"Playing to the River" by Jeff Daniel Marion

Playing to the River
by Jeff Daniel Marion

She stands by the riverbank, 
notes from her bagpipes lapping 
across to us as we wait

for the traffic light to change. 
She does not know we hear— 
she is playing to the river,

a song for the water, the flow
of an unknown melody to the rocky 
bluffs beyond, for the mist

that was this morning, shroud
of past lives: fishermen
and riverboat gamblers, tugboat captains

and log raftsmen, pioneer and native 
slipping through the eddies of time. 
She plays for them all, both dirge

and surging hymn, for what has passed 
and is passing as we slip
into the currents of traffic,
the changed light bearing us away.





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