DeSoto stood here,
and the Chickasaws buried their dead.
And burly stevedores wrestled bales of cotton
from the cobblestones on the levee
to the steamboats bound for New Orleans.
Now, buoy lamps, tiny red beads seen from the high bluffs,
mark the channel, and a necklace of bridge lights
spans the dark, muddy water.
As the headlamps dart east and west
beyond the river, the skyline of Memphis
subsides like warm wax
in the sultry, summer evening.
Richard Lebovitz is a former educator and editor currently involved in rescuing native plants and helping to restore wildlife habitat in Georgia. His poems have previously appeared in Broad River Review, Canary, The Curlew, The RavensPerch, POEM, Sky Island Journal, Tiny Seed Literary Journal and Town Creek Review.”
