Judging the River (Poem)

By Daniel Rigney

World's finest river? Be the judge.

If  depth is what you're looking for,

the Congo wins hands down --

its deepest point 800 feet beneath the sky.

The Congo has its shallows, to be sure.

But where it's deep, no other river can compare.

The narrowest river in the world, Mongolia’s Haolai,

is just a dozen centimeters or five inches wide,

a thin blue ribbon winding through eleven miles of grass.

Some may demean it -- call it nothing but a lowly stream --

but others see the fineness of its line.

You know the longest river is the Nile,

but did you know the widest is the Amazon?

For those who want the wider berth,

The Amazon is nature’s best canal.

The shortest river is Montana’s Roe, or else the D in Oregon.

What takes the prize depends on where you live, I guess,

and on the season. Rivers shrink and grow.

If rafting rapids makes you come alive,

then ride the fastest river you can find.

I'll stay behind and wave goodbye.

The slowest river is the Everglades.

That's more my speed.

You may have thought the Everglades were just a swamp.

But water sometimes makes its way through wetlands

at a lazy pace just fast enough to qualify

for river's rank.

Which river wins acclaim is up to us.

We draw our fine distinctions, fabricate criteria,

Award the prize.

Meanwhile,  the river doesn't know or care

what earthlings measure, think or like.

It moves along.

originally posted in Danagram

Cross-posted to Forest Greene at Our Salon.

Author tags:

river, old man river, longest river, shortest river, widest river, narrowest river, prose poetry, wikipoetry, best river, river metaphors, daniel rigney, danagram, ecopoetry, green poetry, belief/religion, finest river in the world, finest river, environment, travel