Ghost of a River

by Rebecca Lawton

Witness the dead

Build a wall
for green millions
Eulogize horsetails
that fringed water's edge
thick, lush as lashes
tough as old husks

Years ago alder danced
shuddered in hot wind
flamelike and fragrant
oh sweet decayed catkin

Commemorate summer
and who harbored us
cottonwood, willow,
live oak, and ash
Inter this gorge
in whisper-thin shroud
Draw haunted cloud down
from dry hills

Color the banks dun
match silted diggers
who lean, frail conspirators
cones hung in death

Bury this wall
steeped in the stream
that once braided past here,
a bright shining ribbon
Set deep this monument
baptized in mother tongue
christened melones
for smooth placer gold

Quarry a headstone
Polish gray marble
that cradled this river
Scour it stone cold
hiss-fine with sand
lustrous as slick slabs
of huge toppled gneiss
random as tombstones
in black bottom mud

Then carve for our children
Engrave to remind us
Incise for the living:
Stanislaus, Stanislaus

(First published in Review. Salt Lake City, UT: Utah Wilderness Association. 1993.)

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