a river flows through the heart
of a nearby mountain
banks lined with sycamores
limbs luminous as moonlight
and the ghost of a canal
there just long enough
for Charles Dickens
to patronise it
now it's a rail-trail
looked after by local farmers
and in the late autumn light
it can still transport
i watch a large black ball
float sedately downstream
mergansers flushed by a jogger
fly low over the water
under the outstretched
sycamore limbs
with their summer hunger for sun
to make more baubles
i pass an Amish man
dressed in blaze orange
taking his rifle
out for a stroll
among crumbling walls
the exuviae of bygone quarries
doorways open into
what's left of the earth
soot-darkened soil
where Dickens saw
light gleaming off
from every thing
when he took a brisk walk
upon the towing-path
and after nightfall frowning hills
sullen with dark trees
which were sometimes angry
in one red burning spot high up
colliers turning those dark trees
into mounds of charcoal
to feed the iron furnace
its stone stack roaring
enough like a volcano
they named it Mt. Etna
so much radiance squandered
on an industrial revolution
one remnant section of canal
forms a backwater
floating leaves
still in their autumn red
suspended like memories
among reflections
i pass the former iron master's mansion
just off the trail
its gorgeous stone work
its collapsed porch
behind me in the distance
a rifle speaks
the river runs slow
and green
***
Quotes are from Dickens' American Notes
