found in the river


you would never know by walking by the storefront
but in the day
way back when,
hidden in the walls
behind the lathe and plaster
dusty string tied beauty bent
when they redid the building
old bottles were found
stuck in a big crevice
with messages and old newspapers

once a gal drank the night away
with one of those bottles
read the stories she wrote in the woods
to anyone that would listen,
while looking for John Muir
she found him high atop old Mount Whitney
drinking a beer, smoking a pipe
and jotting down notes about circumferences
and tree-lines and river-bottoms
and especially all the bottles he found in the river