Passing Over The Root River During Passover
by Robert M. Katzman © April 2, 2023
Long time ago
Passing over the Root River
During Passover
The muddy chocolate flowing
A fast-moving body of water
Morphing into a
Malted Milk Waterfall
Where the Old Mill used to be
*
I kept crossing
The persistent
Jell-like River as
I attempted to traverse
Small Town Racine
A Serpentine-shaped
Creature of Nature
Preventing the smooth flow
Of people and cars
Trucks and buses
We were subjects of
The River
*
Our apprehensively choosing
To move up here
Moving from bright lights
Chi-town
A City with a Grid
Where uncountable cars
Shot
North, South, East and West
Like Rockets on Wheels
At least, until the Cops
Cooled their jets
*
Racine sternly
Tames the newcomer
“Adjust to Me
You flat-land City Slicker!”
Between circuitous streets
And ubiquitous stop signs
Thirty miles an hour
Is racing here
*
Racine has bluffs and ravines
A ravenous Lake Michigan
Voraciously chewing
Through its largest beach
Black skies which show us
The Star-studded Galaxy
Virtually no traffic at all
But so strangely to an
Untutored Newcomer
Stern-faced Cops
Armed for war
*
So much black body armor
To me they resembled
Ridged-Backed Snapping Turtles
As serious as
A city under siege
Guns and Tasers and Radios
First time I was stopped
Carnival-like
Red & White & Blue
Lights blazing
Cop sternly told me
I was driving
Waaaaaaaay
Too slow
*
Confused and concerned
I told him my wife and I
Were desperately searching
for
Racine’s Last Synagogue
And the
Words on the street signs
Were much too small
For a couple of old people
To read in the blackness
Racine at night
Very much the
Dark-Side of the Moon
*
This complicated confession
To a stern member of
Racine’s Finest
Preceded by the
Fancy alien word:
Synagogue
In a town of 77,000 Christians
With maybe a dozen Jews
Stopped him cold
*
So, we were driving at a crawl
To a place he didn’t know
Two obviously disoriented
and
Squinting Senior Citizens
Unfortunately
Stuck after dark
in
Mysterious Racine
*
Where adorably petite
Small-Town
Street Signs
are
Un-illuminated after Sundown
The Cop was speechless
Flummoxed & Uncertain
What law we were breaking
We waited
He contemplated
Conjecturing
*
At last deciding
We were too pathetic
To detain for anything
Our first-time Racine Cop
Put away his ticket book
Said: “Ok, you can go now
But try to drive a little faster
Next time you visit here”
And at last he smiled
Imperceptibly
*
My wrinkly Bride and I
Together
Way more than
A century old
Simultaneously mused
That No Cop
No Where, at No Time
Had ever warned
Either of us
To be careful and to drive faster
On the slender town streets
Our maiden voyage
Into lovely
Racine, Wisconsin
***
(The above story, from 2015, is true)