Owashtanong near Hopewell Mounds

manitous fill
the silence where
we paddle

silently upriver
past trees ripped
up when icejams

broke free mid
winter torrents loosed
thru this haunted

land—trunks now
shattered lying
on banks scoured

clean, nearby
roots of aged trees
spiderspread above

washed out soil,
green growth
persisting above:

beyond the swamp
sirens traffic groan
on, strangely distant—

here the great blue
heron cocks his head
standing atop a

stumproot turned
skyward & eyes us
still as we pass

—David Cope