These lines not drawn by us:
so peaceful so exciting.
Tall in its narrow channel, Adige
snakes past cities so petite
they leave no forwarding address.
Yangtze laughs at madness.
Saskatchewan says nothing of
The terrors it beheld.
Savagery at edge of Seine
and Orinoco, Rubicon and Volga.
Vast Amazon amazing everyone.
Is Mississippi still in training?
Does Yuba stupify with its precision?
What affable economy we wish upon the Klamath.
In a sweet childish hand the Mekong
scarred by magicmarker trails that leak
Onto Afghanistan in ghostly mimicry.
Inverted Cam makes merry in the crook of sorrow.
To think upon the Nile. And wonder:
Will I ever ride upon its slope of paradox?
Sweet Tamise (Thames to you) does not
forsake the pinkish people it has served.
And ages roll on ages while the Rio Grande riddles.
The Tiber sings itself as Tevere.
The Po plays havoc with assumptions.
Lies gilded, silent against thicket shores.
Los Angeles or Tigris cut
To fit both sycamores and swamps
In desert lens. Where will it end?
Lavish ecstasy; guess or expression.
Again again, these lines re-drawn.