River and Waterwheel

On summer solstice day whilst journeying
Like Dante, I came upon a river
Glossily flowing by,
Stippled by sky;
At weirs it hissed and tumbled trembling,
Falling like napped flints, glinting hither-thither.

In its fast-flowing but shallow reaches

Its stony sun-striated bed
Was clear through brown water;
An eel-grass halter
Dully waved at the bankside vetches
As sailing clumps of vegetation sped.

The heat was up and the mid-morning sky

Like Wedgwood-ware was blue and white,
Pouring down light; the swifts
With dips and lifts
Screamed above collared doves, wary
And chestnut in an alder’s thick-leaved bight.

Outleaning with its grey and ragged bole

Crack willow fingered at the stream;
Moorhen with scarlet bills
Stalked the banks’ sills;
The willow’s shock-haired seeds like spoil
Voyaged in the breeze and the sun’s gleam.

And so the waterwheel: in water’s roar

It split the polished serpentine
To acrobatic frothing,
Coiling, bucking,
Absorbing power to drive its gear
And through a flywheel, a production line.

Its battered paddles, wetly mossed with age,

Heavily trundled, flinging spray  
Which flashed like metals turning
Or sulphur burning;
Downstream, the water’s shattered suffrage
Settled, and foam and mote-specked swept away.

Here and far the wheel’s rattle caught the ears  

Like a shout in the dark forest
Of waters; there’s no showing
What brute knowing
It’s symbol for – the bitter tears
Of one who’s on a treadmill or a quest.

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© July 2013