SUSQUEHANNA 2

SUSQUEHANNA 2

there are ghosts
in your country
I saw them dancing
in the mist all
along the Susquehanna
one cold January morning
just after 9/11
a couple of miles upstream
from Three Mile Island

and we were talking Civil War mlilitary,
myself and this kindly
African American
Professor of Sociology from
Harrisburg Penn State

him detailing how the Federals and Confederates
were criss-
crossing this territory
playing this cat and
mouse game
only to crash headlong into
each other at a
place called Gettysburg

of course neither of us
back in 2002 could have imagined
twenty so years on this
land would
find itself of the brink of
such a division
where the spectre of such
horror looming again

and those precious
twenty or so days
my sole experience
of America

of breathing the air of
its liberty, if
such is your belief

something the ghosts
trying to tell me, their
cold touch
    alerting  me

a new world and
forever graveyard

tension
in the spirit world
it seems far-fetched to bridge

the river
      with its
       Native American name

flowing with the forever
waters of such secrets

leaving
    the old lies, the old lies
to spread, make
good trade,
do good business

what ripples outward here I fear
ultimately chain
       in its reaction