River Crossing
River Crossing
after the manner of Robert Frost
I'd like to go by the river way again -
not the highway, all heat and hard-topped haste -
but the path that loops through the low, green grass,
where the cane bends and the birds keep no clock.
To walk with bare toes digging into mud,
plastic bag stretched overhead like a flag
of surrender to weather and wetness -
that was the old route, the early road home.
There is a bridge, sure - solid, quarter mile
upriver, with its rusting nails and rail -
but it never felt like mine. A thing built
by others who feared the river’s shifting
mood. Better to feel the flood’s cold shiver
teasing your ribs, or dragging at your knees,
than trust to someone else’s timbers.
Water, I find, is more honest than men.
I was small when I learned to cross alone,
though always with eyes from shore watching me -
a brother’s, a cousin’s, a neighbor’s glance,
or the old man with the limp who smoked leaves
and called us fish children. He had a way
of knowing who'd slip, who'd make it safely,
who'd dawdle on purpose just to soak feet
so they'd be sent back barefoot through the yard.
I’ve seen a girl cross with a baby slung
to hip, skirts held up in a practiced fist,
her other hand hauling a child near drowned
in laughter and water. They’d all arrive
damp but proud, and no one dared call them less.
We learned early the power of holding
your chin up - not out of pride, but to keep
your mouth above the pull of the current.
It’s the same river we bathed in at dawn,
same one we fetched water from before meals,
same one that carried away our secrets
when whispered to stones and tossed midstream.
Evenings, I’d find pails left near the bend -
the ones that meant another climb downhill,
balancing water like borrowed riches,
while my friends walked slow, waiting for me.
And how sweet it was - when caught by surprise
by a neighbor heading schoolward in town -
to trail behind, dragging feet in the dust,
knowing that river lay ahead, hidden
by brush, and just far enough to sneak in
a swim. Uniform draped on a thorn bush,
bare as truth in water’s forgiving arms,
I’d float a while, wishing time would forget me.
You’d ask why any child would trade all this -
the games of stone-skip and water cricket,
the thrill of branch swing and cool-dive splash down -
for some blackboard with chalked-up tables.
Why memorize fives when the river gives
you lessons in rhythm, balance, and breath?
But we went, didn’t we? Mud between toes,
we marched into classrooms like little gods.
It wasn’t that we loved school more than play -
we just knew what our people had crossed for.
There was pride in the plastic bag held high,
and in dressing again on the far bank,
buttoning up like a soldier for war.
The river never asked for anything,
except presence. And that, we always gave.
But school - school asked you to dream upstream.
Sometimes, even now, I catch the old pull
to turn off the road and head for the bank.
To find again the wet path homeward bound,
and maybe pause near the pails and remember
the long walk, the waiting chores, the water.
And I think if ever I lose my way,
I’d listen for frogs or the slap of tails -
for the river, whispering: This was your way.
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