The wind, too strong for a sunny day,
Whips the river into waves.
The tide is low, the water drawn back to reveal
The Hudson’s petticoat
Of sand, rubble and bits of broken glass,
The edges worn smooth over decades.
I stand on the levee on River Road
And watch a lone mallard
Beat against the wind, furiously,
Hardly making headway,
And thrill at the sound of waves
That beat against the shore.

I step onto a world rarely seen,
A peek at the underside of the mighty Hudson,
Who viciously tosses and turns
To rid itself of poison,
Battering rocks and broken bricks and
Bleached branches – driftwood.
And I tiptoe along its edge,
Knowing the tide will rise and erase
The trace of tracks,
So I step from rock to rock
Rather than disturb her,
And pretend I am on the beach down South
Where we hiked and biked and stood in the surf,
Too cold to swim, and looked for sand dollars
And forgot our mortality.

The distant mountains, purple and blue
In the crook of Kingston’s elbow,
The birthplace of the Hudson – a splash and sparkle
From lake Cloud of Tears,
Watches o’er its progeny,
Tenderly, as if a child as it grows and totters
To manhood.

A tug boat mumbles past,
The pulse and lifeline of the River;
Its motor throbbing into the depths
And splashing the base of the Esopus Lighthouse
That had watched o’er the shoals for
Generations.
Now a mere curiosity, a piece of history,
The lone sentinel stands bereft of the husband
That made her burn and glow.

Because the Hudson still inhales and exhales
With the tide,
Still bears burdens on her broad back,
It is thought she is healthy and strong.
But cracked teeth and broken bones
And menopause
Show her to be old,
Ill and unable to bear young;
Carrying an unwanted legacy of PCBs,
An inheritance too costly to settle,
Too much to endure.

“Your mother will live,” soothes the megalith
As it pours witch doctor potents down her gullet.
“She’ll be fine given time –
Good as new.”
Yet time has not healed the all too familiar
Disease.

Have we grown comfortable with her illness,
Shrug our shoulders and say,
“Oh well; it’s to be expected;
Old age takes its toll on us all”?
But through eons of times past
And yet to come,
The Hudson,
Fierce and gentle, mighty yet dainty,
Strong and now weak,
Embraces life and struggles
To reach her true destiny.

C 20 April 2001