Chattahoochee: Songs I Never Heard Till Now (for my mother)

I’ll be at the Decatur Book Festival, one of Atlanta’s premier literary events, October 4, signing copies of The Tears of Things: Poems (Booth 46, East Ponce de Leon Avenue). That’s why I’ve chosen to read a poem inspired by the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, a series of parklands along a 48-mile stretch of the Chattahoochee River in metro Atlanta.

One of the sites in Sandy Springs provided a respite from the city’s hurried pace when I lived in Atlanta. I loved to walk the trails and watch tubers floating down the river, fishermen casting their lines, and wildlife thriving in this oasis.

My mother grew up in Atlanta. She loved sports, especially swimming and diving, so I wonder whether she ventured to the Chattahoochee to boat, swim, or fish. I like to think she loved the river, as I did decades later.

Chattahoochee: Songs I Never Heard Till Now

The rush of I-285 sweeps me awake,

like the interior call of a conch shell

with a dry ocean trapped in its pink chamber,

and I retreat to the Chattahoochee,

hidden from Atlanta traffic lurching forward,

groan by groan, in the idling afternoon—

beyond apartments stacked like rabbit warrens

and the blue glow of bars where the nameless,

hunched over phones, munch pretzels and reach

for mint mojitos sugar-muddling Saturday.

On Powers Island, a fisherman, with name

and number Sharpie-scrawled on his life vest,

launches a rowboat in the easy pull

to drift behind a tuber flotilla;

I dabble my feet by a lichen-bearded log

heard by Canada geese on its bank-hollowing fall.

The sun slaps eddies, and brown-gray plumage

runs in short currents on a gander that hooks

his beak in a ripple, stabbing and nibbling,

then arching and shooting up his neck,

mate alert—his white cheek patches, like arrows,

paint his ebony head and crown.

I draw a sharp breath, rocked by the grace

of a flock, heads erect, paddling sideways

and honking, tugged southward, and mourn

the questions never asked of my mother:

Did you paddle the river and cast long,

slow-motion lines—ambitionless to net

a mess of sun-flashed rainbow trout?

You, the dreamer, whose river fortune

I never knew, what tunes did you hum

to bankside gurgles and midstream rapids?