"Flow on, river! flow with the flood tide, and ebb with the
         ebb tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor
          me, or the men and women generations after
          me!"

– Whitman, from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"


Yahara Spring III


To the millions of gallons that flow from the glacial
alluvium lakes at the mouth of the Yahara;
the gallons that flow through the wide bowl of Mendota
and sift through the upper reaches of the Taychopera
at the Cherokee marsh to us at the Yahara Bridge
where schools of fish stew underneath to feed.
To the millions of gallons that curve where the park yard still holds
the living ghosts of German immigrants
in their Sunday suits playing billiards and bowling,
as they chant to beer hall suites and children frolic,
to the millions of gallons that flow past the curved
park yard and on toward Starkweather Creek,
past the burial mounds above the shoreline protected,
Graham Park, Paunuck Marsh and Inter-lake at Squaw Bay.
How your voyage carries all our eyes of generations.
Under the tame air into worlds only known by water
we peek as the foil-edged jewels of sharp waves
and on into the more known mysteries of the city.