Dear river Meuse,
We’ll come wait by your side! In September, we’ll stand by your bed—or mouth or branch or bank, or whatever you prefer to call your flank. For now, we’ll wait until the watchers of July and August have stood their watch. Until our turn comes, we’ll sing a song. We made it up ourselves. Of course.
Song for the Meuse
It streamples through the riverbeds,
the topplest downst belowst—
a thread that binds its land to land,
and land to land to sea.
A thread of stone and sky,
the topplest downst below
A thread to swim within—
a plunge, a sudden slice.
Driftwood, and an anchor:
the Meuse will bring it twice.
Inland ships in outer space
curl into a quay.
A pelt, a load, a styrov foam —
the Meuse sweeps it away.
A swimming dog, his stick, the search—
we peer, we stare, hooray!
Your rippled skin, dear Meuse,
moves on gently with the day.
It streamples through the riverbeds,
the topplest downst belowst—
a thread that binds its land to land,
and land to land to sea.