You can't hear the Missouri's true tune

this far south. You have to travel

north, above Gavin's Point Dam,

my brother says, to catch the ox-bow melody

of trickled notes, of clear water trebling

the banks. Here, in Indian Cave State

Park, it’s the slush and hum of The Big Ditch,

eight hundred miles—scales of trench repeated,

in time to no particular season. Winter

ice crackles and breaks the beat

in a high yet minor key; A maybe, or B.

Today, near the end of September, middle C

eases over cottonwood snags—one-noted trough

refrain, keyed to the chord

of a clawed-out channel. Though listen…

the lisp and gulp of eddies play themselves

out around sandbars; double beat

of waves against the bank

searching for ancient notes of bend and curve.