Badtime Story

Like siblings of yore on the landscape,

ribboned close always: rivers, railroads.

Playing--in plain sight, side-by-side, not hiding;

where you seek one--oh, look--there's the other.

Long, rowdy sibling things: one loud, one low--

now masked, now sparring--whatever--they are 

like pandemic warnings, insistent--more forlorn by the day:

I think I'm meant to mourn, and--following them--get away.

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Note 1: We live between the river and the railroad, so I have lived experience of course; but this insight is from Krueger's This Tender Land.

Note 2: Toddler Nu used to pronounce the open e almost as a schwa eg. "Natflix" (for Netflix), "grat" (for great, which we still emulate for cuteness on family chat). 

Note 3: Things seem much quieter along the railroad these days--fewer goods traversing the continent or whatever--I don't know.

Note 4: I took this picture of the Red Cedar River last week; L claimed to be able to see hints of Fall.