WELCOME TO OUR MONDAY MORNING FEATURE. We hope to share with you our readers the songs of the River, that they may either start your work week off right or recharge your batteries after a long weekend with the custys… We heartily accept submissions!
OL’ 84 by M.Toughill
Rolling down Ol’ 84,
I haven’t been this way before,
Blackened cliffs are all I see,
And Mt Hood up in front of me.
“The time has come for you to go,”
Columbia’s babbling from below.
“Toss out your crazy scribbles, fool.
Drop the car, quit your school.”
“We’ve been here much longer than you,
I, the cliffs, and Mt Hood too.
You and your stinking Highway gone!
Cities crumble, we hang on.
We’ll be hear when you’ve gonna away,
Dead and gone, but here we’ll stay.”
What can I do but shake my head?
Because she’s right, I’m already dead.
And all this racing round I’ve done,
And all the precious squandered fun…
I haven’t built a thing to last
But now it’s gone and in the past,
So I’ll keep scribbling on, my friends,
Here with you until the end.
On 84.
Divine Dandeli by Sharath Ram
The best feeling iv’e got,
cruising through the wet road’s of Divine Dandeli,
a touch of peppermint dew drops in my velvet cheeks,
listening to ‘paradise’ by coldplay,
a massage in the kali river by the gargling rafting waters,
canoeing against the smooth surface forces,
sure to give you a exquisite experience of love,
and a course of pain in my shoulder,
gives you a santa’s bag full of memories.
The Cataract of Lodore
by Robert Southey
“How does the water
Come down at Lodore?”
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon, at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And ’twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.
From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry.
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till, in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.
The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among;
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound:
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending
All at once and all o’er, with a mighty uproar, –
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
SUPERFREE by M. Toughill
Buddha was a Christian,
Never turned his back on need;
Jesus was a Buddhist
Finding God in you and me.
I’m just a Soul Boater
Of the Earth and Sky and Sea –
A Raft Guide, of the Universe,
I am Superfree.
