NEW YEAR
River.
Sometimes running,
sometimes dry,
always scenic.
It’s seventy six degrees.
I descend to the river bed
below two concrete bridges.
This year there are quiet blue pools,
and narrows of fast running water.
My shoes crunch on
smooth, bleached, river rock.
The natural beauty is marred by trash
and graffiti below the bridges.
I walk the dry edges.
My thoughts lost on the sound
of moving water and the unusual
shapes of river rocks.
I can’t see the highway now,
but, I can still hear the traffic noise.
Soon I will return
to join that frantic throng,
speeding along like crazed
participants in some mindless
game without rules.
I want to slow it down.
I should change things this year,
but, doing so is as difficult
as pulling oneself off the wall
of a whirling Gravitron
at some county fair.
The river moves unseen below the rocks,
popping back up
in a gurgling torrent further along.
Never ceasing, it flows to natures
varied forces.
There is no stopping here,
only the illusion.
Change is made on the move.
Dennis Price
