From P.F.S. Post
ON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER IN WINTER
So many Marys grieving by the river
that I have to cover my ears
to shut out the sobbing and hear,
as if for the first time,
the long low sound of the water
and the train just beginning
to round the bend and blow
its way through the dark tunnel.
How many times I've sat
in summer: considered the chicory,
drawn the blue bridge flung
from bank to bank, or wondered
the names of the red flowers,
their throats like trumpets.
How many times I've not
given in to the weeping:
I can almost see her— the one
who lifts the Potomac mud
to her face and smears,
as if it were a balm and not
the original problem,
or the one with the bucket of fish:
she should return them but that would mean
letting them slip, silver and whole,
finally cast out. I'd rather
let them wander in the maples,
cold and insistent and crying.
I should swim somehow— wait
for spring; I've been waving
to that other a long time,
the one who wears the red
and not the blue scarf.
