Waiting for a River

Across Lincoln Highway
Threading traffic
Passing through yards
Bursting with roses
And violet wisteria arbors
Flows the Fox River
Flashing emerald fire
Musk, water and earth
A heady fragrance
Like joining a lover’s
Moist embrace.

She flows in rhythm to time
Stroking her liquid thighs
Adorned with falling leaves
Slivers of driftwood
Like a woman
Well beyond the blush of prime
Wearing mismatched jewelry
Large and small
All glitter and bangle
Yet erotic and seductive.

I listen to river language
Her gentle murmur
Nodding me to sleep
Stretching myself
Beneath her leafy canopy
Dreaming of
Distant journeys
Beyond her immortal soul
Where time is not reckoned
By calendars and digits
But in ripples and skipping stones.

Half a mile south
She bubbles and rolls
Laughing down the falls
Then breathing a long sigh
The stretch after love’s violence
She ignores those she didn’t beckon
In deference to fishers
In hip boots and waders
Hoping for trophies
Something to show
She touched them
Made them men.

I do not want mementos
Trinkets and souvenirs.
Give me her soul
River thoughts
Long passages
Adrift on liquid fire
The confluence
Of yesterday and tomorrow
Blending mysteries and magic
On her muddy banks.

Make a fire, she offers.
Stay with me
Sit your body down
There is room for you
Here beside me
Room enough.
I will reveal my secrets
Open my heart
Give myself
If you will stay.
I will display my charms.

But give me this night
And I will tease you
With night hawks and owls
The silver leap of trout
In evening’s waning light
If you will rest beside
My river fire.
Stay
She pleads.

Step into my stream.
Mingle with cool waters
From deep cisterns
Gurgling from northern rock
Gushing subterranean wells
Unfathomable and cold.

Wade out.
I will caress you with my current
Pressing toward southern deltas
Bracketed with cotton and wheat
Factories and farms.

Tonight stars will burn
Reflected in her deep eyes.
Perhaps then I will speak
Make myself known
Naked and unashamed
Before the bend
Where willows brush her hair

I will tell her
How lonely I’ve been
Show my empty heart
The callus of my soul
With her I will find words
To match the echo
Between my ribs.

And will tell her
I am waiting for a river
To carry me home.