Nature & Place Prize, 2nd Place Winner: River Eclogue: Narcissus & Echo at the Bridge
It’s such an honor to share this poem by Dan Barton, second place winner of our 2022 Nature & Place Prize, with you today!
River Eclogue: Narcissus & Echo at the Bridge
after Ed Roberson
looking out on cement-framed river we barely recognize our boundaries
silhouetted in milky bronze rioting
at sudden confinement & while from above we can see this turbulence this shock & tumble
from endless flow & release the water consumes
our shadows as its own its sun-blemished tain ripples
through us too the constant play of light & cooldark carrying
what we refuse to acknowledge pale fluorescence of
a supermarket bag ghosting beneath a boat’s wake
plastic brushstrokes but also carp silvering past
our attempts at control rotten pilings & years of rust
reflecting back our longing & decline our frontier
where a foreign trapper once planted
a canoe paddle for the first time in the onrushing
trickle of fetid wetland
tributary & in staking claim drinking
from cupped palm that liquid both timeless
& specific to its cold
electric down the throat defined by absence
& fish glinting just beneath the surface abundance & a pulling
thirst at the back of the tongue attempting to speak
but falling short could we bear it
to let damp build on our arms swelling until its weight relents
the glimmertrail that remains like shadows dancing in the froth below
our gaze is all we have to know we exist
. . . . . . . .
what of this guttering canvas
that welcomes whatever light
paints in silhouette dead
fish palebloated bobbing
to waves’ staccato & the long gash
of a boat splintering past
reflections of buildings reflecting sky congealed
with oil slick metallic ripples you pour your image in
to disappear & reemerge
more yourself it glistens
against bluer sky but the picture you desire is only
a kaleidoscope of debris & sun your face is diffracted
by boats’ receding wake as the river takes
what’s pulled by threads of current only to change
once clogged by rotting flesh & sun
-clots of fat this still open wound festers in its slow current shadows
mistaken for substance but if we reached out
would they not be there swirled by clouds of silt & shit returning
an image we instinctively recognize as our own reflections cut by steel
shards of fish we belong to water as much as
paint it with our likeness half-drowned bottles bobbing against cement flood
-wall & it kindles our fallen expressions our wonder
unsettled by remnants of waves echoing to stillness
consuming our sight as much as late afternoon simmered
into evening even this can feel like home
though our faces eventually sink to twilight & the river mimics the hush of rain
. . . . . . . .
listen while the slowburn hum of cars
on the bridge is given what was
first heard as a voice is
only trickling from algae-choked pipes
remnants of last night’s rain
reverberating through city’s gut
to spill here echoing
as you call it music from caged mouths
of drains if we paid more attention we could
unravel what this guttering communicates
to river drowned rats & scraps of cloth
flushed from sight but would you want to
listen as traffic chokes behind us what you take
for language is only overflow & release
if we looked up we could see this longing in others a mother chasing her young
son to water’s edge voice clenched at the leap she withholds from
the boy who in a rush of laughter settles for a thrown stone
to announce himself to river a family of mallards startled landing in silence
on the far side from shattered wharf workers pour red
clay extending shore for new foundations office buildings
& retaining walls structures to frame our lives like running toward loved ones
at the brink of flight pulling them back arrangements & gestures
we accept as water does the stone the boy gifts
to surface rippled in a blueprint we pretend to know feeling it as familiar
each time we read the space between each wavelet we could
extend arms to distorted expressions even though they reach back
we’d find only water’s cold embrace reminders
we’re alien even as we yield to the other’s touch
. . . . . . . .
past the bridge the river flows & forks
pulling with it dappled orange
from autumn trees lined by walkways
as couples bundled in wool coats
cling to each other against the bite of wind
but could you feel it enough to
turn your back on a current that draws you
as it does waning sun electric & mottled
on a surface painted in silt streetlights
splintered by neon I know you
long for what you see in water’s embrace
to be contained whole within a body
but what you read onto it is all you have
& in the undertow fading with a glimmer
even though these bodies encased in foilglass & broken
by waterside lights of restaurants are ours the river makes them
glow crowned in blue
this much I know our eyes reflected & drifting like anthers blown
heavy with dew give back only what we dream into their pinpoint depths
evening is when the river is most itself blanketed by sheen of streetlights & building
fronts it keeps only what it can hide fish bottom-feeding seeds
scattered by passing birds even waves slow their dance
so the world around us returns to stillness but all the more unfathomable
as what was once milky bronze marred by glow turns bands of violet
punctuated in gold I know our reflections fade with the final beads of sun & we go on
but it is still a comfort giving in
to water’s endless pull we bloom
& all we know of ourselves is a spray of petals scattered by waves
Dan Barton
Dan Barton is a poet living in the Midwest, where he currently teaches writing while completing his PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Texas State University, and his work has appeared in journals such as Folio, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Grist, Permafrost, and The Bitter Oleander, among others.
