Markleton is a string of a dozen houses on one side of the tracks or the other, either between the river and the rails or the rails and the mountain. There are few houses and sheds, too, on the other side of the bridge. That would be Greater Markleton. Everything is linear in the Casselman River gorge.There used to be a railroad on both sides of the water. But the tracks across the way were abandoned decades ago, and now that is the Great Allegheny Passage, and you can park your truck near the boat ramp, unload your bike, and pedal all the way to D.C.
Georgetown is a world away. Especially with the water sound over stones that leaves you listening to your own thoughts.
Poetry does that, too, if we give it a chance, give it the time we need to absorb it, those few lines where every syllable counts, a chance to see if they touch something in us, stir some memory, become something only we can understand. That's what makes it art.
A few lines of William Stafford's come to mind, altered slightly for our purposes:
ASK ME
Sometimes when the river is fast ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life...
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the river and wait. There
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the moment exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
copyright 2010 by J. O'Brien, all rights reserved
