Photo 17

Photo 17

ELLIJAY GEORGIA CABINS

RIVER MAJESTY ON THE CARTECAY RIVER

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

Far from the Rappahannock, the silent Danube moves along toward the sea.

The brown and green Nile rolls slowly like the Niagara’s welling descent.

Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire near where it joined the Cher

The St. Lawrence prods among black stones and mud.

But the Arno is all stones.

Wind ruffles the Hudson’s surface.

The Irawaddy is overflowing.

But the yellowish, gray Tiber is contained within steep banks.

The Isar flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan’s water courses over the flat land.

The Allegheny and its boats were dark blue.

The Moskowa is gray boats.

The Amstel flows slowly.

Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes underneath.

The Liffey is full of sewage, like the Seine, but unlike the brownish-yellow Dordogne.

Mountains hem in the Colorado and the Oder is very deep, almost as deep as the Congo is wide.

The plain banks of the Neva are gray.

The dark Saone flows silently.

And the Volga is long and wide as it flows across the brownish land.

The Ebro is blue and slow.

The Shannon flows swiftly between its banks.

The Mississippi is one of the world’s longest rivers, like the Amazon.

It has the Missouri for a tributary.

The Harlem flows amid factories and buildings.

The Nelson is in Canada, flowing.

Through hard banks the Dubawnt forces its way.

People walk near the Trent.

The landscape around the Mohawk stretches away; the Rubicon is merely a brook.

In winter the Main surges; the Rhine sings its eternal song.

The Rhone slogs along through whitish banks and the Rio Grande spins tales of the past.

The Loire bursts its frozen shackles but the Moldau’s wet mud ensnares it.

The East catches the light.

Near the Escaut the noises of factories echoes and the sinuous Humboldt gurgles wildly.

The Po too flows, and the many-colored Thames.

Into the Atlantic Ocean pours the Garonne.

Few ships navigate on the Housatonic, but quite a few can be seen on the Elbe.

For centuries the Afton has flowed.

If the Rio Negro could abandon it song, and the Magdalena.

The jungle flowers, the Tagus would still flow serenely, and the Ohio abrade it slate banks.

The tan Euphrates would sidle silently across the world.

The Yukon was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed bravely along.

The Dee caught the day’s last flares like the Pilcomayo’s carrion rose.

The Peace offered eternal fragrance perhaps, but the Mackenzie churned livid mud like tan chalk-marks.

Near where the Brahmaputra slapped swollen dikes was an opening through which the Limmat could have trickled.

A young man strode the Churchill’s banks, thinking of night.

The Vistula seized the shadows.

The Theiss, stark mad, bubbled in the windy evening.

And the Ob shuffled crazily along.

Fat billows encrusted the Dniester’s pallid flood, and the Fraser’s porous surface.

Fish gasped amid the Spree’s reeds.

A boat descended the bobbing Orinoco. When the Marne flowed by the plants nodded.

And above the glistering Gila a sunset as beautiful as the Athabaska stammered.

The Zambezi chimed.

The Oxus flowed somewhere.

The Parnahyba is flowing, like the wind-washed Cumberland.

The Araguayo flows in the rain.

And, through overlying rocks the Isere cascades gently.

The Guadalquivir sputtered.

Someday time will confound the Indre, making a rill of the Hwang.

And the Potomac rumbles softly.

Crested birds watch the Ucalyali go through dreaming night.

You cannot stop the Yenisei.

And afterwards the White flows strongly to its goal.

If the Tyne’s shores hold you, and the Albany arrest your development,

can you resist the Red’s musk, the Muese’s situation?

A particle of mud in the Neckar does not turn it black.

You cannot like the Saskatchewan, nor refuse the meandering Yangtze, unleash the Genesee.

Does the Scamander still irrigate crimson plains?

And the Durance and the Pechora?

The Sao Francisco skulks amid gray, rubbery nettles.

The Liard’s reflexes are slow and the Arkansas erodes Anthracite hummocks.

The Paranya stinks.

The Ottawa is light emerald green among grays.

Better that the Indus fade in steaming sands!

Let the Brazos freeze solid!

And the Wabash turn to a leaden cinder of ice!

The Maranon is too tepid, we must find a way to freeze it hard.

The Ural is freezing slowly in the blasts.

The Black Yonne congeals nicely.

And the Petit-Morin curls up on the sold earth.

The Inn does not remember better times, and the Merrimack’s galvanized.

The Ganges is liquid snow by now; the Vyatka’s ice-gray.

The once-molten Tennessee’s curdled.

The Yapura is a pack of ice.

Glide the Columbia’s gray loam banks.

The Don’s merely a giant icicle.

The Niger freezes, slowly.

The interminable Lena plods on but the Purus’ mercurial waters are icy, grim with cold.

The Loing is choked with the fragments of ice.

And so is the Kama.

And the beige, thickly flowing Tocantins.

The rivers bask in the cold.

The stern Uruguay chafes its banks, a mass of ice.

The Hong-Chu is solid ice.

The Adour is silent, motionless.

The lovely Tigris is nothing but scratchy ice like the Yellowstone, with its osier-clustered banks.

The Mekong is beginning to thaw out a little and the Donets gurgles beneath the huge block of ice.

The Manzanares gushes free.

The Illinois darts through the sunny air again.

But the Dnieper is still ice-bound.

Somewhere the Salado propels its floes, but the Roosevelt’s frozen.

The Oka is frozen solider than the Somme.

The Minho slumbers in winter, nor does the Snake remember August.

Hilarious, the Canadian is solid ice.

The Madeira slavers across the thawing fields, and the Plata laughs.

The Dvina soaks up the snow.

The Sava’s temperature is above freezing.

The Avon carols noiselessly.

The Drome presses grass banks; the Adige’s frozen surface is like gray pebbles.

Birds circle the Ticino. In winter the Var was dark blue, unfrozen.

The Thwaite, cold, is choked with sandy ice; the Ardeche glistens feebly through the freezing rain.

John Ashberry, Rivers and Mountains

I came where the river

Ran over stones;

My ears knew

An early joy.

And all the waters

Of all the streams

Sang in my veins

That summer day.

Theodore Roethke

Cabins Professionally Managed by:

Stress Buster Vacation Cabins

Blue Ridge - Ellijay, GA

Specializing in North Georgia mountain riverfront cabin rentals - Ellijay North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains cabins

FOR RESERVATIONS

Call Joy 706-635-3952 or 404-791-4388

Fax 706-635-3951

email: stressbuster@ellijay.com

North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains - Georgia Cabins located in Ellijay, Georgia

North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains - Georgia Cabins located in Ellijay, Georgia

May not be reproduced without permission. Rates and availability of cabins are subject to change. All rights reserved. No part of this webpage may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission. lity of cabins are subject to change. All rights reserved. No part of this webpage may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission.