POEMS/ May Mud Flats
May Mud Flats
When the locks closed tight
against the heavy rain to come,
the river sunk down, retreated up
dry inlets widened deep
above its dams– and left behind
broad dark lakes of mud,
strewn with rotted logs, old bottles,
clumps of river grass, buried
boulders, plastic bottles, fishing
hooks and lines, rusted tin cans–
all resurrected from their
watery graves. No place now
for kayaks or canoes, skiffs
or shells for eager rowers,
but a mecca for weary
shore birds sailing north,
place for prying, poking
urgent beaks, digging deep
for worms, for crayfish, crabs,
and mussels: flocks of sandpipers
plovers, dunlins, all tourists
for a day or two in the erratic
fields of mud between
New Hampshire and Vermont.
On display at The Sewing Studio as part of St. Johnsbury's Poem Town during the month of April 2015.
When the locks closed tight
against the heavy rain to come,
the river sunk down, retreated up
dry inlets widened deep
above its dams– and left behind
broad dark lakes of mud,
strewn with rotted logs, old bottles,
clumps of river grass, buried
boulders, plastic bottles, fishing
hooks and lines, rusted tin cans–
all resurrected from their
watery graves. No place now
for kayaks or canoes, skiffs
or shells for eager rowers,
but a mecca for weary
shore birds sailing north,
place for prying, poking
urgent beaks, digging deep
for worms, for crayfish, crabs,
and mussels: flocks of sandpipers
plovers, dunlins, all tourists
for a day or two in the erratic
fields of mud between
New Hampshire and Vermont.
On display at The Sewing Studio as part of St. Johnsbury's Poem Town during the month of April 2015.