SWIMMING WITH LEWIS AND CLARK - Poem

 

SWIMMING WITH LEWIS AND CLARK

Google says that fifty-nine people
Have walked or run coast to coast,
Not counting Forrest Gump.

Just enough to not be 'pioneering,'
But no one, to date, has swum
From Sea to Shining Sea.

For, asLewis and Clark found out,
No single river makes the trip.
There is no Panamerican Canal.

And those purple mountains
Drain in both directions.
You will swim upstream for months.

But, you can be the guy
In that John Cheever story
And go pool to pool.

Yet, that only works on the coasts,
Farmers don’t frolic much,
You'll have to love irrigation ditches.

Still, it would be something
To swim from coast to coast,
Like a salmon, unable to spawn.

Your nose prowing into the wet,
Your legs kicking through Ohio
Kansas, the Black Hills, Tahoe.

History driving you forward
As you focus only on skipping
The next portage ahead.

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