i commute by bike to marquette university from my place in milwaukee’s east village pretty much daily. on my route, passing by the milwaukee river is always a highlight—a moment to see her beauty and reflect in heraclitean fashion on time and change etc., as cliche as it might seem. i also see how much damage we do to her, and how we’ve changed her features.

the tension between these two states is sometimes just too much, and one day i pulled over to look and smell and make a short poem about the ambivalence of the milwaukee’s flowing thru downtown. happily, the good folks at riverbed review published it in their new issue a couple days ago. you can read it here, and do check out the other good work in the issue too!

here’s a shot of the north branch further north where we haven’t bothered her as much…