Sam Audette The Charles River, (a fragment)
https://docs.google.com/a/uchicago.edu/document/d/1T4BxJvENBVD5DTJ4SI-bwG3GMtjB7haGmSA5EUvBb2I/edit?usp=sharing
THE CHARLES RIVER AND ME (fragment)
a collection of poems and reflection passing through
the colonization and pollution of The Charles River
TITLE: "foul and noisome, polluted by offal and industrious wastes, scummy with oil, (scoff- ff unlikely to be mistaken for water."[1] 1955
Finding bars, brick and clicks on the bottom
he scoffed, like a big cough
turns crying the heat of shame with
a fire bath prepared dips in like you forgot
little smalls. cracks in the rippes
She was cleaning herself slowly all the while
We have returned to hunter gatherers,
we have runagain, putrid smell
Lacking speed and force, the slow-moving Charles River will always be brownish in color, no matter how clean it becomes. River water steeps like tea through the abundant wetlands along its path. “[3]
‘The major types of pollution have been excess bacteria caused by sewage contaminating the river water; and excessive amounts of nutrients entering the river. During the warm summer months, excess nutrients cause algal blooms that can be toxic to animals and people.
John Blaxton becomes first settler in Boston-building his home near freshwater spring on western flank of Beacon Hill.
Grist mill dam erected at Watertown-first of 43 industrial mills to be built on lower Charles. Dam changes flow of river, captures sediments, limits fish migration.
Dam and mill constructed on current Causeway St. Mill ponds become repositories of industrial waste; 1656 ordinance allows dumping of ''beast entralls and garbidg'' at North St. without fine…
the colors in your history, your eyes
that you have been cooking
I think I glimpse it quickly, the shift into oxygen
knowing I only know Surfaces,
check the deep down cool blank waters
the depths of the ocean where river water see
the lava spewing from the mantle,
Oceanic provinces of natural greed
something very different from you or me,
westwinds in the boston diaspora
the oceanic loving greed, deep down there
that created some thing Balance some thing chasing itself
this is the river mouth, the cry call song beak, herald,
crimson ocean waft, renegade, spirit from the old lands lipping
in and out onto your desolation
hunger after something you won’t give to grasp,
350 meters, from the mountietes of Hopkinton
to its breath in the sea,
folding into wisdom and the deep ocean greed..