The water is always stillest at night,
where there are no tugboats pulling,
no swill-bearded captains swearing,
no heart-cold calculators calculating,
telling it to hurry up and get along.
It likes to twist and turn as it will,
peeking in on the little thinking ants
who like to pull, swear, and count--
it admires the beauty of steel anthills.
They like to build things bigger, better,
and this makes the languid liquid laugh;
the ants, they want to want to be full,
they build only so that they can destroy.
The softly singing black velvet-water
catches the giddy glimmering starlight
of smoky black-lunged chemical plants,
reflecting it back in its forgiving mirror.
Rivers stare back wearing the ants' faces,
glossing over their precious imperfections,
mercifully accepting even the unmerciful,
for they always judge themselves worst.
It would cry if it weren't made of tears;
it still remembers a beautiful Grecian ant
who knew the secret of staring at water,
that the way of ascent was in the descent.
They can't see the god in the murky mask
staring at the god looking from without,
they've grown deaf to the still-water song
and no longer dance to the river's tune
of always going to where you already are.
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