The term for a series of regular curves
in a river’s channel is a meander,

created when a river erodes the outer bank
and deposits sediment on the inner bank,

a natural building up and breaking down,
defining the edges of ricefieldswheatfields

tomatofieldsalfalfafieldsalmondorchards
walnutorchardspearorchardspeachorchards,

grateful recipients of the bounty of the great
Sacramento River and its tributaries

winding around and cutting through some
two million acres of farmland, not to mention

serving as homewaters for hundreds of species
of fish, which do a fair meander themselves,

Chinooksalmonrainbowtroutstripedbass
whitesturgeonAmericanshadsteelheadtrout.

The word itself comes from the Maiandros,
a river in Turkey that winds and wanders,

as rivers do, going about from place to place
without plan or purpose. Like this poem

meandering, as, in deep midwinter, I propel
myself back into summer, my feet rambling

a riverside path, eyes skyward, imagining what
the snaking waterway rimmed with trees

must look like to the hawk circling the blue,
taking in the meager humans so far below—

wingless, grounded, flightless.