Riverbank Song

Skipping rocks on the Ohio
Thinking of lots of things
Like the river
Bigger than me

I was eleven
With three friends
I like to call my brothers and sister
Watching the glittering up and down
And two friends
I like to call my parents
Reading from a history brochure

Standing on the very same bank
Where a young entrepreneur named Abe
(At the age I am now, not then)
Began a ferry business
I remember his boat passing by in the setting sun
And there was his silhouette
And there were his wobbly legs
And there I was his friend
With tangly hair in the almost-Midwestern wind
And a smooth rock in one hand

And at the age he was then and I am now
I stood in the morning mist with those same friends
And watched Eliza and her baby emerge from the thick river fog
Barefoot on blocks of ice
To freedom on the other side
Which was where I was sitting
One hundred and fifty years later
Breathing breath hot and wet against my scarf

---

Elizabeth Westby, Age 18
Chamblee High School
Chamblee, Georgia
Teacher: Lynn Farmer