Grubstake on the River
Don Hynes
I have a small grubstake on the river
where she breaks out of the high mountain
sauntering like an unfettered horse,
wild, unbridled and reckless,
washing over gravel beds and stone outcrops,
telling her own story before she drops
into the cut channels of the towns and cities.
She’s a woman how she flows
falling from ice caves above the tree line,
following her own course.
She doesn’t want the life
of a housebroken servant.
The original people knew her by name,
talking to her, coaxing her
to share her fish and healing water.
The merchants iron bound her
and you can feel the sadness
if you travel without motor
and smell the earth
along her rubble strewn shores.
Up here where she rides free
we don’t see many folks.
By our lonesome we sing twangy duets,
remembering the time of snow
and a dance through cottonwood.
The lyrics are gentle as her soft legs;
they don’t complain.
The fiddle scratches your heart,
the banjo reminding you to laugh.
They are old songs in four-four time.
If you tap your foot and listen close
you’ll hear the stones and something of yourself
rolling beneath her fast flowing water,
tumbling along on the slow slow journey,
river, rock and people
to the near and distant sea.
