In the Narrows

In the Narrows I like the vine-thick crevices in the Narrows of the Chattooga, first leaves - it's March maybe they are fox grape, and wolf spiders; the lowbush blueberry's red bells, hummocks of bluets & moss, fallen holly leaves gold as monarchs banking, a little off balance or on, and flies. Who says a river has no tide need watch swallows flit in cliffs like attention itself, sandpipers in sandpockets, fiddleheads of the broad beech. Need stand among the hackberry, it's wormy nodes, and chew on the maple's samara the way memory does gnaw your bitters clean. —Thorpe Moeckel 66 ...