
Like the Wriggle of an Eel
Rivers are boring when they’re straight,
We’ve got the canals for that.
But rivers will race and rivers will wait,
As they twist through their habitat.
They’re in no hurry to terminate,
They meander around, and ambulate,
Through oxbows of a future-date,
Until they’re old and fat.
I used to marvel how they’d know
Which way to go to flow through ev’ry town.
But gravity cares none for to or fro,
For fast or slow,
As long as they flow down.
Rivers are boring when they’re straight,
But once they’ve earned the name of ‘great’,
They carve their many strands through delta sands,
While the hungry sea must wait.