rivers T-Shirt

still waters run deep I can be quite reserved with people I don't know very well My mother met Langston Hughes when she was in college. It boggles my mind now to think of it. He was truly a great poet. My mother also had a real fascination for rivers. (She hated roses(!), but that's another story). She was raised in St. Louis on the Mississippi River. Her favorite piece of music was Paul Robeson singing Ol' Man River. She asked us to play it at her memorial, and we did. I bought the CD myself here in Durham at Offbeat Music, and I still have it. She asked us to spread her ashes along a river in the Ozarks where she'd spent childhood summers, and we did. This is all almost straight out of Faulkner, but that was my mother. For these reasons, and in spite of some of them, I think this is a beautiful poem.