It’s part of you, carves out your western border
Sometimes mist settles so thick
you barely see Peach Bottom’s power plant
or the serene ripples, the little waves
that trail early morning boaters
gliding across the face of the water.
You know the moods and fluctuations
spring flooding, summer’s evaporation
exposing rocks beneath the Norman Wood bridge
autumn roar of water down Holtwood Dam’s
channels, winter’s icy silence
reflecting an empty sky
It holds secrets you can only guess at
in the submerged petroglyphs, old
symbols and words from some other time
while bald eagles hatch young
to take wing with the turkey vultures
circling, circling overhead
You hear it calling, faintly at first
but then louder at the mouth
of the creek at Benton Hollow,
that place where the creek flows out
and the Susquehanna flows in, speaking
your heart’s language, an ancient tongue
