WSR Poetry Corner: ‘North River’

“North River”
By Lawrence R. Braverman

Our Hudson today’s
A dark undulating jade.
Sparkling green it shimmers
And shards of electric blue
As small wavelets mirror a sky
Of Persian turquoise too.

And the yellow— gritty yellow
Ghee in the undersurface
Yellow silt, like flakes of snow
In a globe, in your hand
Dancing soft, its drifting sand
In nebulous water
In the soft and thin of winter light.

And half seen, deeper still, an olive bass
Among the tendrilled water nymphs.
Wafting through those clouds of murk
A king of migratory kingdoms
Lazily flicks a fin
To disappear…

Heading north but then drawn south
Our tidal estuary undulates-
The gliding ships, those rocking geese
And soaring gulls whose cries
Ever move a poor heart to joyful beat
The once a week I can…

Leaving our river for mundane tasks
My vision is soothed, clarified; refreshed
Upon glimpsing those manifold levels
Like rainbows enmeshed.