RIVER RUN

The Tigris and the Euphrates

never existed at all even for a minute

that anybody can prove for sure

and you can just put away the photograph

the one of you by the bridge in Istanbul

or was it Constantinople 

see what I mean

even cities aren’t definite

anyway 

it looks like you

with the pale skiff beside the river

stuck there in the middle of the stream

in spite of its heeling in invisible wind

we all know

the stream itself

is never the same

even from one minute to the next

roll Euphrates roll

and whoever figured out the mystery

the one about snowflakes not being alike

thought he’d stumbled onto something

that isn’t anything compared to a river 

those things are just outrageous

when you think about it

refusing to be pinned down 

wide sometimes a mere trickle

long or shot like the Singapore

would you believe that river is half a mile long

no gravel or great rocks there

roll on Yang-tse

faint fragile finally deep

clear as an August sky

in deep canyons it goes

and through broad plains

roll roll Colorado

icy film covered with frost

warm bringer of life

destroyer 

sweet putrid murky

slow

betrayer

running smooth 

rough in the storm

forbidding inviting

the highway to where we ought to go

River Jordon roll on

rains come

the pace quickens 

trickle to stream to flood

roll on Missouri

red clay cliffs

hawks circle and ibis strut

Zambezi roll on

dead men bloat in lukewarm water

roll Mississippi roll

warehouses and docks

roll Swanee roll

catfish surface and dive

funeral pyres drift smoldering

Ganges roll on

Icebergs stay in the ocean

thank god

roll on Amazon.