From: edward field <fieldinski@yahoo.com>

The River

For New Yorkers the country dwindles away to the west
and there’s nothing in between us and the coast --
nothing worth bothering about.
I’m not going out there for less than a thou.

But driving to L.A., it gets more complicated
the country’s cut in two
by this alarmingly large river to cross.
Thank God we’re not in covered wagons anymore!

It’s hard to escape - no way round it -
the river goes way north.
Even up in Illinois it’s a menace --
every spring it floods the fields.

Don’t give me any romance-of-the-river shit,
St. Louis to New Orleans,
riverboats, bales of cotton, happy darkies Ò
they’re singing:

Honey, my bags are packed.
Just get me on Amtrak north to Chicago.
Luckily, you’re heading west
and there’s a bridge.

But once across it, you realize
you’re in the other half of the country
with hungry buzzards in the cottonwood trees,
and a New York license plate gets you the fish
eye.

So you hightail it to L.A.,
which is the only tolerable outpost for New
Yorkers,
not that the bagels are any good there,
and let the goddam mighty river roll on to
nowhere.