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Saturday on the Mobile River
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Saturday on the Mobile River

by Dave HoekstraOctober 12, 2011

October 11, 2011—

The heart hangs like a thick branch of a cypress tree

over a wake in the narrow Mobile River.

Looking at the water and the sky

like the space between now and then.

*

Did you see the turkey vulture?

Flying over the side of the freedom highway. Look!

Maybe you were sleeping to a Mavis Staples lullaby

as I drove off into another day.

*

My father always said to stay cool.

He has the warmest of souls

He now sleeps and rests a trembling arm

And unforgiving legs that showed me the way.

*

Decency is the tributary into a sea of understanding.

He taught me that when I was young.

The Gulf breeze hits and I remember that kindness

As golden leaves fall

into

the

river.

About The Author
Dave Hoekstra
Dave Hoekstra is a Chicago author-documentarian. He was a columnist-critic at the Chicago Sun-Times from 1985 through 2014, where he won a 2013 Studs Terkel Community Media Award. He has written books about heartland supper clubs, minor league baseball, soul food and the civil rights movement and driving his camper van across America.

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