(for the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death, April 21, 1910)
This poem recently won first place in the Big River Writing Contest sponsored by Chesterfield Arts and Stages St. Louis. The contest celebrates Mark Twain & the Missouri River Valley region.
It is you, the spinner and weaver, we see
big and brash and full of life
a painter with the finest and sharpest of tools
a splendid fool
squatting like a tired but ever-watchful sentry
on the corner of a raft of rough-hewn logs
floating freely down the mightiest of American rivers
in the dark of night
listening in on the quiet, guarded, late-night conversation of three boys
fleeing civilization in search of adventure.