(image: Tower Rock, Perry County, Missouri)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
The River Moved
*
*
I get used to watching rivers move from up
to down. Then someone will remind me,
"The river used to be here until it moved,"
and I picture rivers walking slowly across
plains, opening another canyon for themselves,
going underground for a spell, or running into
dams--nibbled by turbines and turned into
a lake that sits and waits but never loses
its desire to find a sea. The way rivers move's
a note slowly written in cursive to time, whose
mail historians and geologists open. For instance
the famous river-boat that sank's buried on
a dry plain now because the big river moved.
"It's just a grave now," someone said. "Bones
are down there, remember. No one wants to dig."
*
*
Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom
