The Course of Rivers, by Marilyn Gove

The Course of Rivers, by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer (USA) contemporary. Click image for artist site.

The Course of Rivers

Old River,
you’re a squatter by nature.
Nourished by pelting rains
and glacier’s melting, 
your watery heart erodes
the continental crust,
craving gully and waterfall,
source to mouth, reshaping the landscape.

Old River,
I climb the grassy hillside
where you flow
gathering strength, you persevere;
endure
the sublime task
of pushing forward.

I am young when I first hoist
your sediment onto the shallow
blade of a sturdy shovel.
I watch as your stream widens,
alters course.
I keep digging.
Waterholes appear and deepen.
Thirty farmlands lie waiting below.

I am like you, Old River.

I am the headwaters sprinting downhill.
I am the shifting and reshaping of rock.
I am aimless with meandering
through deltas and floodplains.
I travel beside you
watering all things along our path.

Marilyn Gove

Marilyn Gove lives in Plymouth, Mass, "America's Hometown," where the Mayflower Pilgrims first landed in 1620.  In September, 2024 she was invited to write an ekphrastic poem for a juried art show at Plymouth’s Center for the Arts. Marilyn “fell head over heels” for the genre and has been invited back to participate in the Center’s Ekphrastic event this fall. Her poem later appeared in the publication, Visual Inverse 2024, Words & Images in Conversation. Additionally, her work has been published in the online journal Verse-Virtual, an Anthology of Poems by the Tuesday Evening poets, and its sequel, Second Harvest.