paradise, thinly veiled by concrete

by david vanthournout

illinois
hillbillies
400 miles of mississippi
big wetlands
shawnee
geese and ducks
blue heron
catfish, gar pie
bluegill
sunfish, crappie
racoons, muskrats
bass
frogs
cattails and crawdads
beavers
grass for miles and miles and miles
and buffalo

10,000 little towns
crickets
mosquitoes
coyotes
deer
next door to kentucky
and Iowa
and michigan
missouri and
indiana
rock island
center of the universe
everything turns around it
folded into
the river running west
with the rock river for a while
tufts of grass
breaking up the
concrete
corn
blackhawk
sauk
fox
Iliniwek
loud thunder
tall clouds
big rain

the little island for the newlyweds
with waterfalls
on the mississippi
right here in paradise

thinly veiled
by concrete

rock island crossroads
between here and everywhere
new orleans
twin cities
new york
la
boston
san francisco
rock island
at the center of it all

been watchin' this river all my life
this river is my life
this river carries me to the gulf of mexico
parts of me float a hundred miles up
parts of me live in fish out in the atlantic ocean
my water is everywhere
I am everywhere
no need to leave paradise
it will leave me soon enough

illinois means "people"
iliniwek, chippewa,
cahokia, kaskaskia,
michigamea, moingwena,
peoria, tamaroa,

wolf, bear
buffalo children
tears to wash away
the blue sky

eagles still gather here
even though the
rapids were lost
to white mans "improvement"
so we didn't have to walk
with our canoes
around the white water
the eagles still gather
they used to like to fish here
when the waterfell
onto the rocks
at rock island

when the winter came
the sauk and fox would live here
in long houses
open water even in the dead of
winter
falling water
on the rocks
made the fishing good
the eagles liked it
convergence of
life gathered around
this womb of the earth
from hundreds of miles away
sacred life giving
river
paradise

now
only thinly veiled
by concrete





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