by Margaret Tsuda

It is good for a child
to grow up by a river.

There is much talk of
coming from
passing along
going toward
from a river.
Comments put into
sparkling form whose
luster is not forgotten.

It is good for a child
to grow up in a city by a river
where concrete can
be seen to merge into fluid
the static into the ever-flowing.

And a river can give assurance
of the power of beauty
to surmount defilement and
that is important
to a child
growing up in a city.

This poem appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on August 14, 1975, and was included in Tsuda’s collection Urban River, published in Newark in 1976.