Lost to a River Swollen

Betsy Joseph

October 5, 2025

Rivers can connect us,

yet when a river becomes engorged,

enraged and can carry and hold no more,

it spews its excess wherever it can:

on land and trees, on campgrounds and roads,

enfolding all in its path, ferrying 

its cargo and deadly debris

to places where they do not belong

and—in the process—uprooting lives.

As the strong current rolls on,

the news stories roll out

of bodies found and still others lost

to a river still swollen and caught by surprise.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems that have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron. In addition, she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, have produced two books, Benches and Lighthouses, which pair her haiku with his black and white photography.