The Carmel River - John Steinbeck

[Larry Robinson]

The Carmel River 

The Carmel is a lovely little river. 
It isn’t very long
but in its course
it has everything a river should have. 

It rises in the mountains, 
and tumbles down a while, 
runs through shallows, 
is dammed to make a lake, 

spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, 
wanders lazily under sycamores, 
spills into pools where trout live, 
drops in against banks where crayfish live. 

In the winter it becomes a torrent, 
a mean little fierce river, 
and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in 
and for fishermen to wander in. 

Frogs blink from its banks 
and the deep ferns grow beside it. 

Deer and foxes come to drink from it,
 secretly in the morning and evening, 
and now and then a mountain lion 
crouched flat laps its water. 

The farms of the rich little valley
 back up to the river 
and take its water 
for the orchards and the vegetables. 

The quail call beside it 
and the wild doves 
come whistling in at dusk. 
Raccoons pace its edges looking for frogs. 

It’s everything a river should be.

	- John Steinbeck
	   (From “Cannery Row”)
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