On the Yahara

"On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky."
–Whitman, from "On the Beach at Night"






Yahara Spring IV


The day is coming to an end and the beach
is but a darkening smudge as seen against the window.
Across the street the child stands with mother and father
as they move back and forth
from the bridge to the water and toss leaves
from the limestone quarry laid at the shore.
Ducks are so tame they preen only a step away,
their great green heads nearly phospherescent
against the dying light of the western sky.
The child can only know the great forces of clouds
and moving water by name,
that the stars beyond are born as points
that flash and seem to smile as they blink.
Traffic along Riverside Drive moves slow and seems
to hum a tune that mirrors that of the Yahara below.
So many songs sing the wrath of mourning
But in this scene there is no weeping or burials of things,
a song that is fresh of the coming summer
the coming flow of things as the ice recedes
and rejuvenates the stagnant rocks,
the coming of longer days spent on spokes rolling
over the warming sidewalks
and fish dive deep to cool their long and growing bodies,
the coming of the rainbow colored sails
that will dash past the white face of the Monona Terrace
as if the bodies of the warm breeze itself.