|
Crossing Over
It was now early spring, and the river was swollen and turbulent; great cakes of floating ice were swinging heavily
to and fro in the turbid waters. Owing to a peculiar form of the shore, on the Kentucky side, the land bending far out into
the water, the ice had been lodged and detained in great quantities, and the narrow channel which swept round the bend was
full of ice, piled one cake after another, thus forcing a temporary barrier to the descending ice, which lodged and formed
a great undulating raft.... Eliza stood, for a moment, contemplating this unfavorable aspect of things.
- Uncle Tom’s
Cabin
That’s what love is like. The whole river
is melting. We skim along in great peril,
having
to move faster than ice goes under
and still find foothold in the soft floe.
We are one another’s floe.
Each displaces the weight
of his own need. I am fat as a bloodhound,
hold me up. I won’t hurt you. Though
I bay,
I would swim with you on my back until the cold
seeped into my heart. We are committed, we
are going
across this river willy-nilly.
No one, black or white, is free in Kentucky,
old gravity owns everybody. We’re weighty.
I
contemplate this unfavorable aspect of things.
Where is something solid? Only you and me.
Has anyone ever been
to Ohio?
Do the people there stand firmly on icebergs?
Here
all we have is love, a great undulating
raft, melting steadily. We go out on it
anyhow. I love you, I love this
fool’s walk.
The thing we have to learn is how to walk light.
William
Meredith
|
