Like Ghosts of Eagles
The Indians have mostly gone
but not before they named the rivers
the rivers flow on
and the names of the rivers flow with them
Susquehanna Shenandoah
The rivers are now polluted plundered
but not the names of the rivers
cool and inviolate as ever
pure as on the morning of creation
Tennessee Tombigbee
If the rivers themselves should ever perish
I think the names will somehow somewhere hover
like ghosts of eagles
those mighty whisperers
Missouri Mississippi
—Robert Francis (1901-1987) in Like Ghosts of Eagles (pub. 1974). Rivers often have the oldest surviving names in a landscape.