8 July 2019

By Philip Kuepper

Next the ferry landing
bluffs thick with growth
rise with sheer drop
into the shallow river.
It is an ancient river.
There is no telling who
the first humans were
who discovered it.
Native?  Nomadic?
Were there even any natives there at all?
Nomads, yes.  There is evidence,
everywhere, of them.  But, natives?
So far, the only known
natives anywhere,
were those of Tanyanyika.
After them, everyone everywhere else
is a nomad,
which is perhaps why the human race
lives so unsettled.  I, for one,
have traveled to twenty-three countries
to feed my insatiable curiosity,
while my intellect never ceases to travel
through territories of knowledge.

But returning to the ancient
river of this poem:
the Connecticut, penetrating
as far deep as Canada.

(20 June 2019)