the river

The river winds its way through the trees,
Passing wood lots set aside in the 1850’s,
Criss-crossed by bridges, built for multiple reasons,
Pedestrians, automobiles and even trains,
Past university dorms and classrooms,
Parking lots and apartment buildings,
Huge playing fields, often empty,
Sometimes overtaken by the swollen river.
It runs on and on, waxing and waning,
Like life, like the rest of us, surviving,
Tons of sludge and sewage dumped,
By towns upriver, coeds throwing trash,
Sometimes couches, bikes, anything,
But she rolls on, ever slowly, ever gracefully,
Past the municipal golf course, the baseball complex,
The city zoo and shops and factories.
The little river finally ends, joins another,
Just in time to float by the G.M. plant,
And take another load of waste,
Carrying it through the heartland,
Into the hills and finally into the huge lake,
That eventually joins other lakes,
And empties into the ocean hundreds of miles away,
An endless lifetime away from the very start.