The Ohio Becomes The Mississippi And 8 Other River Poems

 

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THE OHIO BECOMES THE MISSISSIPPI


As rivers go, the Ohio

becomes the Mississippi.

As an end to racism goes,

in some ways Mississippi

is becoming more like Ohio.


 

HUMBLE SWORD RIVER

*
Towering granite mountains
cut by the river..
humble living silver sword..
staying not for victory
flowing seaward
toward her Lord
*
DIAMOND BACKED CUYAHOGA RIVER
*
From the Palisades
we saw
a diamond backed rattler
radiant in the sun
.. rippling his rattle
arcing to strike
the Cuyahoga Valley
to evergreen life...
.. in every drop of his river flux
shining with the sun's own lux
*
AQUA TRAIN
*
Rivers of peace
gather mass in their aqua train
.. their gentle ways
bisect without force
the land of Aquitaine
*
TWO RIVERS MERGE
*
The two rivers
flowed together
with few eddies of resistance..
before the one of more power
made the other flow
in his direction..
*
as Spirit ends
rebellion through
the effortless magnetism

of merging

*

THE MIGHTIEST RIVERS

*

The mightiest rivers
begin as a pooling of dew,
a melting of snowflakes,
a gathering of raindrops
which grace the grass
as they begin
their majestic march
from the mountaintop
and past the marsh
onward invincibly to the sea.

*

RIVER CHISEL

*

Can any sculptor's chisel

slice as deeply as the river

wed to time?

*

WHERE THE OHIO WEDS THE MISSISSIPPI MISSOURI
*
Above works hard the tug boat
   It churns and puffs and floats
     and ruffles and foams the coats
       of these two great saints.

                 Below the longawaited mating
                   of two giants..
                              profoundly peaceful
                                        only here and there
                                               eddies of ecstasy
        betray the great confluence
                 as branch braids into trunk

  Mississippi Missouri had surrendered
                 his desire for a wife..
                 knowing not that the Ohio
                 was waiting for
                 him
                 in the corridors of time..

                 not fireworks but waterweaving
                 in this most sacred silence

==================
Mississippi Missouri Weds Ohio is to C Connerton and all
   other residents of Cairo Illinois

Larry L Miller's third book will be about more than 7200
rivers in the world.

Diamond Backed Cuyahoga is to John Seiberling, his wife,
  and all those who have worked to preserve the Cuyahoga Valley
    May it be free of axes, chain saws, hunters, and fishermen

(Recently the National
Park Service has been
turning back some
of the wild into farmland.. a violation
of the original intent.)

 

 

RIVER BANKS

 

River banks curb great flow
as onward to the sea she goes.
Many suns she reflects
as her waters' volume grows.

 

-saiom shriver-

 

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