Fall, 2007
Patricia Hanahoe-Dosch
Hydroelectric Irony
There is a waterfall inside the city
of Paterson, NJ, and it is
defiantly beautiful, like a falcon
hooded and caged in a room
of crumbling plaster walls
and office furniture. The rush of water
over rocks calls, the way
a raptor, released, throws its head
into the air, streaming its feathers,
and traces dangling from its talons,
flowing molecules of oxygen,
feather and leather currents,
but the traffic as we wind around
the Passaic river
is all we hear anymore.
In an old photograph
a rainbow appears across rocks
and turbulent waters
but now the spindrift is gone
the city is all
black and white, or sometimes sepia,
unless you look carefully,
from route 80, toward
Garrett Mountain where
spring and summer foliage
hide the asphalt with borrowed green.