Once again the wide river recalled. A story, a song
An artery of memory.
Coffee-colored from summer floods.
Meandering west, as I did long ago.

I hear waves lapping from a barge passing.
I hear that sucking sound
In the shallows, in the shoals.
I hear Granddaddy plucking an old Martin

On Birmingham radio, his high tenor warbling
Inside the wax of a warped 78.
I have never heard this, yet I can hear it.
I have absorbed it

Like the grit and sediment of tap water.
I have inhaled it
Like some Main Street fellow’s cheroot smoke.
I strum those three chords

The river taught me. Over and over and over.
I have lived the river beyond its banks.
I have kept 4/4 time to the river’s current.
I sing myself to the edge of the sea.

Hear Harold read this poem on sareview.org by scanning this QR code: