Loving the River

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