Friday Night in Attawaugan

Desmond Dekker playing hard
and losing
to the rowdy river,
white and high
from the earlier rain.

Snapping flames in the fire pit
as particle board burns.
Kerosene lanterns in the trees.

Sweet smoke in the cool, damp air.

A quick old hippie with odd teeth
talks non stop of how he trims
and cleans the trails for a mile
up and down the riverbank on his side.
Talks of finding foxfire at night
in the decomposed logs carried here
by the spring thaw. Imagines the cavemen
finding it, saying, “It glows.
I’m going to lick it!”

He cackles on
about black snakes
developing intelligence based on years
around people, says the big ones
are the smartest because they’ve learned
the most about how to get along.
Knows all the best fishing spots
and is willing to share that with anyone
because it shouldn’t be private knowledge.

There are blackberries back up in there, he says,
that have never seen pesticide and are bigger
than his thumb.

Something invisible
is moving on the opposite shore,
but I keep my mouth shut:

stories like these
haven’t been heard
in a long time,
and they deserve
to be heard again
beginning to end,
with no interruption,
on a riverbank
in Attawaugan, Connecticut,
with “The Israelites”
in the background,
almost drowned out
by the sound of flood water
pouring over an old dam
as if it wasn’t there.