A Fantasy of Canoeing down the Susquehanna River in 2022

The new year is a canoe embarking, say, on the Susquehanna River
early in the new year.
    (The Susquehanna because I like its sound

    and because its newness-to-me matches a new-to-me year.)

I paddle eagerly.

When I pass the Halls of Congress (which are not on the Susquehanna, but never mind),

I hear harmonious strains of murmuring voices working towards a common goal of public good.

In the cities I see hospitals with enough beds to care for the ill—

    no COVID cases, no sufferers of mass shootings.

I pass people of all tones of the human-skin rainbow picnicking at riverside parks.

I hear in the cafes such a chatter of multiple languages it rumbles like the river.

Around one bend I glimpse a pack of wolves,

    around another a cougar, then a herd of elk

    passing through wildlife corridors on their expanded ranges.

When the Susquehanna winds through forests, I am welcomed by birdsong, not chased away by

    chainsaws' roar.

When it passes through meadows, where dragonflies flitter across the bow,

    I witness a mass migration of monarchs, headed for Mexico.

The sky is so clear I can see, when I look behind me, condors in California skies.

When I turn my binoculars towards Asia, I see herds of elephants, prowling tigers, and unicorned

    rhinoceroses in flourishing populations.

I navigate with skill the rough-and-tumble rapids the canoe takes me through.

When the river runs calm, I slip into its silky clean water and swim.

Inevitably, I pass through hurricanes, fires, and snowstorms, patterns of nature brought back to scale by

     common-sense responses to climate change.

Rain falls on the canoe in the Susquehanna year, but the river doesn't flood.

When the sun shines, it is not a ferocious, moisture-sucking fiend but a gentle embrace.

When I come to a mountain near year's end, I stop to ski on an abundance of perfect snow.

One more bend in the river, and the canoe noses onto shore.

I disembark, thinking not how much I liked the new year

but how much like years ago

I'd like the new year to be.