River you flow on
Endless and strong.
River with your crown of reeds
Tough and tender in the wind
Slanting like the arrows of a hunter
Bent towards where the open mouth
Swallows the sea.
As night’s darkness falls back
Like a wave returning to the sea
The daylight begins to grow,
Slowly creeping over the world.
This morning I pulled a porpoise from the sea:
Without thinking I reached in,
plucked it out
With my small hands
And laid it on the pier.
Pick up the cello,
Place your bow on its strings
And feel as it sings
A sound so full, that’s come
As simply as placing
Finger against thumb.
He had been rowing for as long as he could remember.
The river flowed with him,
Steady to his left, steady to his right.
The banks remained
Just out of reach; he never
Strayed from the mid of the stream.
Words of prey hunt
smaller words
and simple marks
like full stops, commas
and even the occasional
hyphen, if they happen
to catch one making a dash
for cover.
The whipping wind lashed the water
Shredding the shiny surface of the lake;
Rivers of rain ran down the windows
Of the weather battered house
And the linked trees lining the hilltop
Leant like old men into the face of the storm.
Eyes of coral blossom
as grey as the silent moon,
dotted with tendrilled ether
that streaks his vision apart.
Only you would take my head
in the basket of your arms
and hold it against your heart
despite all the misgivings and misunderstandings;
I dream of having an old red bicycle
with rusted wheels
and tired out brakes
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