"Big River"

Aspen leaves floating
each a golden coin
made treasury of the river

Wet salt grass
leaf mold perfume her banks

Oxidized shapes gun metal gray
undulate in currents, beneath her silvered surface

Never one to deny her
identity
she flows
southward to a sad fate

Her soul
will twist with
insults
she must endure

Poisoned
made fat
with waste choking
on contempt

But here
in the mountains of her birth
her fate is unknown...

She carries
A golden cloak
on her back

She is
still
free

Mother Moon
gazes fondly on
her daughter's
singing

Full of joyous chants
soft lullaby's

She
sings to her mother
easing her passage
across
the sky

I crossed the river
Rio Grande
last night
Her real name
kept secret

With a solitary note
An Owl marked
My passage.

-Fin-

DS Baker