Got Some River in Us
I
Rivers Remember Where They Used to Be
Long before man, rivers swirled and churned
with wildness, independence without witness.
Their voices soft cool or low rumble rushing—
water swallowed itself, renewing.
Construction of contradiction
that is the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta
traced back to Cretaceous
when waters later termed Mississippi
found a shorter route to rising seas,
pulling, depositing glutted soils
in deltaic cycles capturing wide river—
distributary flowing into new complexes
of saline marshes,
nutrient rich, estuarine water—
distilled essence of the not-yet
but to-be Deep South,
like a later day
Mississippi Bourbon punch.
Some 70 million years ago,
a river surged through embayment
when dinosaurs still roamed
near waters and dinosaur-like reptiles
swam in waters yet to become the Mississippi.
…..
This excerpt is from the book-length collage of a single poem in five parts and art about the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Got Some River In Us by Nancy Dafoe and artist Jamie Tate (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/got-some-river-in-us-by-nancy-dafoe/
Poet/author/educator Nancy Avery Dafoe has written 16 published books across genres. Her most recent ones include this poetry collection, the novel Yet in the Land of the Living (WingsePress, 2024), and a memoir Unstuck in Time (PWP, 2021). Unstuck in Time won the Director’s Choice Award for 2023 from Human Relations Indie Books, and Socrates is Dead Again won first place for realistic fiction from Human Relations Indie Books in 2023. Her poetry has won numerous awards, including the national William Faulkner/Wisdom Award (2016).
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