A river, once green, seeps, wallows ‘neath weeping willows
in a lush delta, jade and emerald green.
The river, once wild, vibrant in abundant surges,
teams, streaming, screaming, weld with diversity.
Tropic marshes, lick clean the heels of trees evergreen,
that became fissured moonscapes of tumbling sagebrush and weeds.

A river once supported riparian, God-given enterprise,
now harnesses managed power, creating ecological disaster.
The river sustains nothing when it’s drained to a trickle
dehydrated, regulated until dried mud turns to dust.
Depredated, Mother Earth thirsts for a drink, e’en discarded drops.
The deafening sound of life dying reverberates, echoes, ignored.

A river, once green, hovers--misty-eyed--its’ throes passing
memories of its’ vibrancy of now silent waves.
The river waits, hopes, for showering somber tears--shed in grievance--
that could birth a resurgence of grand magnitude.
At every shallow ford there is a dream of grander things, restoration--
cattails and weeds (seeded) wait to burst forth and live.

A river, once green, God-given, life-sustaining, reposes at man’s beck and call.