The Susquehanna: Something Short of a Sonnet

During my childhood, I spent many summer vacations at my grandfather's cottage on this river- the longest non-navigable river in the U.S.

             The Susquehanna: Something Short of a Sonnet.

                                                        

                                                          the Algonkian name, Susquehanna,

                                                          has been interpreted to mean “Long, Winding
                                                          River.”
                                                                    Susquehanna River Basin Commission

The river widens as it seeks the sea

gaining breadth but losing identity,

its Long Winding buried in a bay.

The Chesapeake is cherished, or so

the license plates say, while its birth

waters are forgot. That which cannot

be sailed is seldom romanticized.

That which cannot support commerce

can only be dammed with faint praise:

its poisons are not of its own making

but flow from the crops that feed us all;

its rushing power was ripe for the taking-

its muddy waters now part mirror, part wall.