Brooding River Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

This winter saw a lot of rain the river
near the houses Is still running clear and lucid
giving its soul to the ocean
On the old Roman Bridge I asked the river to stop wasting
its precious sweet water to the salty sea,
one cannot let thirsty horses drink brackish liquid
after having hauled a cart full of dead sheep
up to a mountain top,
offerings to a god that only exist in the mind of an
idiot savant.
The river hears me not its job is to run dry during
the summer and when fall arrives be reborn.
But beware of a river that has no fish
those who haughtily laugh will be turned into frogs,
the banks are full of them.
Only a princess can make them into human again.
But they will still have frog souls.
Alas due to hard time the princess is a dancer in
a Spanish nightclub knows nothing about emails
and she is not on facebook.