Big Muddy

I've floated

slowly spinning

down your deep curves,

under a halo of stars

on moonlit summer nights

not wanting to go home.

I've skipped stones

over your eddy's

my booted footsteps breaking the skim ice

on sand bars as big as football fields.

I was watched over

by wintering bald eagles

framed by the frozen sky

reddening at dusk.

I've seen you river,

wild at Ponca

left free all over your wide valley.

I've seen your birthplace at 3 forks

3 mountain streams uniting

to rush to Great Falls

which is neither great

or a falls anymore.

Here near home,

river city, Omaha,

you are channeled, confined, sadly tame.

Yet, for me, you were my wilderness

my unsettled territory.

My city kid imagination

would not see the grain elevators

the marinas and the barges.

In my mind you could still be the river

that beckoned Lewis

enchanted Clark,

the Indian river which flowed past

a thousand council fires

and the lookouts

of long lost America.

The Missouri river valley, from Ponca Hills, north of Omaha NE. looking east towards Iowa.  You can see a little patch of river through that break in the trees.