Something is burning in the Iowa hills.
As we move down the pewter river,
color of our ashen skin, we see smoke,

but don’t understand its meaning.
We travel this river, its hard weather,
as if to travel south is to travel

from ourselves. This river and these hills.
Even if, in our songs, and in our bones,
we long for

another river, a great river, many rivers:
Wolof, Fulani, Kisi, Hausa, Zulu,
Mende, Yoruba, Ndebele,

Mandinka, Kimbundu, pidgin,
Creole. We did not lose our tongues.

Listen to Monica Hand read “Along the Mississippi”

Unable to embed Rapid1Pixelout audio player. Please double check that:  1)You have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.  2)This web page does not have any fatal Javascript errors.  3)The audio-player.js file of Rapid1Pixelout has been included.

Enjoy this poem? Subscribe to the Oxford American.