River Portraits > Cambridge River Festival
(or Love That Dirty Water)

By Diana Der-Hovanessian derhov@juno.com

These kites jabbing ballooning air
have grown fancier since the years
of the be-ins when we were here
being in on the birth of “Boston Rock”,
singing praises to mud, down by the banks
of the Charles, loving “that dirty water”.

Now it’s clean. We’ve come clean.
We’ve come through South East Asia
and did not stay with Krishna friends
or black-caped Process who asked us not to part
our hair. We parted with them all.

Remember our raft that did not float?
The sailboat we tipped? The kites that caught?
In spite of all these portents we made it
back to the river festival and
dirty water that washed clean to fly
our heart shaped kites.