The Merrimac River, broad and placid, flows down to it from the New Hampshire hills, broken at the falls to make frothy havoc on the rocks, foaming on over ancient stone towards a place where the river swings about in a wide and peaceful basin, moving on now around the flank of the town, on to places known as Lawrence and Haverhill, through a wooded valley, and on to the sea at Plum Island, where the river enters an infinity of waters and is gone.—The Town and the City
Lunae
What happened was the big ice ripped back like lightning
dragged its ass north tearing loam from stonestitching lenticular hills of till birthing drumlin
after drumlin calving kettle ponds and viningeskers across the earth like ‘roid roped veins
and then came water shaking off the shaggy freezebursting for the sea again and the river our river rolling down
from white mountains got bent against graniteand turned a hard tangle toward the east to reach
the rip and tide and up and down its banks were birchand ash and wolf and bee cuz sunlight lit upon the gulping
dirt at last all funk and fecund and by first eveningfirst tribes moved their breath upon the shore
called the water Merroh Awke sang it Strong Place.Martis
Called the water Merroh Awke sang it strong place
and in the spring when herring and sturgeon returnedwhen salmon walked up waterfalls they Pennacook they Wamesit
they Narrangansett Amoskeag and Pawtucketleft grudge and axe in the grass and dove for the catch
they drank in bamegizegak they talked of sabathey tracked spring deer from dawn through late summer
harvested the fall for winter and spoke of pale men hailingdown with their sideways sick and firesticks and sagamore
Passaconaway saw when their boats first landed and now oldhe tells his people they must bend against the storm that the wind
blows hard that the old oak shakes and its branchesare gone and its sap is frozen it bends it falls he says
peace with the white man is his final command.Mercurii
Peace with the white man is His final command cuz God
is a motherfucker hell we hammered canoes into coffinsjust by coughing in the river so by the time we carried our bibles
up their banks whole villages were empty but for some boneswith soil already sewn and pools of jumping shad we only had
to kick the still seething coals to get our fires goingwhile our kids played with dolls left behind by other days and days
rolled on we figured ways to kill the Indian and still stay Puritandamn King Phillip practically made us a country or rallied us rebellious
enough to dunk a different king and then came a big ass canalfrom the Merrimack down to the Charles and water was a will to power
especially when Lowell used the five-fingered discount to build a
textilemake us industrial then planned a town that taps that ole Pawtucket ass
to power the loom that we let a woman work at every day.Lovis
Power the loom they let me work at every day save
the Sabbath save my soul if I have to listen to that schikataka shika tak machine shuttle through me from dawn to dinner
but debts are due on father’s farm and really there is great funwith these women although the rooms are small and six to a bed
but oh to talk and rest my head on her warm hip when the whipof winter snaps the river when the hours go on forever
as we barter our flesh and hours for a dollar consumptionis a factor last week a child lost a finger and yesterday our pay
was cut and now these papists these French and Irisheven worse these unhorsed Greeks slip through the brick
and take our labor but we really we must all stand togetheragainst the way the work and wages worsen so from toxic dust
upon our tongues chant we want bread and roses too.Veneris
Upon rough tongues the shout for bread and roses too
spreads up and down the river from Lawrence to allthe valley so every weaver tubercular fevered and hung
with hunger stood in bullets bare toed to the winter evenas mill boss cops beat down mothers until at last the strikers
got what we wanted if only for a while cuz then the IWWmoved on to hotter headlines and the bosses whittled us away
and then the war and even more of them took jobs southand suddenly this town was down like too many others
looked like the Kaiser bombed us to brick and cobbleso before The Bust we were already busted even another German
phalanx of fuckery was only faintly felt by the 50s we were ridinggridiron gods Riddick and Plomaritis even some back named Kerouac
just to have something to cheer for in damp November.Saturni
Just to have something to cheer for in the damp November
of a city ain’t no small thing and when new jobs come we makea run of making it work but Wang flared out and gangs
rolled in like the TRG and Latin Kings and new tribes fishingfor the American scene Brazilian Puerto Rican and Cambodian
but still too many got lost on no jobs or dope but there was crackyou couldn’t smoke a light in which the city woke to what it was
what a valley could be where art and historymight be milled into handmaidens of hope and so
a celebration of self sort of slipped in along with that floodof oxycontin but that something sure ain’t nothing and the river’s
cleaner than it’s been for years the hawk and heronare returning and even Hollywood showed up for Mickey
for real could a town and river ever be more like Ward v. Gatti?Solis
Could a town and river ever be more Ward v. Gatti
they way they pounded the way they danced they huggedus into Sunday rope-a-dope rest to look upon the mess we made
along our way to love or money and too many bodies rolled overthose falls and too much of earth that cannot be called back
but maybe here there’s time here for breath and prayerto name what’s holy there and there before the burn of us
is snuffed and perhaps there’s no foot upon the treadleno fingers at the loom just the random warp and weft before
a doom unto which we will not know we movedand all the beauty of seeing beauty will be tombed
all sorrow for sins gone as dark as a sunless moonbut I am nightshade and I love the luster that comes last
and the lightning way the ice rips back.
