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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4574 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Merrimack River Rhapsody Charles Levenstein The stream rushes down from New Hampshire loaded with winter detritus and demands to know who has right-of-way; the city, a transparent heart of waterways and ethnicity, spills over like a flooded channel after January thaw, whispers I love you in Canadian: the eyes of Cambodia light up, Haiti smiles, West Africa cannot believe its ears: I love you. A grandmother stands in the street in the old Irish Acre, her hair is protected from the icy rain by a babushka donated to the Salvation Army, on her feet are plastic flipflops; she reminds my friend of his old Greek grandmother, a peasant lady swept to the new world by wars and poverty, the bewilderment on her face is the same, how did I come from the fields of Cambodia to this cold gray place? We contemplate time and sip chicken-egg-lemon soup at the Olympia, decide on mousaka and tomato-stained potato, diet coke with ice; this city is washed by a human flood in every generation; women fish and gossip by the edge of the river, teenagers sample the water, are taught the tenets of environmental justice, the men stamp out plastic parts indispensable to the American imagination. |
