or five,

Sometimes only one, like a finger.

They knew I chased them

From above their hardened sky.

Turtle

A neighbor taught me “trout-lines,”

Said they were named after trout

Having been gone for centuries,

If they ever were here to be run off 

By poisons more filthy than death.

(Even he, in his sixties, didn’t know

They were actually called “trot-lines.”)

Still some species of hardier stuff,

All ugly (why does ugliness survive?) —

Carp, suckers, bullhead and catfish —

Seem to thrive in a watercourse

The sun cannot pierce or illuminate.

The trot-line is for the lazy “angler,”

A stout length of cord with a big hook

Baited with a small fish and weighted

With a heavy lead sinker and thrown

Out as far as possible and left.

I would check mine every few hours.

Often when I was rod fishing I’d be

More intent on the trot-line because

The hope was to catch something big.

Day after day the line would droop,

Swaying in the Kishwaukee’s current.

Then the line went taut and walked

Upstream. Dad was mowing the lawn

Behind me. I shouted but he didn’t hear.

I pulled and it didn’t seem to resist.

Its head became visible by the pier,

A visitor from prehistory, carapace

Ridged with green diamond shapes.

I tied off the line, went for my Dad,

Who helped me haul the monster up

Onto the bank. “Snapping turtle,”

He said. “They can be dangerous,

But they make great turtle soup.”

He tied it to a tree and ran away,

Leaving it to wander, but thwarted,

When it came close to the river.

Dad returned with a hatchet and stick,

Offered the stick to the turtle’s snout,

Which grabbed, crunching on it.

“You’ll see. He won’t let go,

No matter how hard I pull.”

He meant to chop off its head,

But the beast did let go and bit

My father’s pinky. Blood everywhere.

Dad did take its head, swearing,

Breathing hard, then he threw

The turtle, head still biting the stick,

Hatchet, trot-line, all into the water.

As he walked away, he shouted,

“No more trot-lines. They’re too

Damn dangerous for a little kid.”

I told my neighbor, who said,

“I’d call him a damn fool, wasting

Good turtle soup, but I don’t say

Things like that to a neighbor’s son.”

DAM

The dam, built on the downstream

End of town, chevron shaped,

Concrete, with blocks of broken

Concrete laced with rusted rebar

Below, to break up the flow

Of only an inch or two of water

(Though some 80 feet wide),

Muddy, greasy green and brown, 

That slid in a silken sheet over its brim.

We used to dare each other to walk

Across the top, on a foot’s width

Of flatness, the water boiling

Around our naked feet, slipping

With each step on a thin layer

Of algae. None of my friends fell,

Though many others had, breaking

Bones and stabbed by iron rods.

The sliding fall was fast. Some died.

(Today there are warning signs

And fences to forestall foolishness

Masquerading as youthful bravery.)

I tried it once and turned around

After shuffling only five feet across.

I suffered the humiliation of jeers,

Though my feat wasn't surpassed

By my peers. Like water, it passed.

I fished for pike beneath the dam

And forgot I might have joined them.

Escape

Here, the river, my river, argues.

It speaks with whispered nouns

That name the parts of the word

I have come here once again to hear.

I say parts since the water cannot adhere,

As if having lost the battle to live.

(The old coliseums were flooded

And filled with elephants and lions

Who couldn’t drown but drowned

Even the gladiators who could swim.)

The waters are silent as ice tonight.

They are coming for me, getting close,

With their pikes and slung machetes,

And I’ve no place to hide — I dive,

Feel my ears fill, my lungs burst,

And, like all escapees, swim upstream.

They stand on the trestle looking down

And do not see a ripple in darkness

I swim deeply enough not to disturb.

When I’m alone again slipping I climb

A clay shoulder at the river bend.

I cannot rest, nor stray from the shore.

I marvel at the constant curvature

Of muddy banks. Nothing is straight.

I stop again and wait, a stone, hearing

Faint assurances I am here, now,

Just this once, and that’s enough for me.

Hobos’ Island

Hobos’ Island is surrounded

By shallow rapids, water on stones,

Its murmuring constant, dulcet.

I jumped off the train into woods

Banked a hundred feet above,

Onto a grass flat worn bare

By countless boots like mine,

Mud-caked, broken strings

Square-knotted, but no holes.

The climb down to the river

Was treacherous, muddy slick,

From constant spring rain,

But safe enough as I grabbed

Willow and poplar trunks.

When I stepped into the river, 

My feet felt cold and clean.

At first I saw three campfires,

Which went out as I portaged

My light, half-empty backpack.

I heard shouting and curses

And guns fired, I hoped,

Into the clear darkening sky.

Men crashed through trees

And ran through the rapids.

I laid down in cold shock,

Began to float downstream, hearing

Shouts rising through the woods

I’d just before descended.

I knew that was no way back.

Something bumped my shoulder —

A section of old picket fence.

I grabbed it, but didn’t climb

On until the fracas was well

Behind me. I lay on my back,

Not bothering to steer, just hungry,

The bread in my pack inedible.

The river deepened into silence.

A kind course, it stayed me from shore

As the banks curved right and left,

Like the creases in my palm.

I remembered there was a dam

Miles downriver, through town,

But I wouldn’t worry about 

What came next until it came.

SKY

We grew up in a small town

Near the smoke, dirt, and rust

Of the factory across the river,

The mud and coke-filled waters,

The drowned dead Dutch elms

Fallen away from rooted ground,

The century old iron trestle

Fenced off from foolish divers,

Floating carp and suckers,

Still gasping, twitching,

Unable to just drown and die.

A mountain of discarded tires,

Seeping sulfur, so slow-burning

They hissed streams of boiled air.

Such we’ve done everywhere.

Look up. The sky, cloudy or

Cloudless, storm-clouded,

Or spiked with myriad lightning,

Transfigures all into a paradise.

Speedboat

The river runs straight behind my home.

An iron factory spews coke down stream

And the ashes and willows were ripped

Into the water by a derecho last summer.

I sit with my sister on a concrete pier.

Tomorrow is her wedding day — resignation

Is a philter poisoning her halting speech.

The speedboat comes like a swarm of bees,

Yellow with long stripes of scratched black.

A man waves as he passes and ignores

My gesture to move right to deeper water.

He passes under an iron trestle and turns about.

Now he’s much too close to his right shore,

Is soon airborne, a flightless bird in flight.

(He’s hit a partially submerged concrete pier.)

The boat, now vertical, drops him backwards

And hits him with its stern as it comes down.

We hear shrieks like seabirds, see flailing arms

Try to move him toward the opposite bank.

The boat is caught in a tight circle and strikes

The man twice more before moving downstream.

My sister and I push a canoe into the water 

And try to paddle toward the thrashing man,

But the churning, circling speedboat blocks us.

People on the other shore wade in and grab him.

He has no entrails and they watch him die.

The speedboat continues to circle — as my sister

And I return to dock — to circle and circle

Until it runs out of gas and courses straight,

As though the steering wheel has been unlocked

By the empty tank, unbending its curve,

So the boat can crash, vertically again, on land.