Three Poems about the River – Analysis and Commentary

Many great civilizations originated along fertile riverbanks—Indian along the Indus and Ganges, Chinese along the Yellow and Yangtze, Sumerian along the Tigris and Euphrates, Egyptian along the Nile, or Roman along the Tiber—so that rivers naturally invoke mythic attributes. 

The river is a mythic archetype, specifically, a water archetype.

“Water represents life, cleansing, mystery, and even death. There are multiple ways the water archetype can appear, and its appearance can shape its purpose. Oceans often represent infinity and timelessness while a river could represent the flow of time, rebirth, or cycle of life.”

—“Water Archetype” (November 29, 2016) by Derrick Choy

See: https://prezi.com/ovfr6kyr298x/water-archetype/

“Almost any source of water will focus on the importance of life. Without water there is no life. A journey on or down a river is often a metaphor for life’s journey or a character’s journey, especially if the river is shown as a road or means of travel—pulling or pushing a character through changes. …Rivers can also be a metaphor for the passage of time…or the stages of a human life…. Since rivers are often used as political borders or boundaries, crossing one may be seen as a ‘passing over’ or a decision that cannot be taken back. In Africa and thus African literature, rivers are the largest sources of income and commerce and so have additional meaning leaning toward the source of life and morality and where the fight for good and evil happens.”

—Cabarrus County Schools

See: https://www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/site/

The river is a central symbol, and a major motif organizing the narrative in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn (1884).

“For Huck and Jim, the Mississippi River is the ultimate symbol of freedom. Alone on their raft, they do not have to answer to anyone. The river carries them toward freedom: for Jim, toward the free states; for Huck, away from his abusive father and the restrictive ‘sivilizing’ of St. Petersburg. Much like the river itself, Huck and Jim are in flux, willing to change their attitudes about each other with little prompting. Despite their freedom, however, they soon find that they are not completely free from the evils and influences of the towns on the river’s banks. Even early on, the real world intrudes on the paradise of the raft: the river floods, bringing Huck and Jim into contact with criminals, wrecks, and stolen goods. Then, a thick fog causes them to miss the mouth of the Ohio River, which was to be their route to freedom.

“As the novel progresses, then, the river becomes something other than the inherently benevolent place Huck originally thought it was.”

—SparkNotes

See: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/huckfinn/symbols/

This first poem is one of my favorites, if not my favorite. 

BRIMMING WATER by Tu Fu

Original language Chinese

Translated by Kenneth Roxroth

Under my feet the moon

Glides along the river.

Near midnight, a gusty lantern

Shines in the heart of the night.

Along the sandbars flocks

Of white egrets roost,

Each one clenched like a fist.

In the wake of my barge

The fish leap, cut the water,

And dive and splash.

This poem was originally published in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese, translated by Kenneth Roxroth (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1971), page 34.

The poem is concisely descriptive, vividly evoking an unusually lucid image of the scene. 

Evidently, it is the Chinese of the Tang dynasty, possibly earlier, who invented Imagism, not Ezra Pound in the 20th century.

Tenets of Pound’s Imagist manifesto:

- Direct treatment of the “thing," whether subjective or objective

- To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation

- As regarding rhythm, to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome

—“A Brief Guide to Imagism” (September 5, 2017) by Academy of American Poets

See: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-imagism

Tu Fu’s beckoning image of a traveler sliding downriver conveys an almost magical reality.

Due credit must be given to the quality of the translation, which renders the original Chinese in precise poetical English.

EZEKIEL 47:1-12

Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the façade of the temple was toward the east. The water flowed down from the southern side of the temple, south of the altar.

He led me outside by the north gate and around to the outer gate facing the east, where I saw water trickling from the southern side.

Then when he had walked off to the east with a measuring cord in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and had me wade through the water, which was ankle-deep.

He measured off another thousand and once more had me wade through the water, which was now knee-deep. Again he measured off a thousand and had me wade, and the water was up to my waist.

Once more he measured off a thousand, but there was now a river through which I could not wade, for the water had risen so high it had become a river that could not be crossed except by swimming.

He asked me, “Have you seen this, son of man?” Then he brought me to the bank of the river, where he had me sit.

Along the bank of the river I saw very many trees on both sides.

He said to me, “This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh.

“Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish, for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.

“Fishermen shall be standing along it from En-gedi to En-eglaim, spreading their nets there. Its kinds of fish shall be like those of the Great Sea, very numerous.

“Only its marshes and swamps shall not be made fresh. They shall be left for salt.

“Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow. Their leaves shall not fade or their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food and their leaves for medicine.

—1970 New American Bible translation

The Bible teems with symbols, of which rivers, streams, and flowing water are among the most prominent and significant.

Symbolically, the river Jordan is one of the most significant. The Israelites enter the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan, which miraculously parts in two to expose a dry path between the waters (Joshua 3:9-17), a prodigy Elijah repeats when he strikes his rolled-up mantle upon the waters, allowing him and his successor, Elisha, to cross on dry ground to the other side (2 Kings 2:8).

Soon after the two traverse the Jordan, Elijah transfers his prophetic trust to Elisha, leaving the fifty guild prophets on the other side of the river. When Elijah is taken up to the heavens in a fiery chariot and horses, Elisha repeats the miracle and crosses back to the other side. It is a sign that Elijah’s mantle is now in Elisha’s possession, literally and metaphorically. “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha,” acknowledge the guild prophets, bowing to the ground.

The river Jordan is also where John conducts his ministry of baptism and where Jesus is baptized.

The river overflowing from the Temple in Ezekiel is the same as the “River of Life” in Revelation 22:1-2. Revelation was written 600 years after Ezekiel. Both books of prophecy share key motifs and allude to Psalm 1:3, an introductory psalm which precedes Ezekiel in composition by over 400 years.

Traditionally, the “River of Life” is identified with the rite of baptism and with the waters of divine grace pouring forth.

A RIVER by John Poch

God knows the law of life is death,

and you can feel it in your warbler neck,

your river-quick high stick wrist

at the end of day. But the trophies:

a goldfinch tearing up a pink thistle,

a magpie dipping her wing tips

in a white cloud, an ouzel barreling

hip-high upstream with a warning.

You wish you had a river. To make

a river, it takes some mountains.

Some rain to watershed. You wish

you had a steady meadow and pink thistles

bobbing at the border for your horizons,

pale robins bouncing their good postures

in the spruce shadows. Instead, the law

of life comes for you like three men

and a car. In your dreams, you win them over

with your dreams: a goldfinch tearing up

a pink thistle. A magpie so slow

she knows how to keep death at bay,

she takes her time with argument

and hides her royal blue in black.

Shy as a blue grouse, nevertheless God

doesn’t forget his green mountains.

You wish you had a river.

This poem was originally published in Poetry (July/August 2009).

See: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/52656/a-river

Key to the interpretation of this poem is identifying the principal motifs—the river, yes, obviously, but also the meadow, the mountains, God, and death.

“The law of life is death,” says the poem, and it “comes for you like three men and a car.” Mysterious, the metaphor is foreboding.

Although repetitions occur throughout, only one line, the speaker’s response to death’s coming, is precisely reproduced: “You wish you had a river.”

If we look closely at what the poem says about the river and in its immediate vicinity, the meadow, both are understood in alluring terms, almost Edenic—“a goldfinch tearing up a pink thistle, / a magpie dipping her wing tips / in a white cloud,” “pale robins bouncing their good postures / in the spruce shadows.” They are the “trophies” of death.

Where does God fit in this picture? According to the poem, he is the intelligence, the author behind the “green mountains” that give rise to the watershed. Softly, the point is made that God creates the beautiful river and meadow that the poem associates with the time of death. 

The poem isn’t a prayer, but in expressing a heartfelt wish and acknowledging the role God plays at the time of death, it almost is.

Jordan River near Chorazin