Two Rivers

That day before I crossed you I saw the Thames Where Wordsworth stood alone To pour his heart upon the wave. And I open mouthed wondered By the banks Of endless history For ever intransigent On the Thames eternal transience. And then I met you After the bus Had traveled miles beneath your tide We looked back And there this brown expanse Of water wide As the eyes could see, Too brown to be a natural sea I questioned your identity And with a certain pride My guide replied: "The Danube." And I saw for sure Tchaikovsky's peaceful waltz did still endure But something more A greater depth of human history Buried under mud. Here is where apart both still meet All the earth in one retreat One kaleidoscope of time Through layers of cindered years Burnt not by flame but heaven's tears Through igneous fortresses and lime. Here is the salt older than my blood Here is the soil ancient as my flesh Into rocks composed, I am superior mud To all this to terror to my eyes I am the king without my paradise Did some slaver from these banks Of tired wars slipped out to bay To join the new crusaders ranks Conquistadores guilty of Africa's decay? I seem to see their shadow still Moved by a tidal malignant will Bringing the Caribbean rim to tribute Before Urals and Caucasus and brute And here my silver, gold and dream Rose in the darkness like minerets And from the chimney stacks did scream The curse of islands and blue islets. The years are gone, their burdens gone Above each tide I sing a vestal dawn.