© 1993, Hummingbird Press

River was written about events of August 1992 when the Pine River, which had been drained down to build a dike (then incomplete), had one of its worst floods in 80 years. The Pine River drains the watershed of the Ocooch Mountains in southwestern Wisconsin.

During that month my husband suffered the second blood clot in his leg, & our first grandchild was born. These events seemed to flow together as the river becaçme the metaphor of our lives.

—Phyllis Walsh, 1993