follows the river as it bends <br />along the valley floor, <br />going the way it must. <br />Where water goes, so goes the road, <br />if there's room (not in a ravine, <br />gorge), the river <br />on your right or left. Left is better: when you're driving, <br />it's over your elbow across <br />the road. <br />You see the current, which is <br />what the river is: the river <br />in the river, a thing sliding fast forward <br />inside a thing sliding not so fast forward. <br />Driving with, beside, the river's flow is good. <br />Another pleasure, driving against it: it's the same river <br />someone else will see <br />somewhere else downstream -- same play, <br />new theater, different set. <br />Wide, shallow, fairly fast, <br />roundy-stone streambed, rocky-land river, <br />it turns there or here -- the ground <br />telling it so -- draining dull <br />mountains to the north, <br />migrating, feeding a few hard-fleshed fish <br />who live in it. One small sandbar splits <br />the river, then it loops left, <br />the road right, and the river's silver <br />slips under the trees, <br />into the forest, <br />and over the sharp perpendicular <br />edge of the earth.<br /><br />Thomas Lux<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-road-that-runs-beside-the-river/
