I’m in awe of this place, where my family got raised, a mysterious
universe I only saw from the other side, recalling the tall tales my family
told, the Tom Sawyer life they managed to live when by the time I arrived, long
gone, the remnants of the old mills like broken brick teeth, exposed best when
the brabble doesn’t disguise them, the smell of hard labor still lingering in
the soil when heavy rain washes down into the river, the paper mills, the dye
mills, the chemical company now the refuge of weeds and stray dogs, hardly
evidence to suggest this place once housed fish people could eat and beaches
where kids could swim.
The space beneath the falls littered with refrigerators, hot
water heaters even the remains of rusted cars.
Still, this is my Middle Earth, my Brandywine River, where I
still wander even as an adult, my cold water flat more home than the one my
uncles raised me in, a land where my uncles were raised, and my grandfather
before him, before it all got spoiled, before the farms vanished, very remote
as a kid when I rarely wandered over the highway bridge, then seeking the
mulberries in June. I still devour them, hands growing purple, a lasting memory
of my own, this land that raised those who raised me, lingering in my blood,
just as the river is, and I know when I eventually wander away, I’ll still
wander back here in my dreams, a regular river rat, just like my uncles.
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